--Crustacean
Tsk, tsk, tsk! Some people never learn.
BUMP!
Posted on 01/02/2002 8:54:55 AM PST by vannrox
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
A Genuine Hero
Calvin E. Johnson Jr.The tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, reminds people of Dec. 7, 1941. Like Pearl Harbor, the attack on America this year has brought out the best in people. Everyone has been glued to their TV sets to witness live accounts of true heroism, such as that of the brave police, firefighters and ordinary citizens who came to the rescue of their countrymen and women in the Big Apple.
Monday, Dec. 31, 2001
True heroes have always been held in high esteem by Americans. When I was a young man my heroes were ball players and cowboys, but my all-time hero was, and still is, Gen. Robert E. Lee of Virginia.
Lee is still studied and admired by America and the world. He is not only respected as a sharp military leader but also admired as a man who loved God, loved his family, was a man of honor and virtue and a man of his word.
General Lee was born on Jan. 19, 1807, at Stratford House in Westmoreland County, Va. He graduated from West Point Military Academy in 1829 and was second in his class and the only one to serve four years without a demerit. In 1852, he was appointed superintendent of West Point, a position he held until 1855.
Lee served honorably in the United States Army, beginning as a second lieutenant and becoming first lieutenant in 1836. He would become captain two years later.
Lee was appointed engineer-in-chief for the United States Army in Mexico in 1846 and was breveted major in April of that year for gallant conduct at the battle of Cerro Gordo. He was made lieutenant colonel in August 1847, for distinguished bravery in the actions of Contraras and Churubusco, and colonel on Sept. 13, 1847, for his services at Chapultepec.
At the outbreak of the War Between the States, Lee was offered a command in the Union Army but turned it down when his home state of Virginia was invaded. Lee believed, as did most Southerners at that time, that his state came before the union, as did his father, Lighthorse Harry Lee in the American Revolution.
Lee began with command of the Virginia troops and in 1865, before surrender, would command the army of the Confederate States of America. Lee, after surrender, asked his men to go home and be good Americans, and Southerners have done what he wanted. The South has always been the first to supply men and women to all wars that the United States has entered.
After the war Lee took the presidency of Washington College, which eventually became Washington and Lee University, and helped the school come out of some very hard times. The university ranks among the best today.
Some say that Lee had trouble with his heart as far back as the war. He died in 1870, and his legacy should be remembered and taught to our young people, who are always in need of heroes. Gen. Robert E. Lee was a genuine American hero for all times.
God bless America!
Chronologically incorrect. Lee resigned from the Union Army after VA seceded, but well before it was "invaded."
I agree, this is a very good read, but...
There is something like an 80-year span between the Revolution and the Civil War.
Are we sure Harry Lee is Rob't. E.'s father? (I'm ignorant on this point, if he is, I apologize...)
You might try studying history rather than just reading someone's revision to fit their perpetual victimhood.
And before you launch into your attack on Southern Rednecks, I am from Wisconsin and now live in New Hampshire.
Tsk, tsk, tsk! Some people never learn.
BUMP!
BTW, are you on my newsletter mailing list?
Much like my support your own right to free speech (no matter how little I care for what you have to say.)
I can't be held personally responsible for how you choose to exercise that right.
That right there makes him a hero in my book and men like this have not been seen in United States government for a long, long time.
However, he left the country to go to the Barbados around 1812 in order to restore his health (after being beaten by a mob in Baltimore while trying to defend an editor friend's right to publish anti-war articles) and possibly to escape creditors as well. He left his wife and young children behind in Alexandria, Virginia, so young Robert didn't have much contact with him.
In 1818 he decided to return to see his family after realizing his health wasn't improving. Along the way he took a turn for the worse and asked the ship's captain to put in off the coast of Georgia. Ironically, he found himself at the home of his former comrade-in-arms, the late General Greene of Revolutionary War fame, where he died.
Ironically, during the Civil War, RE Lee ordered cannon batteries to be built along the Potomac River. One of these batteries was located on his father's birthplace.
Exactly!
The alternative to this would imply that a state has only those rights that you would agree with? how principled would that be?
This seems to be pretty close to the idea that I would defend to the death YOUR right to espouse wrong ideas. I may not agree with you, but I'll defend your right to be wrong.
Lee was not defending state's rights to practise slavery, as you insist on saying. He was defending state's rights, period. Why can't you understand the distinction?
Slavery may have been reprehensible, but the fact that it was practised in the southern states did not make those states ineligible to enjoy their natural rights.
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