Today, some of us football fans especially, think of the Patriots as the New England Patriots football team. You know, they’ve been in the Super Bowl four times in the last few years, and are an amazing fun team to watch play football. I myself am a football fan, and a Patriot fan as well.

However, the original Patriots didn’t play football. Football hadn’t even been invented yet. Those original Patriots played for keeps and they created a new nation. The first one ever to be of the people, by the people and for the people.

They were made up of a group of what some would call ne’rdowells. But they believed in freedom and liberty. To such a point that they fought an unwinnable war over it. They put their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor at risk to give us the freedoms that we have today.

They were men like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Patrick Henry. They were even wealthy men like John Hancock and Richard Henry Lee. They were scholars like George Wythe and John F. Kennedy (just threw that one in to see if you were paying attention!).

They were willing to do hard things like Paul Revere and Nathan Hale.

Sometimes it seems like we take all that they provided for us for granted. We should remember what they did, what they risked, and what they accomplished—all for future generations. We are those future generations.