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A couple days ago I mentioned the book 1776 might be a good gift for the troops if anyone felt inclined to buy it, read it and donate it.

My husband bought me a copy at Target yesterday; and I read it avidly, as it is fascinatingly written with much colorful detail. And it definitely would be a great gift for the troops, or anyone.

At the end of the book, which details the first year or so of the Revolutionary War--the siege and victory at Boston, the great losses while trying to defend New York, the retreat through New Jersey, and the victorious battles of Trenton and Princeton after re-crossing the Delaware-- the historian author remarks that six more years of war would follow before the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown and the signing of the Treaty of Paris ending the war in 1783.

And then David McCullough writes these MUST READ paragraphs:

“Financial support from France and the Netherlands, and military support from the French army and navy, would play a large part in the outcome. But in the last analysis it was Washington and the army that won the war for American independence. The fate of the war and the revolution rested on the army. The Continental Army—not the Hudson River or the possession of New York or Philadelphia—was the key to victory. And it was Washington who held the army together and gave it “spirit” through the most desperate of times.

“He was not a brilliant strategist or tactician, not a gifted orator, not an intellectual. At several crucial moments he had shown marked indecisiveness. He had made serious mistakes in judgment. But experience had been his great teacher from boyhood, and in this his greatest test, he learned steadily from experience. Above all, Washington never forgot what was at stake and he never gave up.

“Again and again, in letters to Congress and to his officers, and in his general orders, he had called for perseverance—for “perseverance and spirit,” for “patience and perseverance,” for “unremitting courage and perseverance.” Soon after the victories of Trenton and Princeton, he had written: “A people unused to restraint must be led, they will not be drove.” Without Washington’s leadership and unrelenting perseverance, the revolution almost certainly would have failed. “

"unremitting courage and perseverance...."

If only those on the left understood what these words really mean. If our congress was controlled by the likes of our leftist friends (of today) back in 1776, we would all be British subjects.

Patience combined with unremitting courage and perseverance is what our nation needs to practice. The next decade will determine the next century to come. If we are to write history, rather than just live it, we best take these words to heart.

Prayers lifted asking for God's continued blessings on our Troops.