Lee Greenwood wrote those words in a song in 1983 to bring people together. In the introduction of his booklet entitled "God Bless the USA", which includes a CD of that song, he also wrote:
"I'm sometimes overwhelmed by this vast nation and wish I could see how America will change in the next one hundred years. As long as we continue to dream, create inventions, and solve the challenges of an ever-expanding population, we will have the power to create a better society. But it is inevitable that the freedom, liberty, and can-do attitude that characterize us will be challenged, sometimes in ways that leave us no choice but to defend ourselves and the land we love. It happened in 1941 at Pearl Harbor and again in 2001 at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."
Through the years countless songs have been written and words spoken that celebrate the breadth of the American experience. Recalling a few, who can dispute the simplicity and beauty of such words as these:
~ from "America", by Samuel Francis Smith ~
"My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing:
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring."
~ from "America the Beautiful"
words by Katherine Lee Bates Martin
music by Samuel Ward ~
America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control
Thy liberty in law."
~ Martin Luther King's American Dream ~
"I have a dream that one day...the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slave
owners will be able to sit down together
at the table of brotherhood...I have a dream
that my four little children will one day
live in a nation where they will not be
judged by the color of their skin but by
the content of their character."
~ from Alistair Cooke ~
"It has always been cited as an irrepressible
symptom of America's vitality that her people,
in fair times and foul, believe in themselves
and their institutions."
~ from "The People, Yes", by Carl Sandburg ~
"The free man is willing to pay and struggle and die
for the freedom for himself and others
Knowing how far to subject himself to discipline
and obedience for the sake of an ordered society....
This free man is a rare bird and when you meet
him take a good look at him and try to figure him
out because some day when the United States of
this earth gets going and runs smooth and pretty
there will be more of him than we have now."
|
|
|
|
|
|
