On Jan. 20, just months after former Sen. Barack Obama won the presidential election; hundreds of thousands of people braved the bone-chilling weather in Washington, D.C. to see Obama become the 44th president of the United States. With great passion, integrity and hopefulness. Obama delivered his inauguration speech to the nation and gave Americans something to look forward to, a presidency that could at least be the stepping stone that we so desperately need to get our country back on track.

If someone were to ask me last year if I would have any hope for America’s future if Obama was elected, I would have most certainly said no. Truth be told, I was and still am a strong supporter of Sen. John McCain. I voted for McCain because my values and beliefs told me to do so and in my mind he was, without a doubt, the best candidate for the job.

I will never forget watching the television on the night of Nov. 4 and finding out that the man I was so certain that America needed, in fact, did not win the election. I was broken-hearted and quite frankly very depressed about the future of our country. McCain obviously had more experience than Obama and he knew what it was like to be in the military – something that I find very important in the future commander in chief of the armed forces.

Still, even with all of my doubt in the elected president, I knew that I had to look pass my reservations and pray that Obama would be the best candidate for the position.

On Inauguration Day, I sat and watched history unfold before my eyes; I watched Obama, the first African-American president of the United States get sworn into office and deliver an amazing speech to all of the excited and eager Americans before him. A surprisingly uplifting feeling swept over me as I listened to him promise to start working on some of our nation’s biggest problems such as health care, the school systems, homes being lost, and energy. His unusually passionate voice and the way that he presented himself made me realize that I couldn’t imagine another person up on that stage giving an inauguration speech.

Not to say that I wasn’t sad to see McCain watching from the audience as his competitor was sworn into the office that he worked so very hard to win, but I started to realize that it is possible that Obama might be exactly what the American people need at this point.

Some would say that Obama is the ticket to a fresh and new start for America, and some would disagree and say that there is no way that Obama could possibly help our nation and that he is absolutely not who should’ve been sworn in to office on Jan. 20.

In any case, the citizens of this country must have hope and support who we overwhelmingly elected to be our next president. This was the first election that I was able to vote in, and I have learned from it that the only thing I can do is cast my vote and hope that whoever is the best person for the job will win.

Did the right man win the title of being the 44th president of the United States? I sure hope so and I think that in time we will all find out if we chose Obama because of his charismatic attitude or because we truly thought that he could fix our broken nation.

Hopeful: that is the feeling I felt when watching Obama speak to the nation as our new president.

I know that he cannot possibly fix everything that America has wrong with it while he’s in office, and I don’t think anybody should expect him to. There are just too many things that need to be dealt with and I applaud anyone who would even run for the presidency at a time like this.

However, I hope that in these next years we will see a little more unity and a lot more change in our nation. I know that Obama wasn’t quite the person that I wanted to lead my nation, but maybe he is the person that needed to be elected. I can only pray that he will bring all of the change that he promises and that he will try his best to make America a stronger and more unified country.

No matter how I feel about the current president of the nation that I am so proud to live in, I know I must try and stand by Obama, because that is what needs to happen. I cannot predict that my country will be in perfect shape after Obama leaves office, but at this moment I’m filled with hope for our nation and faith in our current president.

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