Beech Tree News Network

Sunday morning, on the way to church, our granddaughter, Sabria, rolled down her back window a bit in order to make the small “America flag” (that’s what she calls it) she was holding flutter in the breeze.  As the flag rippled, she instructed Garey and me to sing “America the Beautiful.”  We did, at the top of our voices, many times before pulling into the church parking lot.

Sabria is a patriotic soul.  She acquired her love of flag and country while in pre-school this year, thanks to Mrs. Gaddie and Ms Michelle, God bless em both.  Besides “America the Beautiful,” she also knows all the words to “The Star Spangled Banner” and “God Bless America,” and she can say the Pledge of Allegiance.  One of my favorite pictures of Sabria is of her in a flag shirt, waving an American flag.

As a child, I too was like Sabria, very patriotic.  I still am.  In spite of all the craziness that goes on here, I will always believe in my nation’s principals and intrinsic value as a country that recognizes the importance of each individual’s contribution.  

When I was in the eighth grade, I read the short story, “The Man Without a Country,” by Edward Everett Hale.  The protagonist, American Army Lieutenant, Philip Nolan, suffered a fate I would have found unbearable, and I still remember the sense of sorrow I felt when I read the closing scene.  The story was set during the year 1807.  Nolan befriended the traitor, Aaron Burr, and was tried along with Burr for treason.  

During the trial, Nolan renounces his country with the words, “I wish I may never hear of the United States again!”  The judge is outraged at Nolan’s words, so during the sentencing stage, he grants Nolan’s wish: Nolan has to spend the rest of his life in exile aboard US Navy ships in the middle of the ocean.  He would never again be able to set foot on American soil.  The judge also gave orders that no one was to ever mention the United States of America to him again.  

For the next fifty-five years, Nolan is transported from ship to ship, living out his prison sentence in the middle of the ocean, never being allowed to set foot in an American port.  None of the sailors speak to him about the United States and every newspaper that makes it on board is censored. 

 At first, Nolan is unrepentant, but as the years pass, he becomes desperate for news from America.  As he is being transferred to yet another ship, he stops a young sailor and tells him not to make the same mistake he, himself, made: “Remember, boy , that behind all these men and officers and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to her as you belong to your own mother.  Stand by her, boy, as you would stand by your mother!”

Our country, the United States of America, really is as Hale’s character described.  She is more than her government or even her people.   As much as we all gripe—I, as much as anybody—about the injustices and divisions and bureaucracy that besiege our country, she is still America.  We belong to her and she belongs to us.

At the end of the story, as Nolan is dying, he shows his room to Officer Danforth.  It has become a shrine to the United States.  The Stars and Stripes are draped around a picture of George Washington.  Nolan has painted a bald eagle on the wall.  At the foot of his bed is an outdated map of the US.  Unbeknownst to Nolan, many of the territories have become states.  “Here, you see, I have a country,” Nolan tells Danforth.  Nolan asks Danforth to bring his copy of the Presbyterian Book of Public Prayer over to him and to read from the page where the book automatically opens.  Danforth reads: “Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of the United States, and all others in authority.”  Nolan tells Danforth, “I have repeated those prayers night and morning, it is now fifty-five years.”   When Nolan dies, he is buried at sea.  As per his request, a gravestone in his memory is placed at an American port.  The epitaph reads: In memory of Philip Nolan, Lieutenant in the Army of the United States.  He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but no man deserved less at her hands. 

Nolan valued what he had lost.  

Sabria values what she has found: A country that belongs to her as she does to it.