Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Duty, Honor, Country


Chris, this is “over the top.”  It is proof positive you must publish your essays like this in book form as a collection of your best.  The title could be The Portage Patriot.

 Churchill observed duty is the greatest word in the language for it reminds us that there are things greater than me, myself, and I.  Amen.  We have gone toward focus on self, period.

 The late, great American historian Barbara Tuchman observed that honor is the respect of good people.  She said unless this country recovered this concept and acted on it nothing else would stop its decline.  Look at the people who do whatever they want and have no shame, period, for the terrific harm they do. 

 Country rings true too.  You are right.  We must stop denigrating our country, the land that gave us life, lessons in right and wrong – at least in our generation’s upbringing – and has achieved more in history than any other civilization, country in the history of the world when you consider its creativity, its concern for others, and its fair share approach to its wealth, until recently, again, sadly.

 I once had the chance to attend football games at West Point Military Academy, twenty-five miles up the Hudson River from where I lived, Dobbs Ferry, New York.  I can still see the bust of MacArthur (I have read American Caesar) on the “plain” (campus) with two inscriptions:  "Duty, Honor, Country."  The second: " In war, there is no substitute for victory."

 Again, your brother urges you to publish a collection of your essays in book format.  You may be surprised at how much people will respond to it positively and take hope from it, so much needed these days.

God bless.  Paul

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