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Yesterday it could have been said of us: "Today we are high school students, tomorrow we are graduated adults." Not that
we must make drastic changes in our lives, but that we now must take a stand on what we believe - individually, as a group,
and as a nation - about the major issues of today.
Will you vote? Will you support your party? Will you stand for America? Will you fight? Will you be yourself, an individual?
For if we lose our identity, we lose our Americanism. And the sad fact is that all of America, it seems, has a movement out to
conform to un-American activities which directly go against the ideas of freedom and equality which are our heritage as
Americans.
We all Value our freedom; whether we understand it a little or a lot, it means something to us. Perhaps the greatest freedom
we have is represented here tonight in our graduation - that of education for all.
We, the graduates of 1968, were born in the aftermath of one of the most destructive wars of all time. We have been brought
up in an age of boycotts, strikes and riots. Wave after wave of turbulence and strife invades our country. We have seen the
assassination of the youngest president ever to serve our nation. Within the same decade we have seen the tragedy of the
death of a man who won acclaim in his search for peace.
Many have said, "This is our heritage - war." And, "This is the way we shall always live: dying for no reason, no purpose - and
so we will shrink back into a world of nothingness."
We cannot believe in these standards. Our heritage is not one of war and violence. Our forefathers crossed a wild and
unknown ocean, often dying, that they might reach a peaceful land where they could worship God freely. And this is what they
found - AMERICA. "Home of the brave and the free" our motto has been for years - and this is OUR HERITAGE. Have we not
the courage to die for the sake of freedom as they did, wishing that they had more than one life to give? We may lose some of
our boys in battle, but better that they died for America than that they live to see America die.
But our heritage cannot and must not be war. Our heritage is a unique government which has lasted successfully for nearly
200 years through the efforts of our lawmakers for as many years. Our heritage is a beautiful land where God dwells in the
valleys and the hills. It is a land where the dogwood blooms in the early spring, and snow covers half of our continent in the
winter - it is a land of peace.
If we shrink back into a "nothing" society, we are keeping from ourselves one of the greatest unwritten freedoms - that of
sight. Not sight of outside things, but sight of ourselves - an understanding that comes with wisdom to, unfortunately, very
few.
In Proverbs 29:18, it is written: "Where there is no vision, the people perish." If we cannot see where we are going, we can
only lead ourselves and others to inevitable destruction. Our heritage is not to stagnate in the realms of the status quo, but
to rise higher than the previous generation, teaching our children that they must rise higher than we.
How can this be achieved? Abraham Lincoln once said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." And we know this is
right. The efforts of one person alone cannot make the country a progressive nation. It takes the effort of a nation full of
people to make a free nation - it takes a nation of determined men to retain peace. Our parents did not bring us up to live in a
world of war and violence, but that we might share the blessings of peace and freedom. We may yet see more strife - and
most likely we will - but we need not fear, for we have seen today and we can conquer tomorrow.
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