The United States has served as a haven of security and freedom for multitudes of people. After the First World War, tens of thousands of Jewish people came to America to start new lives and find refuge. This week I listened to one of those Jewish immigrants describe her experiences to a room full of University of Mobile students. With great recall, Ms. Agnes Tennenbaum told how she was forced to work in slave labor at the Allendorf munitions factory as a young lady and how her parents were murdered at the hands of the Nazis. Ms. Tennenbaum is one of the last remaining survivors of the horrific concentration camp called Auschwitz.

In an attempt to describe the conditions of being transported in a cattle car shoulder to shoulder with little air, she closed her eyes, shook her head side to side, and softly called the experience "indescribable." No doubt it was.

After she closed her dialogue, several young women thanked Ms. Tennenbaum for coming. As they carried on additional conversation, I overheard "the survivor" tell the young ladies, "The United States is the greatest country on earth . . . there is no place like it!" Her statement was not one simply to make a proclamation, but one which was to instill in these young students how blessed they really are to be part of the United States. And blessed all of us are!

Ms. Tennenbaum words made me think about and ponder my own freedom. They also made me all the more determined to defend our blessed nation and the liberty that she gives millions!

This country of ours is great primarily because we are free! We are free to go where we want, when we want. We are free to worship where we want, how we want, and with who we want! We are free to say what we want, when we want. And we are free on November 2 to vote for who we want to govern us! What an amazing liberty!

Those who simply are ignorant about freedom and who have no value for it are the one desiring to change this land we call the United States of America into a nation like some other. Quite frankly, I don't want to be like some other nation. I am an American and I am privileged to live in the greatest and most free country the world has ever known! Why would I or anyone else ever want to change that? Oh I acknowledge we are not a perfect union. We have our faults. We have not done all things right, but one thing is for sure - America is still the greatest nation on the planet and I am proud to call her mine!

On July 8, 1776 the Liberty Bell rang out calling all Philadelphians to the steps of Independence Hall to hear the first reading of the Declaration of Independence. The reading proclaimed to the world that a new nation had been born! The bell is inscribed with a passage from the Jewish Torah and Christian Old Testament which says, "Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof" [Leviticus 25:10].

Not only has our great nation brought freedom to this land we call the United States, but she has brought freedom to millions of people around the world! As Nelson Mandela stated, the Liberty Bell is "a very significant symbol for the entire democratic world."

Early American patriot Daniel Webster said, "God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it." Oh that we in this generation, may always guard and defend it!

May we also always recognize the true source of our liberty - the God of our Fathers, Jesus Christ. As the memorial of Thomas Jefferson so eloquently states, "God who gave us life, gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that the liberties are the gift of God?"

I will let you answer this question.