Soap Box

Last weekend I saw an America you'll seldom read about in newspapers or see on television. An America that gets up and goes to work every morning, disciplines their children, salutes the flag and respects their God.

It was Talladega, Alabama, the Saturday night before the big Sunday afternoon GEICO 500 NASCAR race, a gathering of the faithful, who had saved up their hard-earned money and come to watch their favorite drivers roar down the backstretch at nearly 200 miles an hour.

Many of them drove their campers and spent the weekend in the camp ground where acres and acres of Goosenecks and Winnebagos set row after row, probably making up one of the biggest towns in Alabama for race weekend, and certainly one of the friendliest.

They fly the banners of their favorite football teams and sport the numbers of their favorite NASCAR drivers and hang colored lights and build campfires, pull the tab on a few cold ones and celebrate hard.

These people and the drivers all stand and hold their hands over their hearts when the National Anthem is sung, and they bow their heads and stand in respectful silence when the prayer, that is part of every NASCAR race, is said.

I'm 80 years old and the chances of me ever going to war are infinitesimal, but if I ever had to these are the people I would want to have with me. They're the kind of folks who would have your back, no matter what it cost them and these codes of honor don't even have to be discussed, you can just take it for granted.

They have a great respect for the law and in spite of the tripe that assaults them in the media every day, still dream the American dream, still believe that we live in the greatest nation on planet earth, still believe it�s worth defending, which many of them have already done.

Lots of veterans in this crowd, men and women who have laid it on the line and would do it again in a minute.

These people are the bedrock strength of America, the solid foundation on which our past present and future rests, because without them all the political, academic, commercial ventures and law and order that constitutes American civilization, which stands on their shoulders, would come tumbling down.

These are the Americans who finally stand up and say, "That�s enough, it goes no farther, here we stand, you've got to come through us and we ain�t moving an inch.�

These people are not disillusioned or disheartened, because they still have a lot left to believe in, their God, their country and each other, they don�t whine about politically incorrect crap, they don�t voice their resistance by burning cars and breaking windows and if they ever do get pushed to the point of violence, everybody better watch out, because when it comes to protecting their families and property, you'd best face a bunch of sore toothed grizzly bears.

These are the kind of people who drove the prairie schooners west, who marched barefoot through the winter snow with George Washington at Valley Forge, who hit the beach at Normandy on D-Day.

The people who drive the trucks, plow the fields, man the assembly lines, build the highways and pump the oil out of the ground.

Salt of the earth.

And they're busy raising another generation of patriotic Americans.

And oh yeah, another generation of loyal NASCAR fans.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops, our police and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

� Charlie Daniels

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