Words take meanings. Songs take on lightning. Anthems speak for the dead. The Banner captures the flag at dawns light over Ft Mchenry. It captures the fog and the darkness and Francis Scott Key on the rolling battleship. It captures the existence of the land of the free and the home of the brave even after the shelling by the British. It captures the cold bloody footprints of Valley Forge and the crossing of the icy Potomac by Washington during the Revolution. Then it is the glare of the burning of Washington during the war of 1812 with the flag hidden and the government on the run.
It is the men who charged up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt and died before they took three steps. It is the men in the trenches of World War I rising up to fall inches from their trench and dying in a foreign land. It is the men who came home without legs and arms and the men who never came home in the Civil War. It is all the men and women black and white who died to abolish slavery.
And then it is the GI's hitting the beach at Normandy and dying in the surf. The men who had just come through a Great Depression and then died before they were twenty. It is the hundreds of thousands who perished in the morning light of D Day liberating Europe from the Nazis . It is the Vietnam vets who came back and kissed the tarmac after being prisoners of war for years. It is the graves at Arlington, the hollowed out eyes of Shiloh.
It is a willingness of the heart.
William Hazelgrove
Forging a President
It is the men who charged up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt and died before they took three steps. It is the men in the trenches of World War I rising up to fall inches from their trench and dying in a foreign land. It is the men who came home without legs and arms and the men who never came home in the Civil War. It is all the men and women black and white who died to abolish slavery.
And then it is the GI's hitting the beach at Normandy and dying in the surf. The men who had just come through a Great Depression and then died before they were twenty. It is the hundreds of thousands who perished in the morning light of D Day liberating Europe from the Nazis . It is the Vietnam vets who came back and kissed the tarmac after being prisoners of war for years. It is the graves at Arlington, the hollowed out eyes of Shiloh.
It is a willingness of the heart.
William Hazelgrove
Forging a President
