Our flag was still there.

First and foremost, happy Fourth of July, fellow Americans! Now, just for a minute, put down the watermelon and illegal fireworks, and imagine that you are at war. Not in the Middle East, but on your own soil. Or rather, on what you hope is your own soil. At the moment, you're behind enemy lines, forced to watch helplessly as an American city is bombarded throughout the night. Then, at dawn, to your amazement, you see it: an American flag. The land you're looking at is still your country.

As I'm sure you've figured out by now, the above scenario places you in the position of Francis Scott Key, the lawyer and poet whose attempt to negotiate a prisoner exchange with the British during the War of 1812 was interrupted by their bombardment of Baltimore, which he witnessed from a British ship. The sight of an American flag still waving across the water inspired him to write "Defense of Fort McHenry," which, when set to music, became "The Star-Spangled Banner."

"And the rockets' red glare," Key wrote, "the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there." We all know these lines, but can you imagine how Key must have felt? Can you imagine, as citizens of what is now the world's only superpower, the profound relief that spurred him to write those words? He concludes the first verse in wonder: "O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?" Many, if not most, present-day singers treat those lines as a triumphant declaration, but they actually form a question. Can it be true? Can Fort McHenry really have survived that? Though the poem becomes more confident as it goes on, ending with a borderline jingoistic fourth verse, it begins with disbelief.

Can you imagine that disbelief?

The last war to be fought on American soil was the American Civil War. As a nation, we've had almost 150 years to forget the experience of playing host to those horrors. Since surviving it, we've risen to world hegemony. History textbooks encourage us to remember World War II and the Cold War as great American victories, won by might and right.

That view doesn't go over well outside the United States, nor should it. The Cold War was quite hot for unfortunate proxies in the Third World, and Europeans see nothing in the memory of World War II to celebrate. The full military and civilian death toll was well over 60 million worldwide, and survivors were left with the harsh lesson that the continent had to learn to be at peace, or else. (Also, for what it's worth, Winston Churchill's assessment of the American contribution was that he didn't know if his country would have survived without it or not, but he did know that the UK would not have survived without the Soviets.)

So this Independence Day, as "The Star-Spangled Banner" rings in your ears, take a moment to think of Francis Scott Key. Today, Americans don't have to wonder if our flag is still there, but for others, it is not such a distant memory.