O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain America! America! God shed your grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea.
O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities glean Undimmed by human tears America! America! God shed your grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea.
- (Author Unknown)

Not guns, not thunder, but a clutter of clouded drums That announce a fiesta: abruptly, fiery needles Circumscribe on the night boundless chrysanthemums. Softly, they break apart, they flake away, where Darkness, on a svelte hiss, swallows them. Delicate brilliance: a bellflower opens, fades, In a sprinkle of falling stars. Night absorbs them With the sponge of her silence
- (Babette Deutsch)

My country 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing, Land where my fathers died, Land of the Pilgrim's pride From ev'ry mountain side, Let freedom ring. Our fathers God to thee, Author of liberty, To Thee we sing Long may our land be bright with freedom's holy light; Protect us by Thy might.
- (Author Unknown)

God and the Soldier, we adore, In time of danger, not before. The danger passed and all things righted, God is forgotten and the Soldier slighted.
- (Kipling)

He went where others feared to go, and did what others failed to do. He cried, pained and hoped - but most of all he lived times - never to be forgotten.
- (Unknown Author)