A reflective story inspired by the timeless patriotic verse
By Benjamin GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | ©2025
This Is My Country
There are words that live on paper, and then there are words that settle into the bones of a people. The kind that echo from porch steps and courthouse lawns, from quiet cemeteries and loud parade routes. The kind drift through open windows on warm summer evenings. A flag whispers its slow conversation with the breeze.
“This is my country! Land of my birth!”
The old man had recited it repeatedly. The lines felt stitched into his memory. They were like a family quilt. He first heard the poem as a schoolboy in a one-room classroom. The chalk dust drifted like snow. Old Glory hung slightly worn but always proud above the blackboard. They had stood, hands pressed to hearts, small chests swelling with pride they did not yet fully understand.
And now, decades later, he stood on the same red Oklahoma soil. This was the ground that had raised him. It shaped him and anchored generations before him. He thought of his father plowing under wide skies. He remembered his mother hanging laundry that snapped sharply in the prairie wind. This was the same wind that lifted the flag into slow, flawless motion.
“This is my country! Land of my birth!”The old man had recited it so many times. The lines felt stitched into his memory like a family quilt. He first heard the poem as a schoolboy in a one-room classroom. Chalk dust drifted like snow. Old Glory hung slightly worn but always proud above the blackboard. They had stood, hands pressed to hearts, small chests swelling with pride they did not yet fully understand.And now, decades later, he stood on the same red Oklahoma soil. This ground had raised him and shaped him. It had anchored generations before him. He thought of his father plowing under wide skies. He remembered his mother hanging laundry that snapped sharply in the prairie wind. It was the same wind that lifted the flag into slow, flawless motion.
“What difference if I hail from the North or the South, the East or the West?”
He had traveled. He had met farmers in Iowa. He had met dockworkers in Louisiana. He encountered miners in West Virginia. He also met shopkeepers in Arizona who spoke with accents as varied as the landscape. They all shared an unspoken recognition. There was a quiet understanding that this vast, imperfect, beautiful land belonged to them all. Not in ownership, but in guardianship. In gratitude.
He remembered the first time he truly understood the weight of those words. It wasn’t in a classroom. He was in uniform, standing still beneath a lowering sun. He watched the flag rise slowly as taps echoed across the horizon. In that moment, the poem ceased to be something learned and became something lived.
“With hand upon heart, I thank the Lord for this, my native land…”
He whispered the words now as the breeze carried the scent of freshly cut grass and distant rainfall. His soul, like the poem said, was rooted deeply in the soil on which he stood. Every memory, every loss, every joyful celebration had unfolded beneath the same sky, under the same banner.
This was not blind loyalty. This was love shaped by history — by wars survived, hardships endured, and freedoms fiercely guarded. It was a love that understood flaws. Yet it still swelled with gratitude for the promise, the struggle, and the hope that had always defined America.
As the flag unfurled above him, catching the light in crimson and gold, he spoke the final lines not as a performance, but as a vow, as millions had before him and millions would after:
“This is my country! Land of my choice!
This is my country! Hear my proud voice!
I pledge thee my allegiance, America, the bold —
For this is my country, to have and to hold.”
In that quiet moment, the wind acted as a witness. Time stood briefly still. He knew something certain and unshakable.
This was his country.
Not perfect.
But deeply loved.
Forever his.
Groff Media ©2025 benandsteve.com Truth Endures
benandsteve.com 