Assignment: Reflect on one of the songs we listened to in class ("God Bless the USA," "American Solider," "Who Are They," "Fortunate Son," or "Angry American"). Write a personal reflection on what the meaning of the song, or part of the lyrics, means to you. 

By Shekinah Chandler, Montour High School Junior

The song that I thought spoke to me the most was “God Bless The USA” by Lee Greenwood. The overall message of this song was to express the person’s gratitude and love to be living in a free country. Though I’ve heard this song multiple times, I have never listened to the lyrics and saw the meaning of it. There were some parts of the song that made me think and reflect my opinion of our country.

In verse 1, the song says, “ ‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom, and they can’t take that away”. When I read this verse, I quickly thought of multiple ways I could look at this. The first way I looked at it was questioning if the flag still stands for freedom. How does that freedom look different for some people in this country? The reason why I went straight to this I think is because for many in this country and me included, feel as if our freedom is not as equal as others in this country. Whether that be you not being able to marry your significant other due to you two being the same gender until 2015, not being able to vote until 1965 because of your color, or being in fear to practice your religion in a public place and that might lead you to be the hottest topic on the news. Overall, I believe that the flag still stands for freedom, but some receive more freedom than others.

As that line continues, it states, “and they can’t take that away”. This line to me means that no matter how hard they might try to strip us from our freedom and our rights, they can’t. We’ll just fight harder. This line, like other lines in this song, shows me that we Americans have a lot of freedom. Some people to this day can’t even get an education because they are raised to stay at home and learn how to be a woman and its duties that follow. We also are able to fight for what’s right by marching and boycotting, etc. Many can’t even say anything bad about their country or they will be killed. In conclusion, this song showed me how thankful I am to live in this country. Though we aren’t perfect, we definitely have it better than others.