Oh Hey! Can you see?

Originally posted at www.myspace.com/ileanaburdine on Sunday, February 03, 2008

This weekend I celebrated my Dad's retirement. It was a beautiful event and ceremony with lots of friends and family around to celebrate with. My Dad is awesome and is retiring after 42 years of civic service. He started out enlisting in the Air Force, then switched to the reserves where he finally retired 12 years ago as a Colonel. He continued his civilian job working for the Air Force, all the while working in various Public Affairs (PR) positions. He's proud of representing the Air Force all of these years and his excitement is contagious. He worked most recently in promoting and explaining many new inventions that the Air Force developed, things like lasers that can shoot from planes (like in sci fi movies), telescopes that can discover stars millions of miles away and devices can stop violent rioters from harming others without harming them as well. You may have even seen him explain these things on shows like Future Weapons. He loved his job and he loved serving his country in and out of uniform.

I was asked by the organizer of the event to sing the national anthem at the ceremony. I was immediately honored. And terrified. I've never sung it anywhere. Well, yes in the crowd with everyone else before a game but not with me as the person in front singing it. Yes it's a hard song with a crazy range but mostly I was worried I'd forget the words. Look. I forget the words to my own songs; songs I've written! I could easily forget the words to this. And I so didn't wan that. Sure, it would be embarrassing but that wasn't it. I would be in a room of men and women who wear the uniform, including my Dad. People who give their lives and serve their country. Serve me?! Protect me?! I didn't want to insult them.

I practiced a lot and I thought about the song. About the words I would be singing. Here I am singing about the flag that represents my country. I looked some stuff up, only to refresh my memory, of course. Did you know there are 4 verses? I didn't. Cool. Try listening to all of that before the Superbowl! Francis Scott Key (one of the few famous men in history with three names who's not an assassin or serial killer) wrote the lyrics during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. He watched helplessly as Fort McHenry was attacked my British forces. The song captures his anxiety as he waits to see if the Fort stands. I put myself there as I sung. Worried about the men (men only back then) who were fighting so hard, worried that they would be hurt that we would be lost, that our freedom was in jeopardy. And the relief that the flag was flying, that our country was protected. And yet I know that our country is protected. That there are people willing to give their lives for me, my family, their family, your family. People with more courage than I have. And here I have the privilege to be afraid only of forgetting words, not losing lives. So I sang with all my heart. I hit the right notes. I got the words right. I made my Dad teary-eyed. And hopefully I honored him.

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Who's broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?