Citadel and Fortress: The Citadel of Freedom

For a very important day, I am going to do a blog post on one of the greatest citadels ever built. This Fortress was officially started on this day, July 4th in 1776. A fortress so strong that there has never been the like, nor ever shall be. A fortress who's foundation is freedom, an element more precious than diamonds, who's walls are built, not of stones but of the hearts of brave men, men who knew the value of freedom and would give their lives to see that their sons and daughters would have it as they did.

I heard a poem a few weeks ago called I am the United States. In this poem, near the very end a phrase is used, The citadel of Freedom. That line was the seed for the inspiration, the actual inspiration was The Citadel of Freedom it's self, The United States of America.

I am the United States

Author Unknown

I was born on July 4, 1776, and the declaration of independence is my birth certificate. The bloodlines of the world run in my veins, because I offered freedom to the oppressed. I am the United States of America. I am 250 million living souls and the ghosts of millions who have lived and fought and died for me. I am Nathan Hale and Paul Revere, I stood at Lexington and fired the shot heard round the world. I am John Paul Jones, the Green Mountain Boys and Davy Crockett. I am Lee, Grant and Abe Lincoln. I remember the Alamo, the Maine and Pearl Harbor. When freedom called, I answered and stayed until it was over- over there. I left my heroic dead on the bleak shores of Korea and Viet Nam, in Flanders Field, the Rock of Corregidor and the desert sands of Kuwait. I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat fields of Kansas the granite hills of Vermont. I am the coal mines of the Virginias and Pennsylvania, the fertile lands of the west, the Golden Gate and the Grand Canyon. I am Independence Hall, the Monitor, the Merrimac and the Challenger.

Oh, yes - I am big. I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific, three million square miles of land, throbbing with industry. I am more that two million farms, I am forest, field, mountain and desert. I am quiet villages and cities that never sleep. You can look at me and see Ben Franklin walking down the streets of Philadelphia with his loaf of bread under his arm. You can see Betsy Ross with her needle, You can see the lights of Christmas and hear the strains of "Auld Lang Syne" as the calendar turns. I am Babe Ruth and the World Series. 170,000 schools and colleges and more than 300,000 churches, where my people worship God as they choose. I am a ballot dropped into a box, the roar of a crowd in a stadium, the voice of a choir in a cathedral. I am an editorial in a newspaper and a letter to congress. I am John Glenn and Neil Armstrong and the fellow astronauts who whirl through space above my head. I am Eli Whitney and Stephen Foster, Tom Edison, Albert Einstein and Billy Graham. Yes, I am the nation and these are the things that I am. I was conceived in freedom and, God willing, in freedom I shall spend the rest of my days. May I always possess the integrity, the courage and the strength to keep myself unshackled, to remain a citadel of freedom, and a beacon of hope for all the world.