Today is Independence Day. I just can't help but be overwhelmed with feelings of gratitude as I think back to that first Fourth of July. So today as I have thought about our freedoms as well as the sacrifices our forefathers gave I felt like I needed to share an Essay I wrote back in 2013. We were asked what moment in history we would have liked to visit. I chose Valley Forge. I feel like this essay expresses my feelings best for what Independence Day means to me. Anyhow here it is :)
Courageous Freedom
by Austin Brady
“Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery,” described General George Washington. The event I would have liked to have witnessed is Valley Forge. I would have liked to have been there to talk with the men and ask them why they kept going in those terrible conditions. I would have liked to see their unfailing devotion first-hand. They weren't there fighting for fame and glamor, rank or prestige. These were mere farmers, merchants, and statesmen who were there to fight for their children's children. They were there to fight for their rights and liberty. That's us, that's you. I would have liked to share the hardships with them to fully realize the extent that they were willing to stand for freedom. They suffered all this for one principle – liberty. They suffered so that a man can stand on his own two feet and say, “I am free, I can choose what I want to do with my life.” They were fighting against the boot of tyranny that had ground its heel into the backs of mankind. That is why I would have liked to have been there – to see their courage and to help grow mine in the fight for freedom.
Their experience is relevant to us today. We can read their story and become inspired to fight for freedom. Their trial was physical and at times spiritual. We may not have the physical trials as they did, but we definitely have the spiritual. We need to reach deep down inside ourselves and ask, “Are we willing to make that sacrifice?” The sacrifice is to fight for liberty no matter what the consequences. I know that as I have read the story of those men at Valley Forge, I have felt a burning inside me that I need to do as they did. I need to fight for freedom – not for me, but for the liberty of future generations. There are countless people that could taste the same fruit we are tasting right now. Like Ronald Reagan declared, “Freedom is never more then one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Even today tyrants and evil men seek to destroy our freedom. We need to follow after the example of our founders to keep fighting when all seems lost, like the nine black students at Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas that were chosen to integrate. At the time of their lives when they needed to fit in the most and feel loved, they were beaten, tripped, kicked, and almost killed. They didn't go to that school for themselves. They couldn't participate in any extra-curricular activities because of the treatment they received. Years later in an interview, one of the nine students was asked, “what was it like to attend Central?” Melba replied, “I got up every morning, polished my saddle shoes, and went off to war. It was like being a soldier on a battlefield.” They were there for their children's rights like the men at Valley Forge.
Both groups had a vision, because without vision one could not withstand the horrific trial they endured for so long. At Valley Forge, they probably thought the war was all over, but they persisted and used that trial to strengthen them and not break them. Those brave souls fought for us and suffered for us. They thought with the end in mind – the freedom of their children. I hope as today's Americans, we can be as those men at Valley Forge and never end the fight for freedom.
