The Star Spangled Banner sung by Sandi Patty. It\'s one of the most beautiful versions I\'ve ever heard.Sandi Patty can sing it! Gives me chills hearing it. Sandi Patty sings it in a way I\'ve never heard it sung before.\n\nOh, say, can you see, by the dawn\'s early light,\nWhat so proudly we hail\'d at the twilight\'s last gleaming?\nWhose broad stripes and bright stars, thro\' the perilous fight,\nO\'er theramparts we watch\'d, were so gallantly streaming?\nAnd the rockets\' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,\nGave proof thro\' the night that our flag was still there.\nO say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave\nO\'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?\n\nOn the shore dimly seen thro\' the mists of the deep,\nWhere the foe\'s haughty host in dread silence reposes,\nWhat is that which the breeze, o\'er the towering steep,\nAs it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?\n\nNow it catches the gleam of the morning\'s first beam,\nIn full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:\n\'T is the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave\nO\'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!\n Flag draped from the roof of the Pentagon\n\nAnd where is that band who so vauntingly swore\nThat the havoc of war and the battle\'s confusion\nA home and a country should leave us no more?\nTheir blood has wash\'dout their foul footsteps\' pollution.\nNo refuge could save the hireling and slave\nFrom the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:\nAnd the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave\nO\'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.\n\nO, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,\nBetween their lov\'d homes and the war\'s desolation;\nBlest with vict\'ry and peace, may the heav\'n-rescued land\nPraise the Pow\'r that hath made and preserv\'d us as a nation!\nThen conquer we must, when our cause is just,\nAnd this be our motto: \"In God is our trust\"\nAnd the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave\nO\'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!\n\n\nHistory: In 1814, about a week after the city of Washington had been badly burned, British troops moved up to the primary port at Baltimore Harbor in Maryland. Frances Scott Key visited the British fleet in the Harbor on September 13th to secure the releaseof Dr. William Beanes who had been captured during the Washington raid. The two were detained on the ship so as not to warn the Americans while the Royal Navy attempted to bombard Fort McHenry. At dawn on the 14th, Key noted that the huge American flag, which now hangs in the Smithsonian\'s American History Museum, was still waving and had not been removed in defeat. The sight inspired him to write a poem entitled Defense of Fort McHenry; later the poem was set to music that had been previously composed for another song by a Mr. Smith. The end result was the inspiring song now considered the national anthem of the United States of America. It was accepted as such by public demand for the next century or so, but became even more accepted as the national anthem during the World Series of Baseball in 1917 when it was sung in honor of the brave armed forces fighting in the Great War. The World Series performance moved everyone in attendance, and after that it was repeated for every game. Finally, on March 3, 1931, the American Congress proclaimed it as the national anthem, 116 years after it was first written.Various images from all over google, showing some of the heros of the world. america, anthem, Banner, democracy, freedom, iraq, national, of, spangeled, Spangled, Star, states, The, troops, united, usa, usmc