Last week I went to see the movie Glory, and I'm glad I did. It was a terrific movie that won three Oscars on Monday night. It had been a long time since I had seen a movie that moved me.

While a lot of people have talked about what meaning the movie holds for the black community in America, the movie really has a message for all Americans.

This movie was not just a story, as most other movies are. I left the theater with the realization that I had witnessed history.

The movie depicted runaway slaves and black freedmen who enlisted in the Union army during the Civil War.

These men suffered insult, indignity and hardship while training as soldiers for the "white" army. Even though they had joined and trained harder than many other soldiers, they were not taken seriously.

Despite many white officers' doubts that they could perform in combat, the black soldiers were determined to fight and fight well for the freedom of their race.

The night before they went into battle, the black soldiers came together to pray. Morgan Freeman, who portrays one of the older soldiers in the regiment, asks God to tell his family, "If we should go down fighting, let them know that we went down facing the enemy."

In the end, the men overcome the racial obstacles and fight gloriously in battle. Through hard work and endurance they -- and 180,000 other black soldiers -- fought for their freedom during the Civil War.

They made a commitment to give of themselves and their lives so others could be free.

In the Feb. 26 issue of Time, Lance Morrow wrote a column on Glory, pointing out that the movie should not be looked at only as a historical documentary.

Morrow cites some comments from James M. McPherson, a noted Civil War historian, who wrote that the movie was the most historically accurate Civil War movie ever made.

George Will, a nationally syndicated columnist, also commented on the movie's significance. The two of them agreed on the underlying theme in the movie -- one about black manhood.

While that is a definite theme, America as a whole could look to Glory as an inspiration and a reminder.

Most of us take for granted all the things we have today. Sometimes we fail to realize the sacrifices that were made by others for us to get where we are.

The black soldiers had to endure tremendous obstacles. Many of them had run away from slavery, leaving behind their families and friends. They ran into a great unknown, a land up north that offered nothing to them but perhaps the promise of freedom.

Many of our ancestors came here leaving home and family behind in order to make a better life, a life of greater freedom.

As a nation we are generally detached from hardships. We are enjoying one of the greatest, if not the greatest, standard of living the world has ever known.

But are we still conscious of our heritage?

I read an interesting article recently that discussed the evolution of Americans. The article talked about a hypothetical kid sitting in his room and daydreaming rather than studying.

The boy dreamed about his great-grandfather who was starving in a shack in Ireland during the potato famine. He saw his great-grandfather pick up everything he had and come to America, working to make a better life.

His son, in turn, worked in a steel mill and forced his son to study so he could make a living with his mind, not his back.

By the third generation, the fictional child's father was determined not to make his children study, like his father had made him study. As a result, his kid lost perspective of the hardships that his ancestors had suffered to get him where he was.

Today that kid has been raised on MTV and rock and roll. The world around him is full of problems that, to him, are mainly statistics in a newspaper that he never reads.

Many of us have forgotten our history and that there was a time when all wasn't so rosy. It's good for us to have movies such as Glory to remind us of the price others paid so we could live the good life.

In the final scene of Glory, the men of the 54th Massachusetts regiment attack a Confederate fort as the day fades into darkness. On that night the men give their lives for other's freedom.

In Philadelphia, an inscription is written in Washington Square, under which lie the bodies of hundreds of unknown American soldiers from the Revolutionary War.

The inscription states: "Freedom is a light for which many men have died in darkness."