The Man Who Saved the World
Today we commemorate the passing of the greatest man of the 20th Century and one of the greatest men who ever lived.
The past century saw numerous great dictators and exactly two great statesmen. The second of these was Ronald Wilson Reagan, whose vision of optimism and freedom and whose steely resolve ended the Cold War which raged throughout much of the century. He was truly a great man.
But not the greatest man. Not the Man of the Century.
That honor belongs to a man who had been known for much of his life to be a failure. He hadn't even started off very well. His father had been one of the most gifted politicians of his age, a man who might well have ascended to his nation's top political post had he not been laid low by disease. Despite being admitted to the best schools, our great man was a terrible student, whom his teachers suspected might well be mentally handicapped, until he demonstrated an enormous capacity for memorizing text when it suited him. He was a stubborn and willful boy who clashed with authority routinely.
When the time had come for him to enter his nation's armed forces, his poor grades placed him in the cavalry, a disgraceful post for a man of such pedigree. He was shipped off to the far corners of the Earth, where he soon took part in the final cavalry charge of his nation's military history.
He left active military service to become a war correspondent, soon running afoul of his country's military establishment with his withering criticism of its leaders' conduct of war. While covering a brutal conflict against terrorists, he took an active part in defending a friendly troop transport ambushed by the enemy and in so doing became a prisoner-of-war. He elected to escape rather than allow the enemy to use his capture for propaganda purposes or to obtain a ransom, and in so doing had an enormous bounty placed on his head, wanted dead or alive. He was forced to travel an enormous distance through enemy territory before finally reaching friendly lines.
He returned to his country a war hero, and soon began a political career. He seemed poised to follow his father to greatness, until he took the nearly unprecedented step of switching parties in mid-term.
On the eve of a global conflict, he was placed in charge of the finest navy in the world, and soon set about reforming it. He earned his pilot's license, invented the seaplane, and gave armored cavalry vehicles the name they bear to this day.
In the throes of a catastrophic war, his strategic vision offered the greatest opportunity to stem the tide of blood, until professional soldiers failed to execute the plan and soon created another bloody stalemate.
Driven from his nation's leadership in disgrace, he resumed his military career and went off to fight alongside his countrymen in the worst conditions imaginable. He returned to a government post later in the war, and continued in another for several years, although his political prospects remained dim.
After the war, he wrote what remains to this day the greatest history of that conflict. He fell back on his writing, his political career in tatters, but maintained close contacts with civil and military leaders in his nation and abroad.
He became a global celebrity, traveling overseas and lecturing to packed houses. On one such trip, he was struck by a car and nearly killed. He lost most of his fortune in the stock market, and lived in despair of money for a long time thereafter.
He lived the life of Cassandra for awhile, warning anyone who would listen that war was on the horizon again, a darker conflict even than the one in which he'd fought some years before. No one would listen. They thought him a warmonger and a crank.
When he was proven right some years later, in a most incredible fashion, he found himself first brought into government again, then became head of the government. It was small consolation. At the time, his country had been utterly defeated in battle, its chief allies had already surrendered, and it was likely to fall to its enemy within weeks. The once-proud nation stood alone in its darkest hour. Many government leaders were calling for peace talks, for appeasement, for surrender. Plans were made to run the war effort from exile overseas.
Yet he endured. He rallied his countrymen to his cause, and refused to give in, refused to even countenance the mere thought of giving in. He vowed to fight and die in the streets if it came down to it.
Eventually, he and his countrymen prevailed. He had quite literally saved Western civilization in the process, as Leonidas had at Thermopylae against the Persian hordes milennia before.
In the full flush of victory, he was cast from office. No matter. He wrote a history of the war, and earned the Nobel Prize for Literature in the process. He was returned to office one last time, and managed to once again predict another war to come, ever to be a realist, ever to be thought a fabulist.
He continued to write, and to lecture, and to paint. He died 40 years ago today, as blessed with years as he was with talent and vision, the man who had saved the world.
His name, of course, was Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill.
We are forever in his debt.
The past century saw numerous great dictators and exactly two great statesmen. The second of these was Ronald Wilson Reagan, whose vision of optimism and freedom and whose steely resolve ended the Cold War which raged throughout much of the century. He was truly a great man.
But not the greatest man. Not the Man of the Century.
That honor belongs to a man who had been known for much of his life to be a failure. He hadn't even started off very well. His father had been one of the most gifted politicians of his age, a man who might well have ascended to his nation's top political post had he not been laid low by disease. Despite being admitted to the best schools, our great man was a terrible student, whom his teachers suspected might well be mentally handicapped, until he demonstrated an enormous capacity for memorizing text when it suited him. He was a stubborn and willful boy who clashed with authority routinely.
When the time had come for him to enter his nation's armed forces, his poor grades placed him in the cavalry, a disgraceful post for a man of such pedigree. He was shipped off to the far corners of the Earth, where he soon took part in the final cavalry charge of his nation's military history.
He left active military service to become a war correspondent, soon running afoul of his country's military establishment with his withering criticism of its leaders' conduct of war. While covering a brutal conflict against terrorists, he took an active part in defending a friendly troop transport ambushed by the enemy and in so doing became a prisoner-of-war. He elected to escape rather than allow the enemy to use his capture for propaganda purposes or to obtain a ransom, and in so doing had an enormous bounty placed on his head, wanted dead or alive. He was forced to travel an enormous distance through enemy territory before finally reaching friendly lines.
He returned to his country a war hero, and soon began a political career. He seemed poised to follow his father to greatness, until he took the nearly unprecedented step of switching parties in mid-term.
On the eve of a global conflict, he was placed in charge of the finest navy in the world, and soon set about reforming it. He earned his pilot's license, invented the seaplane, and gave armored cavalry vehicles the name they bear to this day.
In the throes of a catastrophic war, his strategic vision offered the greatest opportunity to stem the tide of blood, until professional soldiers failed to execute the plan and soon created another bloody stalemate.
Driven from his nation's leadership in disgrace, he resumed his military career and went off to fight alongside his countrymen in the worst conditions imaginable. He returned to a government post later in the war, and continued in another for several years, although his political prospects remained dim.
After the war, he wrote what remains to this day the greatest history of that conflict. He fell back on his writing, his political career in tatters, but maintained close contacts with civil and military leaders in his nation and abroad.
He became a global celebrity, traveling overseas and lecturing to packed houses. On one such trip, he was struck by a car and nearly killed. He lost most of his fortune in the stock market, and lived in despair of money for a long time thereafter.
He lived the life of Cassandra for awhile, warning anyone who would listen that war was on the horizon again, a darker conflict even than the one in which he'd fought some years before. No one would listen. They thought him a warmonger and a crank.
When he was proven right some years later, in a most incredible fashion, he found himself first brought into government again, then became head of the government. It was small consolation. At the time, his country had been utterly defeated in battle, its chief allies had already surrendered, and it was likely to fall to its enemy within weeks. The once-proud nation stood alone in its darkest hour. Many government leaders were calling for peace talks, for appeasement, for surrender. Plans were made to run the war effort from exile overseas.
Yet he endured. He rallied his countrymen to his cause, and refused to give in, refused to even countenance the mere thought of giving in. He vowed to fight and die in the streets if it came down to it.
Eventually, he and his countrymen prevailed. He had quite literally saved Western civilization in the process, as Leonidas had at Thermopylae against the Persian hordes milennia before.
In the full flush of victory, he was cast from office. No matter. He wrote a history of the war, and earned the Nobel Prize for Literature in the process. He was returned to office one last time, and managed to once again predict another war to come, ever to be a realist, ever to be thought a fabulist.
He continued to write, and to lecture, and to paint. He died 40 years ago today, as blessed with years as he was with talent and vision, the man who had saved the world.
His name, of course, was Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill.
We are forever in his debt.
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