When a bunch of fellows from Boston held a big party with tea,
That's where your cradle was started and they called it Liberty.
At Bunker Hill could be heard among the hues and the cries,
"Steady men don't fire, until you see the whites of their eyes."

So when those fellows got together again to draw up and sign a form,
They called it a Declaration and that's how you were born.
The road has been bumpy and at times you've had to fight
So that your sons and daughters can share their God given right.

You've held out your hand to the poor, given aid to the aged and sick,
Yet you walk softly while carrying a big stick.

Those stalwarts at Valley Forge suffered hardship and privation,
So men could be Free to live in this mighty Nation.
When this Great Land by strife was torn, where brother fought against brother,
It mattered little on which side they died, you extended your hand to one another.

Those that charged up that hill at San Juan to everlasting Glory and Fame,
Were spurred on by that fervent cry, '"Remember the battleship Maine."
When you summon your children they come from city and R. F. D.
To stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight against tyranny.

They have fought in the colds of Ancient Lands and in steamy jungles' heat,
So that the World will know that Free men cannot be beat.
When old friends beckoned, you sent your children 'Over There'
Where they carried Freedom's ideals, into the enemy's lair.

That Star Spangled Banner atop Suribachi did wave,
Put there by men from the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
There have been others like Chosin, Khe Sahn and Desert Storm,
Where Brave men sailed forth whenever Freedom's ideals needed to be reborn.

When friends have asked, "Can you help?" and you say, "I can,"
I'm that Red, White and Blue, top hat man, you call "Uncle Sam."
So today its Happy Birthday to you, a cause for great celebration,
That began way back when those fellows got together,
and signed that Declaration

Author of This Poem is © Howard Peterson

"We may be tossed upon an ocean where we can see no land--
nor, perhaps,
the sun and stars.
But there is a chart and a compass for us to study,
to consult, and to obey.
The chart is the Constitution."

Gettysburg Address

by Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...."