Proud to Be an American

Okay, I don’t care what any of the politicians or their spouses have to say. Nor dishonest singers who fail to keep their agreements. Nor flag-burners and anthem–desecrators — they get no say with me, either.  I live in a Great Country. And as Ken Hamblin (the Black Avenger) used to say, “If you don’t like it, pick a better country.”

Not that I have anything against other nations or their people. I just love my country. Even if it is, sometimes, insane. Or wrong. Or run by people who confuse sentimentality with good works.

So on Independence Day, I want to call attention to an often-forgotten symbol of this great nation: The American National Anthem — The Star Spangled Banner. I say “often-forgotten” because, in the last four years, only one Independence Day fireworks show that I attended actually played the anthem. I like Lee Greenwood and the others who wrote patriotic songs, and I love to hear Kate Smith sing God Bless America, but at the country’s birthday party, we ought to sing the country’s song. And it ought to be sung by someone who can show proper respect for it.

A little history. Francis Scott Key wrote this poem during the War of 1812, when, as a  captive on a British ship, he witnessed the British attack on Fort McHenry on 7 September 1814. The next morning, his relief at seeing Old Glory (which, at that time, had 15 stars and 15 stripes) flying over the fort inspired a four-stanza poem which he entitled “The Defence of Fort McHenry.” When he showed his poem to his brother-in-law, they discovered that the words fit a common tune — To Anacreon in Heaven — and the anthem was born.

The Star-Spangled Banner was made the national anthem in 1931, when Robert Ripley pointed out in one of his “Believe It or Not” cartoons that America had no national anthem.

While most people know some — or all — of the words to the first verse, many people do not realise that the song actually has four verses. Here, in honour of Independence Day, are all four stanzas of The Star Spangled Banner.

O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ 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 thro’ the mist 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 on the stream
’Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh, 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 washed out their foul footsteps’ 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.

Oh! thus be it ever, when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved 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.

God Bless America.

Tags: America, Education, Fourth of July, Independence Day, national anthem, Philosophy, Politics, respect, Star-Spangled Banner, United States