A FEW THINGS I AM THANKFUL FOR TODAY
On November 10, I had the pleasure of honoring Veterans at the Gordon Central High School Veteran’s Day Program. I played Francis Scott Key and told the story of the Star-Spangled Banner. Amid all the controversy over the song, it truly made me think about America and being Thankful. As we approach our Thanksgiving Celebrations, I am sure I will see thanks to all the things people in this country are appreciative and thankful for. I would like to add a few more!
I am thankful for being an American. I don’t know when Patriotism became a bad word to many in this country, but to me it means simply appreciating all those that have come before you that have given you the chance to live your life the way you choose. Loving your country, to me, means loving your friends and family and neighbors, loving your opportunities, loving your freedoms, believing that when we make a mistake as a nation we will do all that we can to correct or make up for it, and it means believing that as a nation we are basically good despite doing some bad things! Everyone makes mistakes, but how many nations bother to try to make up for them? On this Thanksgiving Day, I will remember these things as I celebrate.
1. I am Thankful I live in a nation where I can worship God the way I choose and not the way someone else tells me. Image the 75 years of the Soviet Union where you could only worship in secret and that could often get you imprisoned or killed. At the very least, it could cost you any chance at a better life by rising in society or government.
2. I am Thankful that I live in a country where I have the right to own a gun to protect myself and my family. Yes, I know there is a high price to pay for that freedom, but if faced with someone threatening me or my family with an illegal gun, I am glad I can protect them with a legal gun! The first thing Hitler did when he rose to power was to confiscate all privately-owned guns. Our Founding Fathers always saw the possible need of protecting ourselves from enemies both foreign and domestic.
3. I am Thankful for all of those who serve voluntarily in our military to protect us all and to be away from those they love on days like Thanksgiving. I cannot imagine the sacrifice they and their families make for all of us, but I am so much in their debt. That to me is enough to be so proud to be an American. Yes, I know other countries have those that make that sacrifice, but in many nations, it is by force rather than choice. They pay the price so the rest of us can enjoy the freedoms!
4. I am Thankful to live in a Nation where I can Hate Donald Trump and work against him every day OR, Love Donald Trump and think he is the greatest President ever. For those who hate President Trump, imagine living in a nation where if you expressed that view you would be taken out and shot in the head. President Obama didn’t destroy the nation and neither will President Trump. That is the beauty of our system that our Founding Fathers gave us.
5. I am Thankful for all of our Myths and Legends, for all of our true heroes, for all of those who have strived to make this nation better every generation because we have a system that allows us to do that. Is it easy? Of course not! If it was, we would have destroyed ourselves generations ago. Almost every nation begun by revolution ends in more and more revolution. We created a system that allows political revolution without destroying our nation. Or, at least it has.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea and I realize that in the age of twitter, I have already lost many, but for those of you still reading, every time a thought about how much you dislike this country crosses your mind, imagine that same thought or expression in another nation. Would it be allowed? Would the government punish you for it? Would you be so scared you would never even have the thought?
For all of our faults and mistakes, I love this nation for all that it gives. The only reason many of you can express all the things you dislike is because of the exact thing you are disliking! As I have said many times, if you see a problem, use the system to solve it. We have done that over and over, but today we seem to only want to remember the bad and forget all the good. I am Thankful I have not become that jaded with life.
One final thing I will leave here is my speech from this year’s Veteran’s Day with the full Star-Spangled Banner. I am Thankful for the men who held Fort McHenry and for Francis Scott Key who was there to record it. Were any of them perfect? No! Did they help save a nation that could be a more perfect union? I believe so and I am THANKFUL FOR IT!
Veteran’s Day Program 2017
Good morning! My name is Francis Scott Key Esquire, Attorney at Law! I am also an unofficial representative of the Government of the United States. On a rainy day in 1814, my friend and I took a sloop up the Chesapeake Bay to negotiate with the British for the release of an American prisoner taken when Washington City was burned to the ground. This war with the British had been going on for almost 2 years and things were not going well! Our Capital had been burned, our government scattered through the country-side and the army was on the run before the onslaught of the British!
I boarded the British ship and successfully negotiated the prisoner release, but the British forced me to agree to stay on my ship and anchored nearby while they began the attack on the American fort at Baltimore. Fort McHenry is a star shaped fort protecting the city of Baltimore and manned by a garrison of American soldiers!
My friends and I stood on the sloop we had arrived on behind the line of British ships! The British began a 25-hour bombardment of the fort! As I watched the shells crash all over the fort, I could not imagine what the men inside were going through! On the ramparts of the fort, I could clearly see the American flag flying high and I was filled with pride knowing that I was an American just like those men in the fort!
hroughout the day and night, the shells fell and exploded all around the fort, but the flag did not fall and was not lowered in a sign of surrender! As darkness fell, I lost sight of the flag and all I could see were the flashes of the shells exploding! The world shook and the smoke filled the air, but the shelling never slowed for more than the time it took to reload the cannon! I could not believe anyone was left alive inside Fort McHenry, much less still able to fight and withstand the British Navy!
As the light from dawn began to brighten the sky, I looked at the fort’s ramparts! I strained my eyes to see if that flag was still there. At first, all I could make out was the silhouette of the fort through the smoke that covered everything! And then, there it was!!!! The FLAG was still there! Torn and tattered, wet from the rain, but still flying high above the fort! I was amazed and inspired by those that I knew had to be devastated inside the fort. The British allowed us to leave and then withdrew all of their ships as a result of their failure to take the fort! These men had saved the fort, but very well may have saved a nation, too! I was so overwhelmed by their example that on the way back down the bay, I wrote the following words to explain to the world what I had seen!
The Star-Spangled Banner
O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
’Tis the star-spangled banner – O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
It is to these men that we should forever be grateful! It is to all of those who have sacrificed and served this nation that we should give thanks to every day for all of the freedoms and liberties we enjoy! The United States of America exists because of their blood and their contributions to the rest of us! My God Bless all of those who serve the Nation above themselves!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!
