I posted this in General, but since i'm a Field Marshall Trainee, and outrank that section, i'll post it here too

heard this on the radio the other day. it was written by a Romanian journalist



An ode to America
Why are Americans so united? They don't resemble
one another
even if you paint them! They speak all the
languages of the world
and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations.
Some of them are
nearly extinct,others are incompatible with one
another, and in
matters of religious beliefs, not even God can
count how many
they are.

Still, the American tragedy turned three hundred
million people
into a hand put on the heart. Nobody rushed to
accuse the White
House, the army, the secret services that they are
only a bunch of
losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank
accounts. Nobody
rushed on the streets nearby to gape about. The
Americans
volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping
hand. After the
first moments of panic, they raised the flag on
the smoking ruins,
putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colors
of the national flag.

They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in
every place and on
every car a minister or the president was passing.
On every
occasion they started singing their traditional
song: "God Bless
America!".

Silent as a rock, I watched the charity concert
broadcast on
Saturday once, twice, three times, on different TV
channels. There
were Clint Eastwood, Willie Nelson, Robert de
Niro, Julia Roberts,
Cassius Clay, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Springsteen,
Silvester
Stalone, James Wood, and many others whom no film
or
producers could ever bring together. The
American's solidarity
spirit turned them into a choir. Actually, choir
is not the word.
What you could hear was the heavy artillery of the
American soul.
What neither George W. Bush, nor Bill Clinton, nor
Colin Powell
could say without facing the risk of stumbling
over words and
sounds, was being heard in a great and
unmistakable way in this
charity concert.

I don't know how it happened that all this
obsessive singing of
America didn't sound croaky, nationalist, or
ostentatious! It made
you green with envy because you weren't able to
sing for your
country without running the risk of being
considered chauvinist,
ridiculous, or suspected of who-knows-what mean
interests. I
watched the live broadcast and the rerun of its
rerun for hours
listening to the story of the guy who went down
one hundred floors
with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who
she was, or of
the Californian hockey player, who fought with the
terrorists and
prevented the plane from hitting a target that
would have killed
other hundreds or thousands of people. How on
earth were they
able to bow before a fellow human?

Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note,
the memory of
some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes.
And with every
phone call, millions and millions of dollars were
put in a collection
aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a
spirit which
nothing can buy.

What on earth can unite the Americans in such a
way?
Their land?
Their galloping history?
Their economic power?
Money?

I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs
and murmuring
phrases which risk of sounding like commonplaces.
I thought
things over, but I reached only one conclusion.

Only freedom can work such miracles.

 

Bravo

 

Amen

 

That is good stuff BBQ.

Jerry

 

nicely said.