We have been glued to our television screens since Tuesday, transfixed by the horror of what has occurred in New York and Washington. As the events continue to unfold, the reality of what we have been witnessing sinks in. Terrorists have hijacked and used commercial airlines in the US as weapons of mass destruction. This is a story, big as it is, that American journalists would rather not have told. You can hear it in the pain, palpable in their voices and see it in their eyes.

But as the days go on, the real story emerges. And it must pique the perpetrators as they watch -- and they are undoubtedly watching -- that their attempt to crush America has only made it stronger.

Patriotism abounds. Stores have sold thousands of American flags. Long lines of volunteers wait for hours to give donations of blood or to help in whatever way they can. Stories are told of tenacious rescue workers frantically racing against time to find survivors. We saw the example of the members of Congress, differences forgotten, as they hugged and sang "God Bless America." There have been public displays of emotion from ordinary citizens, professional people and clergymen and no less a person than President George W. Bush.

We have read the accounts of Guyanese Americans who attested to the colour-blind outpouring of love and support from complete strangers.

One cannot help but admire the unconquerable spirit of the American people. And the world's response? With the exception of the public gloating of Saddam in Iraq, the Palestinians in Jerusalem and bin Laden in Afghanistan, there have been expressions of sorrow throughout. At embassies and monuments flowers have been laid and candles lit. And in London, at Buckingham Palace, the American National Anthem was played during the changing of the guard.

Incidentally, yesterday marked 187 years since the Star Spangled Banner was written by lawyer and poet, Francis Scott Key. It was penned in what would have been similarly turbulent times, for America was at war with Britain. As the story goes, a friend of Key, a doctor, had been captured by the British and he went to see whether he could get him released. Unfortunately, Key was also captured along with a high-ranking American soldier, who had accompanied him.

The three men were placed on board their boat under British guard, from where they watched the British attack an American fort. The battle raged on during the night and they could not be sure what had occurred. However, when dawn broke they saw the flag and realised that America had won the battle. This moved Key to write the Star-Spangled Banner, completing the four stanzas on September 14, 1814. Almost 117 years later, on March 3, 1931, then American president Herbert Hoover signed legislation making it the American National Anthem.

The first and last stanzas say:
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Oh, thus be it ever when free men shall stand,
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Power that has made and preserved us as a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust";
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

It is as we read these words that we grasp the symbolism behind firemen draping the Stars and Stripes over the burnt out section of the Pentagon and the resolve by Americans to make their flag more visible now more than ever.

The mettle of the "land of the free and the home of the brave" has been sorely tested. But to paraphrase an Americanism, 'it has come up roses.' At a time when it seems our own country is fast becoming callous, Guyanese would do well to drop the accents, forget the brand names and emulate the example set by Americans at their time of great adversity.