The daughter of a wounded warrior sings for her friends at preschool. This little patriot just turned 3 in December!
Not only can this little sweetie carry the tune, but she knows the words (most of them).
How often do we think about the words and meaning of the song written in the heat of battle? They still give me the goosebumps. How about yo?. Here is what Francis Scott Key saw that morning so long ago:
…let’s go back to the summer of 1813…At…Fort MHenry, the commander, Maj. George Armistead, asked for a flag so big that “the British would have no trouble seeing it from a distance.” Two officers, a Commodore and a General, were sent to the Baltimore home of Mary Young Pickersgill, a “maker of colours,” and commissioned the flag. Mary and her thirteen year old daughter Caroline, working in an upstairs front bedroom, used 400 yeards of best quality woold bunting. They cut 15 stars that measured two feet from point to point. Eight red and seven white stripes, each two feet wide, were cut. Laying out the material on the malthouse floor of Claggett’s Brewery, a neighborhood establishment, the flag was sewn together….It measured 30 by 42 feet and cost $405.90.
At 7 a.m. in the morning of September 13, 1814, the British bombardment began, and the flag was ready to meet the enemy. The bombardment continued for 25 hours….The Americans had sunk 22 vessels so a close approach by the British was no possible. That evening the connonading stopped, but at about 1 a.m. on the 14th, the British fleet roared to life, lighting the rainy night sky with grotesque fireworks.
Waiting in the predawn darkness, Key waited for the sight that would end his anxiety; the joyous sight of Gen. Armistead’s great flag blowing in the breeze. When at last daylight came, the flag was still there!
At dawn, Key anxiously peers into the distance to see if the flag still waves, proving the battle for God and country has not been lost. And indeed it was waving. Could there be more poignant words to describe our flag than “a star-spangled banner?”
He sees her broad stripes and bright stars, still waving over a perilous battle.
At twilight, the bombs are still raining down, the glare of the bursts again show proof that the symbol of freedom, the Star Spangled Banner, is still waving over the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
The Left says the Star Spangled Banner is an outdated Anthem. How can the history of that morning ever be outdated? God bless those who commit the Star Spangled banner to memory and teach their children to do the same. Words matter.