Good Progress

I have made very good progress on my web design project today. I finally have a layout that I am pleased with and will be putting the finishing touches on it tomorrow before I start showing it around some to get others' opinions. There is still much work to be done on it - like making the buttons work, finding the html widgets that I want, and actually publishing it to the site, but I am pleased that I seem to be learning the software at a reasonable pace. I am tired of sitting at the computer, but I am simultaneously pleased with the achieved result. I'm sure that I will be sharing it with you soon.

I have just completed 1776 by David McCullough. I've had it on my "to be read" list for over a year now and finally dove in. It wasn't quite the riveting read that I expected, but was good nonetheless.

I realized quickly how little I actually know about the the Revolutionary War. As a young boy (before I was 7 years old) I had a great interest in the stories about this war, most likely spurred on by re-runs of Daniel Boone. (No, I'm not quite old enough to have seen them first run.) Unfortunately, history books written about the Revolution at an elementary school reading level were pretty hard to come by back then. I doubt it is any different now. How many 7-year-olds are interested in Revolutionary history? I suppose a bit of my interest was also driven by the fact that I was 7-years-old in 1976.

One of the things that struck me as I read was that the British weren't the baby-eating demons that I had imagined them to be (at least not during the period of the war covered by the book - although there was mention of a number of atrocities carried out.) At times their generosity and concern for the well-being of "the colonies" was not unlike our own concern for those that our armies have encountered. The main fault of the British seemed to be their arrogance.

I was also struck by some of the similarities that I saw between America at the time of the Revolution and America today. The British were arrogantly secure in their belief that as the world's greatest superpower they couldn't be beaten by a ragamuffin army like the one fielded by America. They were wrong. There is no doubt in my mind that our military is the greatest on the earth, but we would do well to learn from the lesson we taught the British when they were in a similar situation.

Another similarity is that America was as greatly divided then as it is today. There were major fundamental differences between the Tories (or Loyalists) viewed things and the way that the Patriots (or Rebels) viewed things - Conservative versus Radical all over again. The only difference I would suggest is that the conservatives are on the right side this time. (I dare say they believed that they were on the right side that time!)

Politics was just as convoluted then as it is now. Nobody seemed capable to get anything done in Congress. We KNOW that hasn't changed.

Finally there was also the general apathy of the populace towards victory or defeat. The future lay in the hands of a handful of soldiers - some as young as 14. One quote by Colonel William Tudor about Washington struck me particularly. To his wife he wrote:

I cannot desert a man (and it would certainly be desertion in a court of honor) who has deserted everything to defend his country, and whose chief misfortune, among ten thousand others, is that a large part of it wants spirit to defend itself.

My, my, my, how history does repeat itself. His condemnation could have been written of the defeatists in the Congress, on the campaign trail, and in the media this year, self-serving cowards that they are. It is truly a shame that history is so neglected in our schools (and culture) today, and it is sad that so few realize the dear price payed for our liberties today.

God bless our troops and God bless America. Honor the veterans that you know this weekend.