"The Star-Spangled Banner" becomes official U.S. national anthem

Lt Col Charlie Brown Excellent! What makes me irritated is when they sing the Star Spangled Banner at games and the vocalist tries to make it sound so dramatic. Why not just sing it normal?

Excellent piece of history Lt Col Charlie Brown

One of my favorite "National Anthem" experiences occurred at OSUT Infantry Basic at Ft. Benning, GA the summers of 1988 & 89 (maybe). As a school teacher, I had my summers off so put in lots of Reserve active duty as my summer job. CPL Nelson and I had orders as basic training instructors for the "Threat" classes to new soldiers. Threat was an orientation class on the Soviet Army, weapons and training and presented during the second week of BCT when the troops were "green". They hadn't developed any team cohesion yet. I role played (in authentic uniform) a Soviet MAJ Pavlov for the class and CPL Nelson an East German LT. I was a Russian linguist so all was with proper accent. Nelson was a German linguist and he not only had a great accent but he looked and sounded like a Nazi – perfect for a Communist East German. We were presented as part of an officer exchange program so the soldiers weren't sure of our bona-fides. We had audio-visual support in the classroom which was an old base theater. We played Russian music - Red Army Chorus and exciting Russian training videos. We had weapons, etc. As the class proceeded, we started running down the American Army and America in general bragging about "great" Soviet Union. Check the photo and you will see the Flags behind me. They hung over a wire screen so that maps could be pulled down during tactics class and there were magnetic signs under the podium to stick on the maps. As the class was winding down, we had the soldiers at attention as we played the Soviet National Anthem. They started to pull each other down so my comments" You will sit respectfully while visiting Soviet officers leave". Every class, a brave soldier in the middle somewhere would snap to attention and start singing the Star Spangled Banner just as loud as he could with the whole class of 200 on their feet singing, drowning out the Soviet National Anthem and maybe, for the first time, feeling like they were an American team. One of my lines in the class was : American Flag have 50 stars but someday while be 51 and that star will be "red". So as Nelson and I were storming off in disgust at American disrespect, Nelson snatches up the "Hammer & Sickle" magnet and slaps in on the American Flag. The front two rows of soldiers charged the stage and we barely got out the side door with the help of the Drills. We almost got clobbered by a couple of canteens so in subsequent classes, the Drills had the recruits "ground" their LBE outside. The cadre who ran the Threat class loved our classes and the fact that they almost always on cue broke into the National Anthem. The Class Manager called in the Training Center commander to watch our class from the projectionist booth out of sight. After the class when the Colonel and his staff were debriefing, he told me that it was almost the best class he had ever seen in his Army career BUT, the "Hammer & Sickle" on his American Flag - "No way!" "Yes Sir"! No problem, Sir!
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