Every year on the Fourth of July my mind wanders back to Independence Day 1970. I was stationed with the Army at Fort Hood, Texas, after returning from a year of duty in Vietnam, and my feelings of faith were at an all-time high.

My faith in God and country had never been stronger. With my military service coming to an end, my patriotic fervor was as high as ever, knowing I had done my part in keeping America free. But, I also felt a stronger sense of Christian faith, knowing that without prayer and the resulting strength I received through my talks to God, I may have not made it through those 12 long months in that war-torn nation of Southeast Asia.

It was through this realization that I expressed my feelings in an essay competition with the Freedoms Foundation of Valley Forge, which awarded me a plaque and cash award at a battalion ceremony on (that’s right) the Fourth of July.

That special day 39 years ago has lingered with me always, not so much because of the award, but because of the significance of what I penned and forever believe pertaining to one free nation under God.

America did not only become a free country on July 4, 1776, but also (what many have seem to forgotten) a nation under God founded on Christian principles.

Did you know that 54 of the 56 folks who signed our Declaration of Independence were Christians? Even Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, said, “God who gave us life gave us liberty.”

Yes, we know that those who signed the Declaration of Indepdenceintended it to mark a separation between America and England. However, there is something more. This great document not only helped to form the foundation for our American nation but went much farther in establishing God, or creator (as written in the Declaration of Independence), as the source for men’s irrevocable rights.

That essay I wrote nearly four decades ago, “Freedom Isn’t Free,” addressed the issues of serving and supporting our country, but also stressed the importance of upholding its Christian foundation.

Call me old school or whatever you like, but I still believe these are inherent parts of our nation that cannot and must not be discarded.

The Christian foundation, in particular, is so important. Such importance was magnified through our first president, George Washington, who suggested that only religion could uphold this country’s morality. In his farewell address, Washington said that national morality cannot prevail by excluding religious principles.

After 10 years of examining countless documents on the foundation of our country, the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1892, identified America as a Christian nation, saying that the documents “add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a religious people, a Christian nation.”

So, on this most heartfelt patriotic day of the year, I refuse to let terrorists or financial upheaval occupy my thoughts. Instead, I will once again summon my feelings and respect for the greatest nation in the world with the realization that freedom never will be free and that a nation founded on God must stand on God.

Concerning the latter, our 40th president, the late Ronald Reagan, offered his own perspective with words that every American should heed.

“Without God there is no virtue because there is no prompting of the conscience ... without God there is a coarsening of the society; without God democracy will not and cannot long endure ... If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

Address correspondence to Rich Brown, c/o The Joplin Globe, P.O. Box 7, Joplin, Mo. 64802.