[nathanbedford]

Every year my wife asks, "are you going to post your vanity about the Declaration of Independence again this year?" Her question is really rhetorical, she knows I intend to post it because it has become a tradition in the family much like whether your family opens your Christmas presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. A family tradition for us as familiar ashim Thanksgiving turkey. Do you display the flag on Memorial Day?

For us, living as we do here in Germany, it is our way of holding fast to our America. Every year we keep the tradition and then await the reactions of FReepers which have been consistently gratifying and even heartwarming.

So the tradition goes on into its seventh year even as the imperative to return to and cling to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution becomes more urgent as our country founders in the midst of a terrible "fundamental transformation" imposed upon us, partly by stealth, by a marxist President who despises the nation created by the very Declaration of Independence we revere today.

"Transformed" by domestic forces within, we are buffeted by a multigenerational jihad against the principles which founded America. Our representative democracy is made more vulnerable, as any government of the people would be, by a financial crisis itself made worse, perhaps deliberately, by our own leaders bent on transforming America away from the only values which can save her. Even our judiciary rather than acting as the Protector of the Constitution seems to have turned its face from us.

The 10 year old boy in the anecdote exchanged his Tee shirt for a tie and a real suit four years ago and we all went proudly off to his high school graduation, his Abschluss from Gymnasium. Our parental expectations had been, to paraphrase John Kennedy, to send him into the world and onto college equipped with the best of both worlds, a German education and an American birthright, bequeathed to him by the founders in the Declaration of Independence.

He has a piece of paper, written out in German, certifying his accomplishment of the course of study laid out in an elite German high school. There is a piece of parchment reposing in the Library of Congress drafted by Thomas Jefferson but written in blood at Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Chosen Reservoir, Tet, the Persian Gulf, and Afghanistan.

Both belong to him.... If he can keep them.

Happy Independence Day to all from all of us in Germany!

[patriotsoul]

Special read this morning. Thanks!

[Uncle Sam 911]

I lived in Germany for 6 years, two tours of duty. It was wonderful when Germany was Germany, especially when the wall came down that heroic night. We were there for that and will never forget it. Just don’t let your son lose his Americanism.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Excellent -— your “tradition” enriches us all!

[Zuse]

Some believe that government comes from allah through moehammed, and that sharia should be the whole of the law.

They should be identified and excluded from our society.

[MUDDOG]

The Hessians found out.

[null and void]

Thanks!

[BloodScarletMinnesota]

That’s a good read, thanks for posting it NBF.

[Fiji Hill]

On July 4, 1968, I was staying with a family in Kindenheim, a village in Germany's Rheinpfalz. When I joined them for breakfast, I announced, heute ist Unabhängigkeitstag (today is Independence Day) and explained to them what it was all about.

[alexander_busek]

Your posting almost brought a tear to me eye.

Alles Gute zum Unabhängigkeitstag, auch von Euren Landsleuten im benachbarten Schwabenland! Wir werden ein paar Feuerwerkskörper anzünden, sobald es dunkel wird.

[Billthedrill]

And the very best Independence Day to you as well! When I think of the German connection to the War of Independence I tip a cold one to General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who taught the Americans that their bayonets were for something more than cooking chickens. We owe that guy a lot.

[Sdrawkcab]

Your July 4th posts enrich the celebration for me. Happy Independence Day.

[free-in-nyc]

Great post and thanks for sharing your story. Happy Independence Day!

[grey_whiskers]

Dude, well done.

Happy 4th, btw.