Guns and Gear

Guns & Politics: A Warrior And A President

Susan Smith Columnist
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Americans are longing for a warrior, whether to lead them, save them, fight for them, or to fight for America as its current leaders work so diligently to destroy it.  The time has never been more vital for a strong man of character, fortitude, strength, honor and love of country to take charge.

This would be quite the opposite of the man we have at the helm now.

Just compare that pathetic excuse for a leader to a real man, and the ultimate Warrior – our first and greatest hero and patriot, George Washington.

George Washington was a large man in every sense of the word, with a commanding presence that made him seem even larger.  He was either 6’2” or 6’4”, depending on differing reports, but either was extremely tall for the time.  He wore size 12 boots, had very large hands and hips, and possessed phenomenal physical strength, as history attests to in numerous examples.  Washington was also considered to be the finest horseman of his day.

He was also a humble man who didn’t speak very much, (compare that to the egotistical blatherskite we’re stuck with now), and as a matter of fact he preferred not to speak in a group setting at all if he could avoid it.

His courage and bravery were manifest in everything he did, most directly involved in fighting the war to create the United States of America – even before, actually.  His sense of duty and honor, and acting on the moral codes involved, came naturally to him.

The first such occurrence to achieve notoriety happened when George Washington was a very young man, in 1755 when he was serving as an aide-de-camp to General Edward Braddock with the British forces during the French and Indian War.   General Braddock and his troops were surprised by the enemy near a military installation outside of what is now Pittsburgh, Pa., and when General Braddock was shot off his horse (for the 5th time that day), and grievously wounded, George Washington, with neither authority nor experience, simply took over and started giving the troops orders.  His ‘command’ worked, and enabled the British troops to form a rear guard thus allowing a safe retreat.

Unfortunately, the brave General Braddock died of his injuries three days later, despite having been carried off the battlefield by George Washington himself.

Even more remarkable was that this occurred following a not-quite-finished battle with dysentery that had laid up Washington for 10 days just prior to this fight.  During the battle, two horses were shot out from under Washington, and he later found four bullet holes in his coat, any of which had they been lodged in his body, would have been fatal.  He was, in fact, the only officer who wasn’t killed by the French and Indian troops that day.

Years later an Indian chief travelled to meet Washington due to this battle, and said to General Washington:  “Our rifles were leveled, rifles which, but for you, knew not how to miss…I am come to pay homage to the man…who can never die in battle.”

Then years later, during the Revolutionary War, at the Battle of Princeton, Washington charged into a fight where an American regiment had supposedly already lost the battle.  American soldiers were fleeing from the conflict every which way, and when Washington saw this, he called out to the running men, “Parade with us, my brave fellows! There is but a handful of the enemy, and we will have them directly!”  Getting the troops into formation, Washington rode in front of them and told them not to fire until he gave the word.  General Washington then charged forth until he was just 30 yards away from the line of British troops, and standing in the middle of the two armies, ordered his men to fire.

So many shots were then fired that visibility was nonexistent:  “The smoke was so thick that it was virtually impossible to see.”  When the smoke cleared, Washington was sitting “upright on his horse, calm and resolute.”  It was said that Colonel Fitzgerald, Washington’s aide, burst into tears upon seeing the commander alive, not expecting to see his General in that condition again.  Washington raced up to him, declaring: “The day is our own!”

This time there were 6 bullet holes in his coat.

There was yet another battle in which Washington saw a friendly fire incident occurring and without a pause he  drew his sword and galloped through the two lines of infantry spewing musket balls in either direction, using it to knock up the muskets of his troops to keep them from continuing to fire at each other.

Washington was a man who led from the front.

George Washington’s examples of  extraordinary bravery and courage, and warrior-like tendencies, in the face of seemingly unsurmountable odds, are legion.  Never once did he shirk from his duty as a soldier, as a general, as a patriot, as a fellow freedom fighter, nor later as a President.  To say that Washington was an inspiration to his men does not come close to how his “boys,” as he called them, regarded him.

His “boys” knew that he spent the entire war fighting to provide his men with uniforms, weapons, ammunition, money, etc. – everything that his army needed to succeed and a recalcitrant Continental Congress neglected to provide.  At the end of the war, the “boys” were not in a good mood, as they hadn’t been paid in quite a long time, and there were threats of mutiny.  Again, to save the day, Washington, who loathed making pubic addresses, agreed to speak to the troops.  When their General stood in front of them, in his now white hair (he never wore a wig), he reached into his jacket pocket and removed a pair of spectacles to place on his nose.  The men gasped to see their indestructible leader show such weakness.  Washington sensed this, and said:  “You must pardon me, for I have grown not only gray but blind in the service of my country.”

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house among this group of grizzled, battle-hardened fellow warriors; in fact, quite a few were openly sobbing.

There does seem to be a tough guy running for office now, and to the shock of the supposed experts, Americans are flocking to him.  The toughness is still all talk right now, but demonstrating any strength at all after the 7 ½ years of what we have been witnessing can make all Americans who love their country be nostalgic for a time when men like George Washington actually existed; where a man like our greatest patriot didn’t pause for a second to fight in spite of the greatest peril, at whatever the cost, for a national ideal of individual liberty and freedom, in fact, to do everything, no matter what, for the good of our nation.

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Susan Smith brings an international perspective to her writing by having lived primarily in western Europe, mainly in Paris, France, and the U.S., primarily in Washington, D.C. She authored a weekly column for Human Events on politics with historical aspects.. She also served as the Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Children, Family, Drugs and Alcoholism, and Special Assistant to the first Ambassador of Afghanistan following the initial fall of the Taliban. Ms. Smith is a graduate of Wheeling Jesuit University and Georgetown University, as well as the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, France, where she obtained her French language certification. Ms. Smith now makes her home in McLean, Va.