Trares
The gymnasium was awash in red, white and blue.
A flurry of American flags waved in the air, as hundreds of tiny voices belted out “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “This Land is Your Land.”
The patriotic spirit was impossible to resist.
Anthony and his school held their Veterans Day program this week, a special event put on by students each year. The performance is a tradition — all third- and fourth-graders take part, as does the school’s choir.
Every week since just after school started, the classes would meet with their school’s music director to work on their songs, their choreography and other aspects of the show. Anthony was excited for the debut, if a little tight-lipped; he wanted it to be a surprise when we were in the audience to see it.
So it came to be as we took our seats in the bleachers on Veterans Day that we had no idea what to expect.
Each group had a different uniform. Third-graders were in red shirts, fourth-graders were in blue and the choir kids wore white.
The program was a delightful blend of patriotic staples, such as “It’s a Grand Old Flag,” and some newer concoctions — I’d never heard of the “Allegiance Rap,” but it was a fun way to do the Pledge of Allegiance, complete with hand motions. The kids belted out an emotional version of Kasey Musgraves’ “Rainbow,” before the school put on a slide show featuring photographs of students’ moms, dads, siblings grandfathers, uncles and more who served in the military.
The most striking part of the program was how much enthusiasm the students put into it. They were earnest and happy; not a smirk or a bored half-hearted motions in the group. You could tell they were treating the concert as a thank you note to veterans. They were going to give it their best.
Things can feel pretty divisive these days. Everywhere you look, people seem to be lining up in “us-vs.-them” camps of tribalism. The past election season only served to amplify those feelings.
But Anthony and his classmates provided an important reminder with their performance. We’re all Americans, owing the rights that we enjoy to the men and women who have fought and died to protect those liberties.
In the middle of the program, the kids shouted a line the stood out: “We’re marching for our veterans to celebrate them all.”
That’s something we can all agree on.
Ryan Trares is a senior reporter and columnist for the Daily Journal. Send comments to letters@dailyjournal.net.
