MY TRIBUTE TO AMERICA
This Flag...the symbol of the hopes of man.
This cloth of dreams for freedom, justice,
and opportunity. Its stars are like beacons
guiding us through the shoals of adversity.
Its red stripes like wounds of struggle. The
good in it cannot be had for nothing...like any
garden, it must be tended...like any loved one,
it must be held. Hold this flag high and keep its
promise bright, for in it lies the best hope for all
of us. Mort Walker June 14, 1990
I AM THE NATION
I was born on July 4, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence
is my birth
certificate. The bloodlines of the world run in my
veins, because I
offered freedom to the oppressed. I am the
nation!
I am 281 million living souls and the ghosts of those who have
lived and fought
and died for me.
I am Nathan Hale and Paul Revere. I stood at Lexington and
fired the
shot heard around the world. I am Washington,
Jefferson, and Patrick
Henry. I am John Paul Jones, the Green
Mountain Boys and Davy
Crockett. I am Lee, Grant, Abe
Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Pershing,
Eisenhower, MacArthur,
Patton, and Colin Powell.
I remember the Alamo, the Maine, Pearl Harbor and September
11, 2001. When
freedom called, I answered and stayed until it
was over, over there. I
left my heroic dead in Flanders Fields, the
rock of Corregidor, on the bleak
slopes of Korea, in the steaming
jungle of Vietnam and the desert sands of
Kuwait.
I am the Statute of Liberty, the wheat fields of Kansas, the
granite hills of
Vermont, and Tennessee the Volunteer State. I
am the coalfields of the
Virginias and Pennsylvania, the fertile
lands of the west, the Golden Gate,
Brooklyn Bridge and the
Grand Canyon. I am Independence Hall, the Monitor,
the
Merrimac and the Challenger. I am the Liberty Bell that first
rang for
freedom.
I am big. I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific - three million
square miles of land throbbing with industry. I am two million
farms. I am forest, field, mountain and desert. I am quiet
villages
and cities that never sleep. You can look at me and see
Ben Franklin
walking down the streets of Philadelphia with his
breadloaf under his
arm. You can see the lights of Christmas and
hear the strains of
"Auld Land Syne" as the calendar turns.
I am Babe Ruth and the World Series. I am more than 170,000
schools and
colleges and more than 300,000 churches where my
people worship God as they
choose. I am a ballot dropped into a
box, the roar of a crowd in a
stadium, the voice of a choir in a
cathedral. I am an editorial in a
newspaper and a letter to
Congress. I am John Glenn and Neil Armstrong and
their fellow
astronauts who whirl above my head. I am Eli Whitney and
Stephen Foster, Tom Edison, Albert Einstein and Billy Graham. I
am Horace
Greeley, Will Rogers and the Wright brothers. I am
George Washington
Carver, Jonas Salk and Martin Luther King
Jr. I am Longfellow, Harriet
Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman and
Thomas Paine.
Yes, I am the nation and these are the things I am. I was
conceived in
freedom and God willing, in freedom I shall spend
the rest of my
days.
May I always possess the integrity, the courage and the strength
to keep myself
unshackled, to remain a citadel of freedom and a
beacon of hope to the world.
ByOtto Whitaker, Jr. Revised by M.T.
Foresthill and D. Mitchell Jones
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http://www.awardsites.com/patriotism/index.html
GOD
BLESS AMERICA IMAGINES
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