Last night at Carolina Speedway, Lake View, S.C. USA under the lights I paused for approximately one minute and fifteen seconds (1:15) to stand up straight, with my right hand over my heart, faced our American Flag and listened quietly as the Star Spangled Banner played our National Anthem. The gentlemen to my front also stood up and assumed the same posture and I immediately admired how quick he was to pay the same respect to our flag and our anthem and I wondered if he or someone close to him ever served in the military.
As the Anthem played I gazed at other groups of people to see their response to our anthem, some of them were paying the same respect, others were attempting all the while still talking to their company, while yet a few seemed completely oblivious to the music and the fact the majority of us were all facing the flag.
The music ended and most resumed thier activities except for the few that never paused to render respect to our flag. That is when I turned to gentleman in front of me and asked "Did you or someone you know ever serve in the military?" when he replied "I did, Vietnam." I was not surprised, the way he immediately stopped all activity and rendered respect to our nation's flag. And then I said, "I don't think [name] doesn't understand the reason why we pause for 2 minutes to render respect, and this gentlemen said "No, I don't suppose he does."
If you read all four versus of "The Star Spangled Banner" you will see that it is not written just about war and how a flag shown bright, but of courage, life, death, liberty and our nation's motto "in God is our trust", it is not just about a flag, it's about why we are here, the sacrifice made to get here, and how we got to be our United States.
Whether you or, somebody you know or, just the fact that you give notice to all those that have served our nation in times of war and peace doesn't matter yet, the fact that you stop for one minute and fifteen seconds to pay respect to our flag and what it stands for, one nation under God, indivisible, for liberty and justice for all, and for all those men, woman AND children that fought to protect their freedoms, your freedoms, our freedoms.
Please take a few minutes to read "The Star Spangled Banner" in it's entirety, what will you read between lines, the red and white lines of our nations flag under a banner of stars on blue?
THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave?
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Verse 2
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
"Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Verse 3
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out of their four footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave'
From the terror of flight and the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Verse 4
Oh! Thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "in God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
updated by @jim-wilmore: 04/11/17 05:43:31PM
