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Entry: Duty: The Sublimest Word Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/duty_the_sublimest_word#1448 Post contents: Taki wrote: "...Sully Vogel, the strongest man ever to attend the Naval Academy..." A man of sublime honour, because he was a man of sublime courage. I hesitate even to write his name, because I feel unworthy to praise him at all. Some men are above the praise of other men - as Lincoln acknowledged in his Gettysburg address, "...in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." That said, just a reminder that no man's honour ever resides in his physical strength, or even in whether he feels fear. I forget this man's name offhand, but I know a story about a German Jew who fought in the trenches in World War One - he was a very small, sensitive man - and a very big, fearless sergeant in the trench taunted him for shaking with fear. The sensitive little man replied, "But I am more courageous than you, because if you were as afraid as I am, you would have run away a long time ago." My father, who fought in WW II, always taught me, "Courage isn't the absence of fear. Courage is doing what you must do even though you're afraid." And another one of my great elders taught me, "Hemingway was wrong. Courage is NOT 'grace under pressure'; courage comes from within; it is the willingness to overcome our own fear." And one more gloss: General Lee was mistaken to call "duty" the most sublime word. The most sublime word is "Charity", and it is inseparable from courage. Christ had no duty to die on the cross; it was all perfect charity, and thus it was perfect courage. All that said, this is a beautiful piece by Taki, and his very damning conclusion about the physical AND moral cowardice of the neocons is 100 percent true. Sent at: 2008 07 25