Hey! You have the same nickname as our country!

Dear Sam, A long time ago, the whole wide world was fighting. Not wrestling the way you and Daddy do because you love each other, but being very mean, trying to hurt each other. It started when the leader of one country decided to bully the people in another country, and it got complicated. The leader of OUR country, President Wilson then, tried very hard to stop the fighting, but at the same time wanted everyone to know we might have to go to war. He asked Mr. James Montgomery Flagg to draw a picture to help people get ready, just in case.

Under the picture were the words “Uncle Sam wants you!” and ever since, when people think of our country, they think first of “Uncle Sam", and that is how Uncle Sam became the nickname of our country, the United States. Before we were states, we were colonies, owned by another country, England. Some very, very brave men wrote a letter to the very, very mean king and of England and said “Stop! We are not going to let you be a bully, anymore.” Only they said it in more beautiful words that you will memorize someday, and I hope will believe with all your heart. The letter begins…” When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…… Today is the anniversary of the day they sent the letter, a long, long time ago. We call this day the “Birthday” of the United States, and as the brave men hoped we would, we celebrate it with patriotic songs and shows and parades. Here is one of my favorites – We’ll sing it together soon. Love, Marmee.