This is a story about America. Our country.
I went to the opening day of a football match in my hometown of San Diego.
It was the first game in the history of our club – the San Diego Football Club – and there was a lot of hype.
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It was a completely sold out game.
It was reported by the local news and everywhere on social media.
It was a big problem. The people of San Diego were enthusiastic about our new professional football team.
They had many activities of the ceremonial type before the game. There were local politicians, there was a ribbon cut, various dedication and all the splendor of a memorable occasion.
When the players took the field, the crowd was completely involved.
Finally – just before the game – it was time for our great American tradition for a sporting event: singing our national anthem.
Now this is a song that often brings tears to my eyes while I remember the hundreds of thousands of men and women in our history who made the ultimate sacrifice to defend our nation. And some of those countless heroes were my friends, my brothers I lost – men who died to defend our flag and our ideals.
So, while I thought of those heroes, I wondered who would have the solemn and holy duty to perform the Star Spangled Banner.
I thought they might have selected a local celebrity for the task, because there are many talented musicians in San Diego who could do this powerful song justice.
Or maybe they would have a distinguished school band or a proud church choir belt from the moving song that explains our tumultuous start as a republic, catches the spirit of our flag and catches our people and recognizing the sacrifice of our military serviceers.
Then I had the hopeful idea that it could be the band of the Marine or Marine Corps.
The Navy and the Marine Corps are deeply rooted in San Diego and millions of sailors and marines have deployed from the coast of San Diego to face the enemies of our nation.
I knew it would be appropriate to see our flag being honored by active troops in uniform.
Finally, the announcer invited the crowd to stand for singing the national anthem and I got up with 35,000 other people. To my surprise, the announcer explained that the national anthem would be carried out by us – the crowd. It would be a Zing-A-Long.
A Zing-a-Long?
I was shocked and disappointed and somewhat next to myself. What did they think?
Here we were, opening day, a historic moment and we were going to do a Zing-a-Long?
Now I am not a Pavarotti or Elvis Presley or Robert Plant, but I know how to sing. I sang in bands since I was a child and I know that singing is not easy – in fact – is very difficult. It is a challenge to stay in harmony and difficult to get the right timing and hit the right nuts.
And to think that 35,000 people could do this? I knew people would sing too loud or too quiet. They would sing too high or too low. Some people would not sing and many who would sing are completely tone deaf.
So I didn’t think there was a chance that this crowd could hit the right rhythm and the right pitch and achieve the right level of clarity.
And I was right – at least for a moment.
While the gigantic Jumbotron started scrolling the lyrics and people started singing, it was exactly what I expected: some voices were too high, some too low, some too quiet, some too loud. Some were out of the field and some completely from pace.
But soon, after a few bars, the voices began to mix together.
The low voices were balanced by the high. The silent voices were reinforced by the loud. Out-of-tune nuts were leveled by people who sang perfectly at pitch.
And while I sang myself, I heard it too.
I heard these masses of people, people from every background, people of every size, shape, color and credo, people with a wide range of contrasting and conflicting voices.
While I heard them sing – the sum of their voices – Darmonized and it sounded better than I ever thought.
That group of 35,000 people sang together was as good as I had ever heard that song.
Now: it was not perfect – but those imperfections gave the soul. They made the song human.
Every individual, who did his share, gave our national anthem a unique but uniform identity.
An identity that – although not perfect – was absolutely great.
Just like this great country.
We have the voices of many people – some silent, some loud.
Some rich, some arm.
Some left, some right, some in the middle.
Some angry, some happy.
Some work hard and some hardly work.
Some delivered-smuggish carefree.
We are all different.
Some people love land, what heavy metal and some soul …
Some love hip hop, some hardcore punk and some rock and roll.
We are all individuals …
All free to sing our tune the way we want.
But together – even with all those differences – we are more on each other than not.
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We are determined. We are cool. We are individualistic and optimistic. We will not be checked and we will fight and die if necessary for our destination – for our freedom.
You see: we are all American. This is our country.
And we are not perfect – and not America either.
We have hit some bad notes. Our pitch is sometimes too high and sometimes too low. Our timing is not always perfect and our rhythm is sometimes finished.
But – together – only bound by the freedom for which our forefathers fought, we sing a great song.
And America is also absolutely great.
God bless all your Americans.
Sing loudly and proudly sing:
This is the land of the free and the house of De Brave.
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Have a happy fourth July.
And God bless America.
