Iowa State Winner

Amy Kozol
Park View, IA
Seventh Sunrise Academy
Home School
12th Grade

It's a hot, sunny afternoon in August and just time for the baseball game to begin. The players file out of the dugout onto the field while I rise to my feet in the stands. Hats disappear, and I place my hand over my heart -- I can feel each thump inside my chest as the anthem begins. Finally, as the dawn's early light slips past and the rocket's red glare fades, I close my eyes to savor those last, breathtaking words. O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. What words! They illustrate something important, something so vital to the American philosophy that America would simply not exist without it: freedom.

Simply put, freedom is the backbone of the American idea. It is the common principle that Americans of all shapes, sizes, colors, backgrounds and beliefs can agree upon. It is a concept that goes all the way back to the 1600s, when only the beginnings of our country dotted the Eastern coast of the New World. The Pilgrims, as we dub the famous Separatist settlers of 1620, came here to escape the state-run church in their home country. They came in pursuit of freedom.

Those pilgrims instilled a spirit of freedom that lingered -- and grew -- in the American Colonies through the 18th century. Yet, the actual freedom the Colonists were experiencing began to diminish under the yoke of the British. Eventually, the Colonists did something about their fading rights and freedoms. Chests of tea were dumped into Boston Harbor, in protest of the British taxation without representation. Each splash was a demonstration of the Colonists' will for freedom. That will for freedom led to the American Revolution.

And indeed, the revolution was the result of the defining of American freedom in specific terms. Delegates comprising the Second Continental Congress had gathered, debated, and finally declared, on behalf of the American Colonies, that they held certain truths to be self-evident -- that all men are created equal with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In the span of just fifteen years, those words grew into The United States of America, a democratic republic spread into three branches of government. It was built from on framework of a solid Constitution -- a country governed in the interest of freedom, by the people and for the people. And a newly enacted collection of Amendments to that Constitution, commonly referred to as "The Bill of Rights," assured American citizens that their freedoms, especially those of religion, free speech and peaceful assembly, would not fade away.

Nearly 215 years later, that vision of freedom manifested in our Constitution is still largely intact. The state-run church that the Pilgrims fled from has not overtaken us. We still have a say in the collecting and spending habits of the government. The majority of our freedoms have not faded. Moreover, we now recognize all Americans as equal persons, regardless of their color or background.

When we stand up, take off our hats, cover our hearts, look to the flag and sing the national anthem, I honestly thank God that I live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I wouldn't live anywhere else. That's what it means to be an American.