When one patriotic customer burst into a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” in a Texas Walmart store over the Independence Day weekend, it set off a chain reaction. Within seconds, other shoppers with their carts joined in and began singing, forming a spontaneous choir that brought tears to the eyes of many.
It all began with one shopper with her hand on her heart, singing the national anthem as she stood beneath a large American flag at the entrance to the Haslet store.
“I was waiting on my wife to get to the checkout. I heard a lot of singing around me,” Schrage, 50, told The Epoch Times. “I walked a few yards to check it out, and that’s when I saw all the people coming together as one, singing our national anthem.”
Schrage, a business owner from Morton, Texas, said the moment was filled with patriotism. “[I felt] chills coming over my body, goosebumps,” he recalled. “It was very moving.”
As the anthem came to an end, smiling shoppers burst into applause. With everything going on the world, the brief few minutes of unity meant the world to Schrage and his fellow customers.
Speaking to The Epoch Times, Schrage acknowledged that the video received a lot of comments and many were supportive in nature.
“I’ve always grown as a person [who] said the Pledge of Allegiance at school,” Schrage said. “I don’t have a racist bone in my body. I don’t care what color you are, I don’t care if you’re Black, Asian, Mexican, Hispanic, Jewish, I don’t care. Everybody is created equal.”
