Mr. Speaker, I suspect what happened in 1913, as I mentioned, was that we were at war. We joined World War I and sent our soldiers. At that time, only men were on the front lines as soldiers.
That is no longer the case today. Women and men serve as soldiers on the front lines. I mentioned the first woman who died as a soldier.
If the rationale in 1913 to use “thy sons” was because we only had sons fighting for our freedom, that is no longer valid. We no longer just have sons fighting for our freedom; we have daughters are fighting for our freedom as well.
Let us revert back to the 1908 version and include us all in our national anthem.