Let this be our finest hour . . .

Let this be

our finest hour . . .

I'm writing this letter on

Wednesday, the day after the attack on America's sovereignty, so many

more things will be known if and when this is printed. I don't want my

anger to diffuse. I would rather my visceral reaction speak for me, because

I believe it to be the right one.

My solution, when confronted

with the present, is normally to look to the past, and so it was natural

to look to a man who had recognized evil early, and in the face of derision

from his peers, had held the line and triumphed in the end. So I reread

portions of Manchester's "The Last Lion," a Biography about

Winston Churchill. I quickly came to the lines I was looking for on page

433: "But that is how he saw life, as a struggle between the forces

of light and the powers of darkness. He never tried to hide it, or veil

it, or hoodwink or mystify or dupe his audiences. It was an authentic

view of life; there is no need to justify it."

A few pages later, Manchester

describes a dinner Churchill shared with Walter Lippmann, who recounted

to Churchill his afternoon with the (prewar) Nazi sympathizer Joseph Kennedy.

Kennedy had left the impression with Lippmann that war was inevitable,

and that Britain would lose. Churchill's reply: "It may be true,

it may well be true...that this country will at the outset of this coming,

and to my mind almost inevitable war be exposed to dire peril and fierce

ordeals. It may be true that steel and fire will rain down upon us day

and night scattering death and destruction far and wide. It may be true

that our sea communications will be imperiled and our food supplies placed

in jeopardy.

"Yet these trials and

disasters, I ask you to believe me, Mr Lippmann, will serve but to steel

the resolution of the British people and to enhance our will for victory.

No, the Ambassador should not have spoken so, Mr Lippmann: he should not

have said that dreadful word. Yet supposing as I do not for one moment

suppose that Mr Kennedy were correct in his tragic utterance, then I for

one would willingly lay down my life in combat, rather than, in fear of

defeat, surrender to the menaces of these most sinister men.

"It will then be for you,

for the Americans, to preserve and maintain the great heritage of the

English-speaking peoples. It will be for you to think imperially, which

means to think always of something higher and more vast than one's own

national interests. Nor should I die happy in the great struggle which

I see before me, were I not convinced that if we in this dear dear island

succumb to the ferocity and might of our enemies, over there in your distant

and immune continent the torch of liberty will burn untarnished and I

trust and hope undismayed."

Later, after he'd become Prime

Minister, and while German armored forces were driving through the Ardennes

and Belgium, and the Allies seemed on the verge of defeat, he gave what

has become probably his most famous speech over the BBC. He explained

the situation to his nation, holding nothing back, but finished with these

lines:

"Let us therefore brace

ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire

and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This

was their finest hour.'"

Our Nation has been attacked.

Our wives, brothers, and progeny have been slaughtered in their thousands.

The murderers seek to freeze us in their merciless headlights of terror

and fear. If we cannot conduct our business free of angst; if we allow

the replay of that stolen plane decimating our nation's business capital,

to echo through our consciousness; if we make ourselves prisoners of ourselves,

then they have won.

Let us strike back in our righteous

anger and lay waste to the terrorists, and those who harbored them. Where

reason has failed, let fear and uncertainty reign among our enemies. Innocents

will die in this struggle that we didn't start but most assuredly, must

finish. Make no mistake, our survival as an economic power depends on

our bracing ourselves to our duties and seeing this thing through.

Some good Americans will counsel

moderation. I don't believe they are unpatriotic, they are just wrong.

Our allies are already supporting us, and we appreciate their empathy.

But it was we who were attacked, and we shouldn't be shackled in our response.

Any and every weapon in the arsenal should be considered, and we should

formally declare war before their use.

As for the few people dancing

in the street at our misfortune, to paraphrase Shakespeare: Their jest

will savor but of shallow wit, when thousands weep more, than did laugh

at it.

Timothy J. Parker

Peachtree City