John Kerry as Richard the Lionhearted

by Phil Wolff in Current Affairs, Letters To Editors, Vision.

I'm pleased to pass along this essay by John Hale, USN Retired.

Celebrating Leadership >> Witnessing Civilization's Growth

Each Generation of Recorded Civilization has provided at least One Positive Lesson!

In example, I want to recall just one: The Magna Charta, in 1215.

From "War Through the Ages," accepted by the U.S. Marine Corps Institute, page 143:

"...The sack that followed was costly to future generations. For the Crusaders were destructive as well as rapacious, with consequences which have been summarized by James Westfall Thompson, 'The pillage is one of the blackest chapters in European history. Constantinople was the one city in Christendom which represented an unbroken continuity of higher culture and material civilization from the time of the ancient Greeks. Nearly the whole wondrous heritage was destroyed...Libraries, baths, palaces were reduced to heaps of ruin.'"

A young man returned home from those horrors of war. Along with his fellow veterans, Richard the LionHearted, found that, "King John increased the assumption of powers that created resentment among his barons and people(s). Some of their grievances were personal in nature; others were based on the desire to protect themselves and the population at large from encroachments of royal authority. In 1215, a group of barons (veterans) drew up a charter, which they sent to King John for his signature.

"The Magna Charta contained the first detailed definition of the relationship between the king and the barons (veterans), guaranteed feudal rights, and regularized the judicial system. The charter also abolished many abuses of feudal tenures, including assessments by the Crown without consent of the common council of the kingdom. Commerce was protected by guaranteeing the liberties, foriegn merchants were guaranteed freedom of commerce; and a system of weights and measures was established. The Courts of Common Pleas were set permanently and 'no freeman shall be taken and imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor shall we go upon him nor send upon him, except by lawful judgement of his peers and by the law of the land.'" (Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia).

The Seventieth Generation is now preparing to "pass the baton of Leadership."

Hanson W. Baldwin, military editor of the New York Times, once summarized: "Neither policies nor machines will determine the history of tomorrow. Man is the measure of all things...This, then, is the ultimate battlefield: the hearts and minds of men."

In 1971, a young man returned home from the horrors of war finding his country in disarray and confusion. We don't know the "first public speech" made by Richard 766 years before. I've got a feeling that it included witnessing the destruction of a great society. We do know that Richard, along with other witnesses of that destruction, Stood and Continued Standing until Good Change was enacted.

This Year 2004 Presidential Election is about Leadership and Good Change. It is not about witnessing "the blackest period of modern United States history."

The Model to Create Good Change for the Future is well-thought, well-prepared, based on experience and voting record, and is presented in "A Call to Service," by John Kerry.

And, I quote,

"Two decades later, Martin Luther King told us: 'Everybody can be great because everybody can serve." Today America will be secure and strong if everybody does serve, because there is work for all to do, a place for all to serve, and no reason to stay on the sidelines...

"That's why I'm running for president and that's why I have organized my campaign agenda around a call to service.

"It was my generation that in its youth heard that call. We did not think we were special; we simply believed in doing our part. And in the end, I suppose that is all any of us can do, and I believe each of us must try.

"Our great country, the world's oldest and strongest democracy, can become even greater if we commit ourselves to helping one another here at home and helping others beyond our borders achieve the values of freedom and democracy that we have championed to the envy of the whole world.

"This is my call to service and yours." (John Kerry, "A Call to Service, pages 199-200)

Winston Churchill gave us, "The further you are able to look back, the better you are prepared to define the future."

Personally, I truly believe that John Kerry has prepared and is willing to accept the burden of Leadership.

The lessons are there, opened book. One only needs to examine and consider.

"I believe that the genius of the United States is basically humanitarian. We are idealists who have always been willing to experiment with new social orders and new solutions to old problems. We are not a horde of people who will march backward in lockstep. We cannot long be satisfied with changes that are mean-spirited and destructive of our less favored citizens." James Michener, 1996, "This Noble Land"

You can make One Choice on November 2, 2004. Use Your Choice as wisely as has been made in the seventy generations of mankind.

Hopefully in service,

John Hale, USN, retired
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/veteransforkerry