Patriotic Address

On November 6, 2001, I was asked to give a short speech to an assembly of middle school students that would be both instructional and patriotic. We had just been attacked on September 11th of that same year. I had lost a few of my former students in the towers of the World Trade Center on that day.

As I look back over that speech today, it seems a tad sentimental; yet today we remember, with appropriate sentimentality, those who have died to keep us free, so I am posting it today.


Patriotic Address
Christopher Bogart

“Freedom of speech and expression - Freedom of every person to worship God in his own way - Freedom from Want – Freedom from fear anywhere in the world.”

These are the four freedoms President Franklin Roosevelt spoke of in his Four Freedoms speech in 1941, and that have gone before us in our two hundred and twenty-five year history to light our way, ensuring the freedoms we enjoy today. These freedoms have guided us. They have been bought and paid for by the blood of our military heroes in war and by the efforts of our civilian heroes in peace. They are the creed of our political faith. They are our touchstone. Our foundation. Our hope.

We are so used to enjoying our freedoms that sometimes we forget what they have cost us to protect and preserve. We forget until they are under threat. We forget until we are asked to defend them again. As we are asked to do today.

Today we honor the veterans of the wars that were fought to get these freedoms, to protect these freedoms, and to ensure these freedoms. From the brave young men who froze with Washington at Valley Forge, the men and women who fought in Europe and Asia in two World Wars, in the hills and valleys of Korea and the jungles of Viet-Nam, the men and women of Desert Storm who braved heat and fire in an unforgiving desert, to the young men and women who are now traveling to the mountains of Afghanistan to insure that we are never attacked again as we were on September 11 of this year – we honor them, and the country that produced them every day when we Pledge Allegiance to our flag and when we sing our National Anthem.

Each time you look at a flag, know that the seven red stripes stand for the blood of these men and women who have defended us in the past, and will continue to do so in the future, making us safe. Know that when you see the six white stripes, they stand for the purity of our intentions to guarantee freedom to our own citizens and to the world. Know that the fifty white stars in the blue night’s sky stand for the fifty states of the United States of America. Thirteen stripes for the thirteen original colonies. Fifty stars for the fifty states. And out of those fifty states – one nation. Out of many faiths, many cultures, many regions – one people.