I am the United States. I was born on July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence..my birth certificate. The bloodlines of the world run in my veins, because I offer freedom to world's oppressed. I am the United States of America!!
I remember the Alamo, the Maine and Pearl Harbor. When freedome called, I answered and stayed until it was over..over there. I left my heroic dead on the bleak slopes of Korea and Vietnam, in Flanders field, the rock of Corregidor and the desert sands of Kuwait.
I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat fields of Kansas, the granite hills of Vermont, the coal fields of the Virginias and Pennsylvania, the fertile lands of the West, the Golden Gate and the Grand Canyon. I am Independence Hall, Lady Liberty, the Merrimac and the Challenger.
I am Cal Ripken, and the World Series. I am the Super Bowl. I am a ballot dropped in a box, the roar of a crowd in a stadium. I am the whisper of prayer in a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a Buddhist monastery. I am an editorial in a newspaper and a letter to Congress. I am John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Eli Whitney, and Stephen Foster.
Yes, I am the nation and these things I am and more. I was conceived in Freedom and, God willing, in freedom shall I 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 for all the world.
(author unknown) |
