To the editor: As a citizen of the United States and a veteran, I am dismayed by the recurring attacks on our country, our way of life, our flag and our national anthem. I would like to cite some historical facts about the events of September 1814, when America truly won its freedom from England, and which inspired the national anthem. The British had been attempting to invade America from Canada for two years, but the United States Army had defended the borders of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York and repelled every attack. In an attempt to break the stalemate, the English Admiral Alexander Cochrane prepared a fleet of battleships ...mounted with the world’s largest naval guns and equipped with the new bombardment rockets. In late August, 1814, the fleet sailed up the Potomac and landed 5,000 British soldiers near Washington, D.C. They defeated the 10,000 men garrisoned there and sacked the city, burning the newly completed White House to the ground. After destroying Washington ...the British fleet headed for Baltimore, where 1,000 U.S. Army soldiers in the garrison at Fort McHenry prepared to defend the city. After Baltimore, the British intended to destroy Philadelphia, New York and Boston. After a 26-hour battle that began on September 12, 1814, the British gave up and sailed away. Major Armisted had the men at Fort McHenry raise the massive garrison flag, a star spangled banner that was 30 feet high and 42 feet wide, so that everyone in the city would know of the victory. That flag, which came to be known as, “Old Glory,” is presently in the possession of the Smithsonian Institution, where it is being preserved for future generations. On the morning of Sept. 14, some eight miles away from the fort, on a ship in Baltimore Harbor, Francis Scott Key saw “Old Glory” as it caught the early morning light. Key, a lawyer from Baltimore, had been negotiating with the British to free American prisoners of war. As he watched, he could see the bombardment rockets streak across the sky and explode on the fort. He also saw the deadly bursts of mortar and cannon shells... Key was so moved he wrote a poem, “The Defense of Fort McHenry.” The poem was set to music. The first stanza became known as “The Star Spangled Banner.” “The Star Spangled Banner” quickly became one of the best loved patriotic songs in America. The U.S. Army and Navy played it at all official occasions and whenever the American flag was raised or lowered. On March 3, 1931, it finally became our official national anthem. This Memorial Day, let us reflect on the men and women of our armed forces, who have pledged, and often lost, their lives so we can be free. Anthony Castranova Hamburg