Honor in America

[John Bennett]

[not my own words, but I liked them -jb]

We live in an age when the rich and powerful substitute good lawyers and good public-relations specialists for good character. It was not always so in America. There was a time when a man's honor meant more than his life.

One of the most intriguing characters in American history is Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy. Stephens was a shriveled little man and a notorious hypochondriac, though nevertheless a brilliant lawyer and an outstanding orator. After the war, he was elected governor of Georgia and got into a dispute with another individual.

Needless to say, the other individual towered over Stephens, who was less than 5 feet tall and never weighed more than 91 pounds. They got into a knife fight, and in no time, the larger man had Stephens flat on his back, with the blade of his bowie knife at the little man's throat.

"Retract, damn you, or I'll cut your throat," the man growled.

"Cut it," said Stephens.

Fortunately for Stephens, bystanders intervened, but the point is that Stephens' word meant more to him than his life. He had told the truth, and he would die rather than retract it.

Honor, as a screenwriter once had a character say, is a gift a man gives to himself. You cannot eliminate dishonesty, a lack of ethics or bad character with legislation. If the American people, by and large, are dishonest or at least apathetic about corruption, then so be it. We are never going to have a government better than ourselves.

[AllanJGAnderson]

There still is some honor in America.Allthough we live in a completly corrupt society, there are still people and places who have honor. I think it is each man's job for himself to mantain honor, and should he choose not to, then he is scum. As for Americans in the past, there were plenty with honor, look at Sgt. Alvin York of WW1, or all the men of the 101st Airborne in WW2. And all the men and women serving for our very freedom over sea's in Iraq right now. There is still honor in The US, but it's only possesed by a special, elite assortment of people. It would be nice if everyone was honorable in their dealings, but Thats why society has always given rise to the need for a warrior caste anyways.

[TonyU]

There still is some honor in America.Allthough we live in a completly corrupt society,

That statement is contradictory. If there is still some honor then we are not completely dishonorable.
I see the worst of society, but I still think there is more honor out there than just the elite.

[Abbax8]

Since 911, the police and emergancy responders have been well recognized for the job they do, often displaying heroism as a normal part of the job. Many conduct themselves with honor and integrity. Another group that displays honor and integrity are the parents out there who get up everyday, 365days /year and who are really on call 24/7 for their family. Many struggle financially, fight exhaustion yet still keep focused on what's important, their kids. Faced with difficult choices on a regular basis, they hold true to living their life honestly, give of themselves to their families and others, and resist the urge for the EASY $ or to cut and run to greener pastures. There are many who do decide to take the EASY course, and most kids see them and know about them. This makes the task of the honest ones even harder, and also more important. If and when we ALL decide to go the easy route, then there will be no more honor in our country, MAY THIS DAY NEVER COME! I agree with Tony. There are many folks out there who display honor, they just don't get the press.

Peace

Dennis

[scruffysmileyface]

I see honor every day. I eat my lunch next to it. It wears a uniform and calls me sir, although I haven't earned it.

A young Airborne Ranger named Pat Tillman comes to mind. He gave up a multi-million-dollar NFL contract to enlist and serve his country, and ultimately died in Afghanistan. Also, a civilian truck driver in Iraq named Tommy Hammill, who escaped from insurgents after a number of days in captivity. After that unimaginable ordeal, he just wanted to come back to work, so he could save some money for his family.

My parents were a good example of how each of us must live with his or her own honor. My mother was born dirt poor and had nothing for most of her life. She grew up in a time when eveything she was told led her to believe that she would marry an honest, hardworking man and she would have everything she needed.

Well, it didn't happen. She married my father, and he did the cut & run thing, spent the last 30 years of his life sitting in a bar, drinking beer & hiding in the back room whenever someone came to see him.

I think of how I would react, left alone with a little brat to take care of (and let's just say I wasn't an easy kid to raise). But she never whined, she never let it show. She just dragged her tired self out of bed every morning and went to her low-paying, dead-end job, just so she could feed me and all that.

To me, between the servicemembers I work with and my mother - Honor is not dead in America, you just have to know where to look.

~scruff

[jwinch2]

[not my own words, but I liked them -jb]


Honor, as a screenwriter once had a character say, is a gift a man gives to himself. You cannot eliminate dishonesty, a lack of ethics or bad character with legislation. If the American people, by and large, are dishonest or at least apathetic about corruption, then so be it. We are never going to have a government better than ourselves.

Rob Roy would be the movie there but the next part is good when his son asks "Father, do women have honor? Ah son, women are the very soul of honor"...

Great movie and a good topic for discussion. I believe that many people in todays life have honor but it might manifest itself in different ways then in previous times. Many people who cannot afford much go out of their ways to sacrifice to help others. You see amazing examples of it everyday.

Good stuff!

Jason

[John Bennett]

Beautifuly written John!

Goodness No! I didn't write that. To claim I did would be highly dishonorable.

That was written by one of my favorite political commentators; Charley Reese.

Here is another article by Reese concerning General Robert E. Lee. I hope to someday be even a small fraction of the man Lee was...


Robert E. Lee by Charley Reese

This month, all over the South, Southerners ...toast the birthdays of Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Stonewall Jackson. Lee was born on Jan. 19, and Jackson on Jan. 21.

No American general comes close to matching their battlefield exploits until we get to Gen. George S. Patton in World War II. Lee, despite being on the losing side, was universally admired the world over and was showered with offers of lucrative jobs and even an estate in England.

Lee – unlike today's lesser generals who leap at book contracts and fat speaking fees despite have no record of any great accomplishment – refused to profit from the fame earned at the expense of so many young men's lives. He turned down the gifts and the job offers and instead accepted the position of president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University). His salary was $1,500 a year.

Americans in all regions would do well to recommend this man's life as a model for their sons. Lee came as close to being perfect as a human being can be. He was tall, handsome and bright, and finished second in his class at West Point without a single demerit. He married a descendant of George Washington and, again unlike some people these days, kept his wedding vows and loved and cherished his wife.

Lee was a hero long before the secession crisis. He was superintendent of West Point. He distinguished himself during the Mexican War and showed such sterling character, courage and leadership that he was the first choice to lead the Northern armies when the secession crisis arose. Now think for a moment what a decision this man faced.

He was by choice a professional soldier, and here he was being offered the highest position a professional could hope for. Furthermore, he thought slavery was a moral evil, and he was opposed to secession.

As a professional soldier, he surely knew that if war came, the South would lose. It was outmanned, outgunned, out-railroaded and out-industrialized from Day One. A man who put ambition above all else would have accepted in a New York minute, and no doubt the War Between the States would have been over much sooner. It was Lee's tactical genius that kept the South going.

But Lee could not bear to make war on his native state of Virginia, where all of his family and friends lived. He declined the offer and resigned his commission. He showed such brilliance on the battlefield that he is ranked among all the greats in the history of the world. But it is Lee's character, not his war exploits, that marks him as a man worth emulating.

One of his generals said of Lee, "As a soldier the men respected him; as a man they loved him." Though old for his time (he died at age 63 in 1870), he shared the hardships of the men, often sleeping on the ground. Any presents sent to him were passed along to his men. He wore a plain uniform. He never spoke ill of anyone, even his enemies. He never took credit for victories, but he always accepted personal responsibility for defeats. He was a devout Christian.

His son tells a story that illustrates how revered he was. After the war, Lee's sons answered a knock on the door to find a big Irish sergeant wearing a Yankee uniform and carrying a large basket of food. He had heard that Lee was hungry, and having served with him on the frontier before the war, could not stand that thought.

Lee's sons were assuring him that no one was hungry when Gen. Lee came to the door. He convinced the sergeant that he would accept the gift only if he could pass it along to the wounded in the hospital. The sergeant grabbed Lee in a bearhug and said, with tears streaming down his face, "Goodbye, Colonel. God bless ye. If I could have got over in time, I would have been with ye." I doubt any sergeant has hugged a general since then.

[Abbax8]

Another instance in Lee's life talks volumes about the mans courage and convictions. It was after the war, the South was still reeling from the war and now carpetbaggers were making things worse. Slavery was ended officially, however people were trying to figure out just what that meant. At Sunday service Communion time came and a former slave woman was the first person to kneel at the Communion rail. The preacher was unsure what to do, noone else came forward to kneel next to her. The silence and stillness was awkward. Then an aged man made his way slowly to the communion rail and knelt beside her, it was Robert E. Lee. Others quickly followed. This is supposedly a true story, I saw it on the history channel, a biography of Lee. Such is the character of a great man.

Peace

Dennis

[Erik]

If Lee had so much honor, he would not have killed many Americans to protect slavery. Seems he had no problem killing people in other states than Virginia.

Let's not loose sight of that, in addition to his sound personal character.

For that era of history I nominate Harriet Tubman & Co. as examples of honor.

And I'm with Dennis regarding families and parents, especially the single ones working like mad to care for their kids.

That's honor.

[John Bennett]

If Lee had so much honor, he would not have killed many Americans to protect slavery. Seems he had no problem killing people in other states than Virginia. Let's not loose sight of that,

I encourage you to be both less ignorant and less obnoxious in your pronouncements, especially when attempting self-righteousness.

Turning off the teevee and cracking a good book might help alleviate your ignorance of American history.

[Erik]

Sorry, John, I don't mean to be rude, obnoxious, or self-righteous.

I've read a bit about Lee and what he was like as a person (or how history remembers him) and he's impressive, that's for sure. He made a lot of sacrifices for others both on a daily, personal level and on a grander, public level. This is true and I respect it.

And I know he was an abolitionist and took some stands for that in a time and place where such an attitude was not PC.

And I understand that the Civil War was, for most people, about States' rights vs. Federal, that they saw themselves as Virginian, Georgian, and so on, more than as American, as well, and that many were fighting for their state against invaders from other states.

As I understand it, emancipation was not the main issue at the time.

But I cannot support a slavery-based culture and call it honorable, nor those who fight and kill to protect it. I just cannot do it.

I didn't mean to come across as rudely as I did. Sorry.

And I don't have a TV.

[Spartan]

The majority of the Confederate soldiers didn't own any plantation nor any slaves. They fought b/c they didn't want to be told how to run their own business. The war was fought over states rights.

[scruffysmileyface]

So Erik, you're saying that anyone who fought on the Confederate side was dishonorable? I mean, because they had slaves in the South?

You realize that the Confederate soldier, to include General Lee, did not fight for slavery, right? You realize that Lee and many of his generals had as little to do with slavery as you or I, right?

So is it dishonorable to fight for one's country, one's state, because of the unpopular policies of one's government?

Agreed that slavery in itself is dishonorable and indefensible on behalf of the government that condones it. But are you saying that dishonor passes down to the fighting man who bleeds for his state? Is that the basis for your argument against the memory of Robert E. Lee's honor?

If so, I would remind you that the United States right now has some pretty unpopular policies, and I'm sure some day our descendants will look back on some of the things we do in the same light as that in which we see slavery. I'm not making a political statement, other than that some of our policies are unpopular. But does that somehow detract from the honor and courage displayed by our military in defense of our way of life?

Lee was an honorable man, and that fact stands unchanged by some modern people's inability to distinguish between historical reality and the nonsense and misconceptions that so many Americans have been taught. The War Between the States was not fought over slavery - it was barely an issue until late in the war, and even then only because Lincoln chose to make it an issue for political reasons.

Lee was by no means defending slavery, and your post toward that end is offensive in the extreme.


~scruff

[entorma]

honor still flows swift in the vains of the United States.but as said many times before this reply honor is being tanted by dishonorable perhaps because the dishonorable have never incounterd true honor.so perhaps if we all showed honor to our fellow people we could intern influince the dishonorable to change their ways.granted this change would be slow.effectivness is shure to follow.

[TonyU]

That would mean along the same lines as the Vietnam war and the war in Iraq.
So if you (hypothetical you) disagree with the goverment polices and consider it dishonest and dishonorable does that mean that the men and woman of Vietnam and Iraq are or were dishonorable.
THAT I disagree with.
IMO soceity is intrigued by negativity and contraversy. That's all we hear about in the media. For every one heroic act we hear about thousand other nonheroic acts. The media blames us, we blame the media.
It's like Dennis stated, there are constant reminders of honor around us, we just fail to see it.

[Erik]

In regard to Lee: First, I didn't mean to insult you guys like it has been taken, or Lee, himself, nor the South, for that matter. So please accept my apology.

So if you (hypothetical you) disagree with the goverment polices and consider it dishonest and dishonorable does that mean that the men and woman of Vietnam and Iraq are or were dishonorable.
THAT I disagree with.

I'm with you. That is unfair.

If a hypothetical someone goes against their beliefs (not specifically refering to the soldiers in TonyU's example), then they are not reaching the peak of honor. Not sure how to phrase that - if they are doing wrong because they are unwilling (for whatever reason) to stand for what they believe is right, then they are dishonoring themselves, they are compromising their honor (to me, at least).

An example - in Casualties of War (Michael J. Fox & Sean Penn in Vietnam) there was a GI who begged Fox to back him up when he expressed that he did not want to rape their captive. But then he caved in to peer pressure. In my eyes he is doubly dishonorable because he knew what was wrong but did it anyway.

Other example - a parent, neighbor, or teacher who just stands by while a kid is abused. They know it is happening, they know it is wrong, but they are too cowardly to take a stand.

If, however, the person does not know better, then I would exculpate them. And if the situation is a mixed bag, then the waters are muddy.

Another case - what of people who lead solid lives but their actions cause harm? Is that honorable? Even for ostensibly good reasons?

I did not mean to imply that Lee is scum - not at all. I see him as a mixed case, like Rommel, for example. Stellar in many significant ways though, had he won, the world would have been a worse place for it, even if the results would have been a side-effect and not the main goal or consequence of his actions. Consequently, to me, he seems a mixed case, NOT a horrible person, though not an unblemished hero.

It's like Dennis stated, there are constant reminders of honor around us, we just fail to see it.

I think we must take the time to notice and appreciate it.

We must take stands for what we believe in, even if it is unpopular at the time.

We must be willing to look at ourselves critically and be willing to hear out our own enemies and learn from what they teach us.

We must be accountable for our errors and harm we cause.

We must be proud enough to follow our sense of integrity and humble enough to honestly hear what we don't wish to.

And we must follow through and not just pay lip service.

Just my $0.02.

[David Craik]

Rommel's a great hero of mine. Also of my father's, who fought against his Afrika Korps in WWII. Had a portrait of him on the wall until the day he died.

[John Bennett]

This is the best book on Rommel I have ever read...

Rommel: The Trail of the Fox by David Irving

( Budoseek! Amazon link here , then search for " rommel irving " )



Most libraries have it. It is also available for free download. 4.4mb .pdf Email me and I'll send you the link.

[David Craik]

I've got a first edition printing of that one, and a few others. 'Knight's Cross' is very good too, as well as Rommel's own 'Infantry Attacks'.

[Erik]

Glad we found some common ground. I've actually been loosing sleep for the past few nights feeling bad that I offended you guys - John B. the most.