Last week I went to the Sound of Music at the Hale Center Theater with a friend. Remember when Captain Von Trapp is called to the German Navy and refuses to go because he does not support Hitler and the Nazis? He and his family are forced to leave their homeland of Austria and cross the mountains to Switzerland in the middle of the night. That's right - those of you uncultured people thought this was a sticky sweet movie about singing nuns and a silly nanny. WRONG...kind of. Before they leave they sing in a festival as a family and Gayorg gives this speech before he sings Adlewise, a beautiful Austrian song. At least watch between minutes 1 and 4...
"My fellow...Austrians.
I shall not be seeing you again for perhaps a very long time. I would like to sing for you now a love song. I know you share this love. I pray that you will never let it die."
Enter tears as he sings - not just because of the two sweet older veterans crying and singing along in the front row of the theater who probably fought in this war, but because I feel this way about our country and I hope that all of you do as well.
AND SO - my fellow Americans, I would like to share with you the lyrics to another love song. I know that you share this love and I pray that you will never let it die.
O say can you see by the dawn's early light,
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;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'ry 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!
