Can you feel the bitter cold, the wind sweeping up the river, carrying the foul mist that seeps into the rags you wear on your hands to keep them from freezing, and chills your bones to their very marrow? Can you feel your toes drifting off to sleep from freezing cold, the jagged icicles of frostbite piercing into the nerves of your feet as your blood tries to keep them from freezing? Can you smell the stink of your sweat as you push the boats into the river and haul your muskets and ammunition, cannon and shot onto the raft to cross over the foul ice-encrusted waters of the Delaware? Or in the camp at Valley Forge, can you see the heavy flakes falling on the damp rags you wear as your uniform, the meager fires struck to give the smallest amounts of warmth to miserable wretches huddled together over a pot of watery stew and onions while the grey skies pour forth more white wet ghostly turds of snow to make even your shortest step a monumental effort as you trudge through your rounds about the camp?

And yet, when your Leader, a kind and gentle man, comes by with a kind word of encouragement, and notice of your efforts, the bitter winds are momentarily forgotten, and the horrible cold seems dispatched for a brief moment by the warmth you feel for the recognition for your job, well done against monstrous odds.

And such are legends made of. Does anyone today learn what General Washington was about? What Leaders of Men in a desperate struggle must and can do? What Noble Causes can bring out of the most mundane Men and render their histories glorious and their futures ordained? Lessons Men must learn well to survive, or forget at their Peril.

Subsunk

Wow. That was AWESOME!!!!!!!

Blog ON...

Well said, Subsunk.