A few words of thought from me.
I get the feeling that being patriotic these days, is something for us "older farts". Or only for the few months following a tragedy, like the sad day of 9-11.
It seems in the modern mass media/population of America today.
The cool thing, is to besmirch her, tear her down, and point only at the dark days of our short history. These days many just want a day off of work, a BBQ and a few beers, and fireworks for the 4th of July.
They don't want/care to know the history, of this great country's founding's.
But, this grand country was founded by a few God fearing men and women. Who gave their all, spirit, blood, sweat, tears and lives.
To give us a piece of paper called, The Constitution of the United States of America. Who wanted nothing more, than basic FREEDOMS.
That they did/could NOT, have in their home countries.
Related to family values, freedom OF Religion, freedom of speech/travel, keeping what you rightly labored for. And formed a government, that was not controlled by a king. But by officials who are elected, by the people
for the people.
They did this with, what us country folks call: God, guns and guts!
This country in the past, has been called a big melting pot.
Due to good folks immigrating from all over the world, and
becoming Americans.
They bettered themselves, their families and communities.
They LEARNED to speak English, as a national language.
They worked for what they had. (no free lunch)
They had many hardships of disease, dying of famine, thirst, starvation.
They banded together, and explored this vast land, from sea to shinning sea.
And built churches, communities, city's, farms, ranches, towns, roads, rail roads, and canals along the way.
Thus, connecting all these together.
And making one country, that we proudly call AMERICA!
Remember this: You do NOT see a mass exodus, of folks running AWAY from this great country, but flocking TO it.
Why is that?
Why does EVERY new country that starts up.
Place their FAITH, in OUR type of Constitutional government?
Because it works!
I will get off my high horse, before I really get into some deep doo doo!
But I guarantee you this.
I will always defend, stand tall, & proud, because I am an American!
For with the grace & providence of God.
Our forefathers had the strength and courage, to give us the freedoms we all have today. I will continue to fight for our God given rights, flag and country. As I still think she is worth dying for, until my last breath.
Take care, be safe.
GOD BLESS AMERICA
God Bless our uniformed Soldiers, and our Citizen Soldiers.
Chris - Alaska
*Note - I reused mpst of my post from last year.
As my life is too hectic right now, to write a new one.
"July 4th"
This is a day when we know we are free
We can live as we want, yes you and me.
But let us remember, that a price had been paid
Many who fought for us lay in an unknown grave...
So let's stay safe and enjoy this day with friends,
Knowing that freedom, for us, has no ends.
Smile at that flag as it hangs there with pride
We, who are free, never having to hide.
Bring it in with a bang and yell and a shout
But remember to put all those camp fires out.
Happy Birthday, America!
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the
people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.
Psalm 33:12
July 4th day History
At the time of the signing the US consisted of 13
colonies under the rule of England's King George III.
Leading up to the signing, there had been growing
unrest in the colonies surrounding the taxes that
colonists were required to pay to England. The major
objection was "Taxation without Representation" -- the
colonists had no say in the decisions of English
Parliament.
Rather than negotiating, King George sent extra troops
to the colonies to help control any rebellion that
might be arising. The following timeline will give you
a crash course in the history that lead to the signing
of the Declaration of Independence and America's break
from British rule.
1774 - The 13 colonies send delegates to Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania to form the First Continental Congress.
While unrest was brewing, the colonies were far from
ready to declare war.
April 1775 - King George's troops advance on Concord,
Massachusetts, prompting Paul Revere's midnight ride
that sounded the alarm "The British are coming, the
British are coming."
The subsequent battle of Concord, famous for being the
"shot heard round the world," would mark the
unofficial beginning of the American Revolution.
May 1776 - After nearly a year of trying to work our
their differences with England, the colonies again
send delegates to the Second Continental Congress.
June 1776 - Admitting that their efforts were
hopeless, a committee was formed to compose the formal
Declaration of Independence. Headed by Thomas
Jefferson, the committee also included John Adams,
Benjamin Franklin, Philip Livingston and Roger
Sherman.
June 28, 1776 - Jefferson presents the first draft of
the declaration to congress.
July 4, 1776 - After various changes to Jefferson's
original draft, a vote was taken late in the afternoon
of July 4th. Of the 13 colonies, 9 voted in favor of
the Declaration; 2, Pennsylvania and South Carolina
voted No; Delaware was undecided and New York
abstained.
John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress,
was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence.
It is said that he signed his name "with a great
flourish" so "King George can read that without
spectacles!"
July 6, 1776 - The Pennsylvania Evening Post is the
first newspaper to print the Declaration of
Independence.
July 8, 1776 - The first public reading of the
declaration takes place in Philadelphia's Independence
Square. The bell in Independence Hall, then known as
the "Province Bell" would later be renamed the
"Liberty Bell" after its inscription - "Proclaim
Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the
Inhabitants Thereof."
August 1776 - The task begun on July 4, the signing of
the Declaration of Independence, was not actually
completed until August. Nonetheless, the 4th of July
has been accepted as the official anniversary of
United States independence from Britain.
July 4, 1777 - The first Independence Day celebration
takes place. It's interesting to speculate what those
first 4th festivities were like. By the early 1800s
the traditions of parades, picnics, and fireworks were
firmly established as part of American Independence
Day culture.
The Price They Paid
(Author Unknown)
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men
who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors
and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost
their sons in the Revolutionary Army, another had two
sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from
wounds or the hardships of the Revolutionary War. They
signed and pledged their lives, their fortunes, and
their sacred honor.
What kind of men where they? Twenty-four were lawyers
and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers
and large plantation owners, men of means, well
educated.
But they signed the Declaration of Independence
knowing full well that the penalty would be death if
they were captured. Carter Braxton of Virginia, a
wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from
the seas by the British navy. He sold his home and his
properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he
was forced to move his family almost constantly. He
served in Congress without pay, and his family was
kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him
and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers, or both, looted the properties of
Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward,
Ruttledge, and Middleton. At the battle of Yorktown,
Thomas Nelson, Jr. noted that the British General
Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his
headquarters. The owner quietly urged General George
Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and
Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed.
The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few
months. John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside
as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their
lives. His fields and his grist mill were laid to
waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and
caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his
children vanished. A few weeks later he died from
exhaustion and a broken heart.
Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates. Such are
the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution.
These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians.
They were soft spoken men of means and education. They
had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing
tall, Straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the
support of this declaration, with the firm reliance on
the protection of the Divine Providence, we mutually
pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our
sacred honor."
What July Fourth Means to Me
Ronald Reagan
Editor's note: When he was president, Ronald Reagan
wrote the following piece for Independence Day in
1981. Aide Michael Deaver later wrote: "This 4th of
July message is the President's own words and written
initially in his own hand."
For one who was born and grew up in the small towns of
the Midwest, there is a special kind of nostalgia
about the Fourth of July.
I remember it as a day almost as long-anticipated as
Christmas. This was helped along by the appearance in
store windows of all kinds of fireworks and colorful
posters advertising them with vivid pictures.
No later than the third of July sometimes
earlier Dad would bring home what he felt he
could afford to see go up in smoke and flame. We'd
count and recount the number of firecrackers, display
pieces and other things and go to bed determined to be
up with the sun so as to offer the first, thunderous
notice of the Fourth of July.
I'm afraid we didn't give too much thought to the
meaning of the day. And, yes, there were tragic
accidents to mar it, resulting from careless handling
of the fireworks. I'm sure we're better off today with
fireworks largely handled by professionals. Yet there
was a thrill never to be forgotten in seeing a tin can
blown 30 feet in the air by a giant "cracker"
giant meaning it was about 4 inches long.
But enough of nostalgia.
Somewhere in our growing up we began to be aware of
the meaning of days and with that awareness came the
birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of
our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more
today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation
on earth.
There is a legend about the day of our nation's birth
in the little hall in Philadelphia, a day on which
debate had raged for hours. The men gathered there
were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had
flouted the very laws they were willing to obey. Even
so, to sign the Declaration of Independence was such
an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with the
words "treason, the gallows, the headsman's axe," and
the issue remained in doubt.
The legend says that at that point a man rose and
spoke. He is described as not a young man, but one who
had to summon all his energy for an impassioned plea.
He cited the grievances that had brought them to this
moment and finally, his voice falling, he said, "They
may turn every tree into a gallows, every hole into a
grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never
die. To the mechanic in the workshop, they will speak
hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom. Sign that
parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around
your neck, for that parchment will be the textbook of
freedom, the Bible of the rights of man forever."
He fell back exhausted. The 56 delegates, swept up by
his eloquence, rushed forward and signed that document
destined to be as immortal as a work of man can be.
When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory,
he was not to be found, nor could any be found who
knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out
through the locked and guarded doors.
Well, that is the legend. But we do know for certain
that 56 men, a little band so unique we have never
seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their
fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives
in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes,
and all preserved their sacred honor.
What manner of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers
and jurists, 11 were merchants and tradesmen, and nine
were farmers. They were soft-spoken men of means and
education; they were not an unwashed rabble. They had
achieved security but valued freedom more. Their
stories have not been told nearly enough.
John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately
ill wife. For more than a year he lived in the forest
and in caves before he returned to find his wife dead,
his children vanished, his property destroyed. He died
of exhaustion and a broken heart.
Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships, sold
his home to pay his debts, and died in rags. And so it
was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett,
Rutledge, Morris, Livingston and Middleton. Nelson
personally urged Washington to fire on his home and
destroy it when it became the headquarters for General
Cornwallis. Nelson died bankrupt.
But they sired a nation that grew from sea to shining
sea. Five million farms, quiet villages, cities that
never sleep, 3 million square miles of forest, field,
mountain and desert, 227 million people with a
pedigree that includes the bloodlines of all the
world. In recent years, however, I've come to think of
that day as more than just the birthday of a nation.
It also commemorates the only true philosophical
revolution in all history.
Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours.
But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of
rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed
the very concept of government.
Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here
in this land, for the first time, it was decided that
man is born with certain God-given rights; that
government is only a convenience created and managed
by the people, with no powers of its own except those
voluntarily granted to it by the people.
We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never
should.
Happy Fourth of July.
Ronald Reagan President of the
United States
That Ragged Old Flag
I walked through a county courthouse square.
On a park bench, an old man was sittin there.
I said, "Your court house is kinda run down,
He said, "No, it will do for our little town".
I said "your old flag pole kinda leaned a little bit,
And that's a ragged old flag you got hanging on it".
He said "have a seat", so I sat down,
He said, "is this your first visit to our little town"
I said, "I think it is"
He said "I don't like to brag, but we're kinda proud of
"That Ragged Old Flag"
"You see, we got a little hole in that flag there,
When Washington took it across the Delaware.
It got powder burned the night
Francis Scott Key sat watching it, writing "Oh Say Can You See"
It got a rip in New Orleans,
with Packingham & Jackson tugging at its seams.
It almost fell at the Alamo beside the Texas flag,
But she waved on tho.
It got cut with a sword in Chancellorsville,
Got cut again at Shiloh Hill.
There was Robert E. Lee and Beauregard and Bragg,
And the south wind blew hard on
"That Ragged Old Flag"
On Flanders Field in World War I,
She took a bad hit from a Bertha Gun,
She turned blood red in World War II
She hung limp and low by the time that one was
through,
She was in Korea, Vietnam,
She went where she was sent by her Uncle Sam.
The Native Americans, The Black, Yellow and White
All shed red blood for the Stars and Stripes.
And here in her own good land,
She's been abused, burned, dishonored, denied and
refused,
And the very government for which she stands
Has been scandalized throughout the land.
And she's getting thread bare, and she's wearing kinda
thin,
But she's in pretty good shape, for the shape she's
in.
Cause she's been through the fire before
and she can take a whole lot more.
So we raise her up every morning
And we bring her down slow every night,
We don't let her touch the ground,
And we fold her up right.
On second thought, I do like to brag
Cause I'm mighty proud of
"That Ragged Old Flag"
Written by Johnny Cash
A Flag Worth Dying For..
You've probably seen the bumper sticker somewhere
along the road. It depicts an American Flag,
accompanied by the words "These colors don't run." I'm
always glad to see this, because it reminds me of an
incident from my confinement in North Vietnam at the
Hao Lo POW Camp, or the "Hanoi Hilton," as it became
known. Then a Major in the U.S. Air Force, I had been
captured and imprisoned from 1967-1973. Our treatment
had been frequently brutal. After three years,
however, the beatings and torture became less
frequent.
During the last year, we were allowed outside most
days for a couple of minutes to bathe. We showered by
drawing water from a concrete tank with a homemade
bucket. One day as we all stood by the tank, stripped
of our clothes, a young Naval pilot named Mike
Christian found the remnants of a handkerchief in a
gutter that ran under the prison wall. Mike managed to
sneak the grimy rag into our cell and began fashioning
it into a flag.
Over time we all loaned him a little soap, and he
spent days cleaning the material. We helped by
scrounging and stealing bits and pieces of anything he
could use. At night, under his mosquito net, Mike
worked on the flag. He made red and blue from
ground-up roof tiles and tiny amounts of ink and
painted the colors onto the cloth with watery rice
glue. Using thread from his own blanket and a homemade
bamboo needle, he sewed on stars.
Early in the morning a few days later, when the guards
were not alert, he whispered loudly from the back of
our cell, "Hey gang, look here." He proudly held up
this tattered piece of cloth, waving it as if in a
breeze. If you used your imagination, you could tell
it was supposed to be an American flag. When he raised
that smudgy fabric, we automatically stood straight
and saluted, our chests puffing out, and more than a
few eyes had tears.
About once a week the guards would strip us, run us
outside and go through our clothing. During one of
those shakedowns, they found Mike's flag. We all knew
what would happen. That night they came for him. The
night interrogations were always the worst. They
opened the cell door and pulled Mike out. We could
hear the beginning of the torture before they even had
him in the torture cell. They beat him most of the
night.
About daylight they pushed what was left of him back
through the cell door. He was badly broken; even his
voice was gone. Within two weeks, despite the danger,
Mike scrounged another piece of cloth and began
another flag. The Stars and Stripes, our national
symbol, was worth the sacrifice to him. Now whenever I
see the flag, I think of Mike and the morning he first
waved that tattered emblem of a nation. It was then,
thousands of miles from home in a lonely prison cell,
that he showed us what it is to be truly free.
Condensed from a speech by Leo K. Thorness, recipient
of The Congressional Medal of Honor.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
This is a old article but STILL 100 % CORRECT!
Happy Birthday to the United States!
By Bill Ellis
Special to ASSIST News Service
SCOTT DEPOT, WV (ANS) -- This year, July 4, 2006, the
United States of America will celebrate birthday
number 230. That is a long time for a nation to be in
the building process and it must always be building
and repairing or it will decay and implode.
We have been told repeatedly that “What is past is
prologue. History repeats itself as time marches on.”
Arnold Toynbee, the renowned British historian, once
wrote the following about Western Civilization. “Out
of 21 civilizations preceding this one, 19 of them
have been destroyed by a mixture of atheism,
materialism, socialism, and alcoholism.”
When asked years later if he had changed his mind he
replied: “Only this, that it looks now as if the
number one enemy of the American way of life is
drunkenness. If your people continue the present
increase of drunkenness, nothing can save you from
destruction. History is altogether against you.”
The United States declared itself to be an independent
and free nation of united states on July 4, 1776.
Argue and debate all you wish about the early founders
and in their intentions for this new nation, but one
thing remains, they were serious about their
intentions and were willing to pay whatever price was
necessary to be a free and independent people.
What has transpired since those early days is nothing
short of the miraculous. The foundation for this new
nation was the Word of God, the Holy Bible. It is
little wonder that John Adams, our second president,
stated on October 11, 1798, “Our Constitution was made
only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly
inadequate to the government of any other.” If we ever
cease to be a nation under God, we will become what
President Ronald Reagan called, “a nation gone under.”
Somebody, whose name I do not know, once wrote: “A
study of history shows that the great civilizations of
the world have averaged about 200 years. The people of
the world have followed this timetable.
“The People go:
* From slavery to spiritual faith
* From spiritual faith to courage
* From courage to liberty
* From liberty to abundance
* From abundance to selfishness
* From selfishness to apathy
* From apathy to dependence
* From dependence back to slavery.”
We must assess our present place on that scale. You
may want to exercise your personal mental, historical,
spiritual and moral judgement as to where our nation
presently stands. Whatever your conclusions, remember
this one historical truth if we are to survive:
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm
33:12). The Bible is our nation’s point of reference.
George Santayana, historical philosopher and
commentator on his times, wrote: “Those who refuse to
learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” The
Bible, the blueprint for our nation’s birth, offers
these warnings: “This know also, that in the last days
perilous times shall come” (2 Timothy 3:1). And to
that add this stern admonition: “The wicked shall be
turned into hell, And all the nations that forget God”
(Psalm 9:17 NKJ)
The United States has been chosen by God to be a
blessing to the world. If it ever forever gets that,
nothing can stop its decline and destruction.
On the positive side of the national ledger, God has
promised to bless those who bless him. The psalmist
was wise who taught us to sing, “Bless the Lord, O my
soul, and all that is within me, bless his Holy name”
(Psalm 103:1)
How many more happy anniversaries will this nation
enjoy? That all depends . . . on our relationship to
God and our obedience to His Word. Our future is as
bright as the promises of God.
Turn up your speakers.
From Sea to Shining Sea - animated Flash ecard by Jacquie Lawson 
8Likes
4th July '2' 
