Do young Americans know, were they ever taught, that the Star Spangled Banner, today our National Anthem, was written to chronicle an actual wartime attack by British naval ships on American soil? Do they know that on a September morning at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, the star spangled banner still waved because American soldiers, expecting they would die, stood under direct cannon assault to keep the flag’s pole standing? Do they know that the anthem’s writer, lawyer Francis Scott Key, warned British officers of their futility even as they shelled the fort to symbolically take down the American flag? Do they know Scott proclaimed the assault would fail because the American soldier “would rather die on his feet before he’ll live on his knees”?
Of course they know none of this, these ignorant, arrogant athletes who fancy themselves warriors on a battlefield while playing a game. If they knew, how could any one of them fall to a knee? This 12-minute video (provided by Paul Shaffer, a member of the Moore County Republican Men’s Club) should be required viewing in NFL locker rooms and in schools:
Schools first, starting in kindergarten!