Later in the month at the 7th Annual Americana Music Awards, he was awarded the awkwardly titled First Amendment Center/Americana Music Association "Spirit of Americana" Free Speech Award.  �I am very proud to be gettin� this award because I believe in Free Speech and I use mine quite frequently,� he said with a chuckle. Past winners of that award, with one exception, have leaned further to the left than Charlie on the political scale.  Many artists in the Americana genre feel a freedom to be able to express their views without fear of offending a mainstream audience.  By giving this award to someone who is outspokenly on the right, it gives evidence that the AMA can look beyond the rhetoric and honor a person for his or her actions.  �We are so far apart [in this Country] right now and it hurts everything and everybody.  We need to be a united Country.  Sometimes I think we don�t give enough credence to each others ideas,� Daniels says. And it is some of those ideas that often draw him criticism.  His 2003 �Open Letter to Hollywood� was widely circulated by fans and critics alike.  In his websites� Soapbox columns, Daniels talks about issues from deadbeat dads to illegal immigration to his current column on Hugo Chavez.  But Daniels takes the criticisms in stride: �If you�ve got enough guts to have an opinion in this country, you�re definitely going to be criticized, there�s no doubt about it.  You know, you�re absolutely not going to go unscathed; you�re going to be criticized because people are going to have different opinions.� �But I am not an unreasonable man,� he continues, �and what I say is if someone wants to sit down and talk to me about it, and I have the time to talk to �em, I�ll be glad to explain my position and they can explain their position.� And while the definition of patriotism has been debated in recent years, Charlie holds a firm belief on what it is not: �Patriotism, and I�ve said this a lot of times, is not a blind allegiance to some political ideology or some idea, because you�re not going to be right all the time.  You cannot possible be right all of the time, there�s always going to be a fact you don�t know, something that you don�t consider and somewhere between left and right or the Republican and Democrat and conservative or liberal is the truth.� Daniels believes that one of the problems in the Country today are the career politicians that run amuck in Washington.  �What their [politicians] job is supposed to be, they�re supposed to be representing the people, we the people put them in there,� He says passionately, �Actually what they�re representing is a political party.  They spend more time trying to make each other look bad than they do trying to do something positive.  So they get very little positive done.� Getting something positive done is something Charlie Daniels knows a little about.  During his first trip to Iraq to visit US Troops (a trip that included tours of Kurdistan, Usbekastan, Afghanistan and Kuwait as well as Iraq), Charlie met many servicemen who played music but didn�t have access to instruments or things like strings and picks.  �I was with the Major General of the State of Tennessee National Guard,� Charlie recalls, �and I said, �Look, if I can get some of the companies that we do business with to send some instruments and things over here, can you get them over here for me?�  He said sure.� With that promise in mind, Charlie began to call the companies when he returned to the States.  One of the first companies he called was Gibson Guitar.  �Gibson Guitar knocked me off my seat because they gave us 100 guitars.�  Other companies began to follow suit and as Charlie says, �What we were looking to be as a very small thing turned into a lot of stuff.� �A lot of stuff� included the Gibson guitars, drums, keyboards, microphones, CD and DVD players, DVDs and over 6000 CDs donated by a record label.  Though the logistics of transporting it to the troops took a year to finalize, it was finally delivered earlier this year.  All told, the donations totaled two full pallets of equipment which Charlie personally delivered: �When we went back this last time, this last April, we flew commercial to Germany and we got on an Air Force C-17 cargo jet to go to Iraq and we flew [in], the stuff went with us.� Operation Heartstrings, the name of the charity established to continue to send music related items to the Troops, is just one of the ways Charlie tries to repay the debt owed the service men and women of this Country.  �It was an honor to do that and we owe them so much,� Daniels restates, �Our people who are in service now, and veterans who have been in service, we owe an un-payable debt to them, I mean we just can�t�we could never say thank you enough.� Another way he supports the Troops is through performing for them.  Footage of his first visit to Iraq is included on his new, and first, DVD, CDB DVD Live.  The DVD was recorded on the Riverfront in Nashville during a July Fourth concert in 2005 interspersed with interview footage of Charlie.  �There�s a lot of stuff on there that, to me, would be interesting to someone who is a fan of the band that they would enjoy looking at,� says Charlie, �It�s a documentary basically of a lot of the things that have happened to us in the last many years.� Also included on the DVD, as a bonus feature, is historic footage from the 1975 Volunteer Jam II in Murfreesboro, Tennessee featuring a brief backstage glimpse and a performance by The Charlie Daniels Band (a blistering performance of �Birmingham Blues�).  Does more footage exist beyond the nearly 15 minutes included?  �You�d be surprised at the amount of footage that we�ve got,� Charlie says, �The problem we have with that is clearance to release the footage.�  His hope is that he will be able to obtain the proper clearances and be able to release the classic footage on DVD. Later this month, Oct. 28th to be exact, Charlie Daniels will celebrate his 70th birthday and as he nears 50 years as an entertainer, he has no plans to slow down.  �I�ve always got upcoming projects,� he says with a laugh.  To be specific those include two albums that are in the works, one of which is his first duets album.  The songs included will be a mixture of new songs and some of Charlie�s favorites from the past.  Songs like �What�d I Say� with Travis Tritt and �Jackson� with Gretchen Wilson.  �We kind of did them with a little different twist,� Daniels says.  Other artists included on the project are Earl Scruggs, The Del McCoury Band, Brad Paisley, Double Trouble (Stevie Ray Vaughan�s former band), Brenda Lee and Bonnie Bramlett.  The project is set to be released early next year.