Thank Yu Nancy! This is one of the best! I will keep it and treasure it, so
again thank yu for sending this to the list.
Rhonda
I AM THE NATION
I was born July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence is my birth
certificate. The bloodliness of the world runs in my veins, because I
offered freedom to the oppressed. I am the nation!
I am 250 million living souls & the ghosts of millions more who have
lived, fought & died for me.
I am Nathan Hale & Paul Revere. I stood at Lexington & fired the shot
heard around the world. I am Washington, Jefferson & Patrick Henry. I
am John Paul Jones, the Green Mountain Boys & Davy Crockett. I am Lee,
Grant & Lincoln.
I remember the Alamo, the Maine, Pearl Harbor. When freedom called, I
answered & stayed until it was over, over there. I left my heroic dead in
Flanders Fields, the rock of Corregidor, on the bleak slopes of Korea, in
the steaming jungle of Vietnam & the desert sands of Kuwait.
I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat lands of Kansas, the granite hills
of
Vermont. I am the coal mines of the Virginias & Pennsylvania,
the fertile
lands of the West, the Golden Gate & Grand Canyon. I am Independence
Hall,
the Monitor, the Merrimack & the Challenger.
I am big. I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific... more than 3
million square miles of land throbbing with industry, more than 2
million
farms. I am forest, field, mountain & desert. I am quiet
villages;
cities that never sleep.
Look at me; see Ben Franklin walking down the streets of Philadelphia
with his bread loaf under his arm; see Betsy Ross with her needle; see the
lights of Christmas & hear the strains of "Auld Lang Syne" as the calendar
turns.
I am Babe Ruth & the World Series. I am 200,000 schools, colleges &
more
than 300,000 churches where my people worship God as they choose. I
am a
ballot dropped into a box, the roar of a crowd in a stadium, the voice of
a
choir in a cathedral. I am an editorial in a newspaper & a
letter to
Congress.
I am John Glenn, Neil Armstrong & their fellow astronauts who whirl
through space. I am Eli Whitney, Stephen Foster, Tom Edison, Albert
Einstein & Billy Graham.
I am Horace Greeley, Will Rodgers, the Wright brothers. I am George
Washington Carver, Jonas Salk & Martin Luther King, Jr. I am
Longfellow,
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman & Thomas Paine.
May I always possess the integrity, courage & strength to keep myself
unshackled; to remain a citadel of freedom & a beacon of hope to the
world.
Yes, I am the nation. These are the things that I am. I was conceived
in
freedom. And, God willing, in freedom I shall spend the rest of my
days..
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Have a safe and Happy 4th of July :-)
Nancy E Parr---Hostess