By Cody Martin
Teague Park School, Grade 5
What America Means to Me is twelve things: peace, hardship, and the American flag. We have peace because Americans don’t like to fight or do anything violent. Hardship because we went through many hardships like when George Washington was still alive, because he fought for our freedom and we still have freedom up to this very day.
The American flag because it has a long history going all the way back to when Betsy Ross made the very first flag for our country and every day to this day we salute and pledge to the flag. Slavery because when we had slaves in America it wasn’t a fun time, slaves were forced to work in fields and they got treated very poorly, if they stopped working they would get whipped to death. Then Abraham Lincoln came along and stopped slavery, then he became our President. Then he got shot. He was one of the best Presidents we ever had and his face is at Mount Rushmore and you can go to the Lincoln Memorial.
The Eagle stands for our country because they were endangered at one point but now there are over 10,000 eagles now, and in 2007 eagles were taken off the endangered list. Wars because my Grampy was in a war. He served for 20 years at the most but then he retired and now he’s very old now and he has dementia. My Grammy had to move because she doesn’t want to get hurt and he is losing his mind and now he can’t drive. He keeps saying that someone keeps coming into his house and he says that stuff is being stolen.
Landmarks because landmarks have a lot of history like the Vietnam War Wall. Soldiers’ names are on that wall who have laid down their life to protect our country from other countries. The Washington Memorial represents George Washington whose face is on Mount Rushmore along with three other Presidents including Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln. The White House because that place is where the President lives and works in the Oval Office. The White House is totally a landmark. The Grand Canyon is located in Colorado. It’s one of the best tourists attractions and it is 277 miles (446 km) long and up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and 6,000 feet or 1,800 meters deep and it has the Colorado River at the base of it. And that is what America means to me.
