This college in Indiana is not the first school or organization to refuse playing the American National Anthem. We hear all the time about communities that refuse to fly the American flag, replacing it with some other country or organizational type of flag. The Pledge of Allegiance is no longer required to be said in school (and when I was in school I said it EVERY DAY in multiple classes to include Spanish class). God has become a symbol of religious oppression. Speech against America is the only kind of limit-pushing free speech allowed these days. Heaven forbid you speak out against another country!!
C'mon on people. What is going on? I need someone to fill in this void in my brain which is the question "Why is it now "cool" to be as UN-American as possible while living in America? Back to my example, the school in Indiana... Who gave them the right to decide what the National Anthem is going to be? I've never been given, nor do I want, a choice of Anthems to represent my country. It is the Star-Spangled Banner. That's it and that's all. It is a representation of the country and the struggles it went through to become what it is. No where does it say kill people or cause mayhem. It doesn't say to assault your neighbor or lie, cheat or steal. The bombs bursting in air is not the same as bombs bursting in a village and killing or mutilating the inhabitants of that village.
Why dopeople take everything so literally and, beyond that, act so hyper-sensitive today? I just don't understand it. If you really have such a problem with this country, leave. Find something better somewhere else. Let me be frank about this. The national anthem means more to me than I can really express. When I hear it no matter who is singing or what instruments may be playing, I not only get chills running down my spine, but I get tears in my eyes. It is that important to me. It is one of those very small, but very impacting reminders that I am doing what I do for the country I love. God help the person who is bold enough to burn or vandalize an American flag in front of me. I take the same approach to service members who run away when colors is about to play. More often than not it is junior service members who haven't yet grasped why we have the tradition of raising and lowering the flag. But I promise you and them, once they deploy to a country, to a base where you can no longer fly the flag, a deeper love and appreciation will develop for it. It is 15 seconds out of their lives to pay respect.
Respect is really what it all boils down to. I feel personally insulted when foreign people take actions against this country, but 1000 times more when it is an American citizen doing those same actions. I will never be able to accept or fully understand the "it's only a flag/song/symbol" mentality. Those symbols, or more accurately, what they represent is a part of me and every service member who has ever set foot overseas. Those "small" things are what give us the motivation to drive on and get the job done. It isn't the retirement or the medical or the GI Bill or the paycheck although those are all great things that we enjoy. No, it is the love of our country that makes us do what we do as members of the military. Granted, there are a few exceptions, but those exceptions don't tend to stick around long anyway.
I am a Patriot, I fight for free speech, and I respect the rights of every individual or any organization to no play the national anthem. I don't agree with it, but they have that option. But I will use my free speech to tell them how completely ludicrous and insane it is to think that you can replace the National Anthem with some other song of your choice. It just doesn't work that way. If you think the message of the country that you live in is too harsh don't play anything. There is no need to disrespect the country, and anyone military or civilian that has given their life, in that way. If you have never heard the complete Star-Spangled Banner I provided the verses below... ENJOY!!!
http://youtu.be/Kuv1Mt6kMOU
Oh, 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 thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched 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.
Oh, 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! 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 freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power 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!
By Francis Scott Key
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched 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.
Oh, 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! 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 freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power 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!
1 comment:
Great one Val!
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