This is the article I wanted to write, but way better. I've recently read a couple of books about Peleliu, Okinawa and Sicily, and you really hit the mark. WW2 was fought by ordinary guys doing a job no one should ever be asked to do with incredible courage and determination and , yes, fear and self-doubt. Hegseth and Trump have no idea.
While not a “warrior”, my mother too fought overseas in the CWAC in WWll. Too often the women are forgotten.
Often overlooked is the famines and food shortages of the 1930’s which contributed to those smaller bodies. Contrasted to the supplemented jacked up freaks that Hegseth seems to value they were more supple and flexible. Muscle mass does not equal intelligent reaction.
You have to wonder if there’s an underlying communication system these generals have that the Fox News weekend host isn’t aware of.
I haven’t read the article yet, but something has been going round in my head about Hegseth. And that is that people who have been in wars would never talk about ‘total lethality’. People who have seen war up close don’t tend to glorify wars nor the military.
They know that wars are sometimes necessary but they generally would prefer disputes to be sorted out via three-shirt summits in a smoke-filled conference room in Brussels rather than sending young people to Flanders.
My dad was drafted into the US Marines in the Korean War. But he was not one of those muscle-bound Marines. He learned to type, and served bureaucratic purposes, as a conscientious objector (after they'd put him in detention while they tried to figure out why they drafted him). More than one way to serve your country.
Boy did you hit the nail on the head … I have tried (and failed) to come up with two boobs less likely to be in charge of the mighty US military … what a couple of clowns.
The “straight out of central casting” view brings with it a stereotypical sense of leadership as well - one that harkens back to an American reverence for the individual cowboy who made the world what it is today. It is also reflected in the George C. Scott depiction of Patton. Single great men are all that is needed for societies to advance and prosper - we just have to follow slavishly their wisdom and talent in order to have the kind of world we want. Nothing is seen as a collaborative effort when in reality nothing gets better because of the brilliance of just one man. Even if that person has pretty white teeth, a square jaw and muscles.
Thank you, Dan Gardener for this article. You are so spot on about the pathological image consciousness of the culture surrounding Trump et al. Hegeseth may have muscle, but I have yet to see an ounce of ability to lead, an ounce of intelligence or an ounce of knowledge. He is comparable to a peacock, I think. It is no wonder that the generals in his audience sat in silence during his speech. We can only hope that other countries avoid following the American example and only appoint people to roles such as SecDef who know what they are doing who have advisers who know what they are doing!
Stats say muscle and stature have never been important in warfare. While there are obvious standouts, like Richard Lionheart or Frederick of Saxony, the vast majority of extant armour shows that soldiers of the time, of any time, probably, including nobility, who could afford good food, were, well, average. You could say "duh", because any large sample will be close to average, but this is something that seems to be counterintuitive.
Anyway, it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. Just look at Joe Pesci :)
Thank you for this article! I live in Eastern Europe, two steps away from the war. When I saw the news with the excerpts from the "warrior" meeting I felt appalled, disgusted and disappointed, though, to be honest, not for the 1st time this year (don't want to revisit the dezastruos February meeting). My thoughts revolved around: are these the most important values and beliefs you want to instill in your soldiers or are these the most pressing matters to discuss with your upper military echelon today? I am already numb from all this human foolishness.
I know exactly how you feel. So much foolish thinking of the sort we know, from the pages of history, can only lead to misery. Sometimes I fear we will never learn.
I was actually a bit (!) emotional when leaving my previous comment and totally missed to comment on your address regarding the perfect warrior image and your numerous examples that defy the brainwashing torrent of the necessity for a flawless heroic body. Your examples were many and various, and I was thinking if I can provide such an example but of the present day. And yes, I found such one - the Azovstal defenders, mostly soldiers from various units, whom courageously and heroically defended their stronghold for almost 3 months amidst a totally bombarded city. And no, they did not (also do not - some are still alive) have perfect puffed and tanned bodies, and no perfect haircuts as well, some of them were women, and some civilians. But they became a symbol of global courage, resistance and national dignity, you can check out their story if you are interested. So yes, I was meaning that you are totally right: the bravest/ smartest/ wisest/ etc., warrior does not come in perfect “package”.
Every single person you pictured was a physically fit white male and is not a depiction of the current average US service member. You're correct that is what a warrior looks like.
They all look like they could pass a PT test. And they all look presentable in uniform. The same cant be said for our current formations. Is it the most important thing... no. Are we focusing on anything important. No. That's the point.
Everyone should check out LT Gen Mark Hertlings speech on obesity and its risk to national security. It was in 2015 lol.
All I know is we be 38 trillion in debt talking about spending more on stupid tech and proxy wars.
No sane person disputes that a certain level of fitness matters, with the requirement varying by role, as any general or admiral knows perfectly well. But you seem to be equating “not fat" with “fit.” That is scientifically incorrect. It is also ahistorical. Do you know why Audie Murphy was so short and thin? He was the son of a poor sharecropper. In that era, poverty stunted growth and made those who suffered it extremely thin. In this era, poverty leads to horrible diets, which make people fat. Hence, poverty is associated with excessive weight in much the same way poverty was once associated with insufficient weight.
More to the point, Hegseth is making a fetish of training of the sort that squares with our bullshit images of what a tough and strong person looks like — an image that has been wrong for a very long time and is getting more wrong by the day. That is the point of the article.
No Im equating that you used combat proven special operations dudes and a medal of honor recipient that proved his fitness in combat to his men for that medal. Yea that era was called the great depression.
I mean the dude didnt even use muscular in his speech... he just said everyone has to pass the height and weight standards, pt standard 2x a year. He said he thinks people should be clean shaven and we'll groomed. Then said its gross to see fat people in uniform...
So I think every picture of a warrior you posted fits pretty well into that mold.
This essay might be the most ridiculously naive post I’ve read in weeks.
All of these photos are 80+ years old. Improvements in training and knowledge of nutrition has added pounds of muscle onto the average athlete’s frame today. Nevertheless, I’d bet that these old-timers could do pushups, pull-ups, and sit ups until the author puked just from watching them.
I have never heard Pete Hegseth say, infer, or imply that he wanted to build an army of roid-riddled gym freaks.
Yes, anyone who says anything you don't like is "the left."
Hegseth ordered an almost unprecedented gathering of generals and admirals to hear a speech from the secretary of defense, who talked about ... fitness. And getting rid of fatties because fat people are "not a good look." That is demented. Generals and admirals know perfectly freaking well fitness is important in military roles. There are fitness standards. So why that? Because Hegseth wants women out of combat roles on the spurious grounds that they lower standards. That is stupid for too many reasons to explain. But the more fundamental point is the one you are studiously ignoring: Military technology has steadily diminished the importance of muscle, and even physicality more generally, for the past 500 years, and that trend has accelerated massively since WWII. Burpees don't do much against hypersonic missiles or drones. That's the cutting edge -- and that is what one would think a secretary of defense would focus his attention for a speech to the entire cadre of the nation's generals and admirals. But he didn't. Why? Because Trump and his minions are obsessed with images, not reality -- especially images of "warriors," not the reality of modern war.
Women in combat roles. My mother always complained that while my dad fought one enemy at a time (Germans then Japanese) she had to fight the Americans, Canadians, Poles, Free French, Czechs...
Holy straw man! Show me where I said anything REMOTELY like what you are denouncing. (By the way, do you know what percentage of the US military is infantry? By the most generous measure, it's probably between 10 and 15%.)
I’ve read, and read again, your entire essay just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Your entire essay is meant to discredit Pete Hegseth and, by proxy, discredit his Commander-in-Chief. There’s no underlying theme here… no allegory. There’s just inferences of incompetence.
You haven’t “said something that I don’t like”. You’ve said some things that are patently false. Big difference.
You included 80 year old pictures of shirtless GIs with the clear implication that a bunch of scrawny 18-20 boys won WW2. You were right. They did. And I guarantee you that every single one of them could pass Pete’s physical fitness standards.
What you’ve failed to show us are the pictures of dudes in dresses hunkered in ash at the foot of Mt. Suribachi.
Or the battalion of Brie Larsons and Jessica Chastains storming Utah Beach.
Or the pictures of the bearded, potbellied drone pilots moving on Manila to retake the Philippines. (Ok… a little strawman and hyperbole here, but you get the point)
You can’t find those pictures, Dan, because it’s not reality. Not in 1944, and not now.
I understand why you might question the need for support personnel to meet these fitness standards, after all, they’re not front line infantry.
Well, I can give you an example.
My uncle Buddy was killed one night in 1968. He had volunteered for the Army because he was guaranteed a job in motor transport. That’s right, Dan, he was a fucking mechanic. During Tet, he had to drop his wrench and pick up his rifle. Ya see, the NVA and Vietcong didn’t give a shit whether he was infantry or support personnel. Uncle Buddy caught one right in the sneezer and that was the end of that beautiful, scrawny 20 year old warrior.
This is not a rare occurrence.
Unlike dad and Uncle Buddy, I chose the Marine Corps. In the Corps, every swingin’ dick is an infantryman. You’re either infantry, or you’re backup infantry… period. I chose infantry (because who wants to be a backup).
In a combat infantry unit, cohesion and uniformity are paramount. Individualism is catastrophic. And every General and staff officer in the Hegseth meeting is well aware of that fact.
Lastly, the title of your essay is “What does a warrior look like”. Dan, just google “Chinese army infantry” and take a gander at some warriors. Not an ounce of fat, no beards, pot bellys, no Jessica Chastains or Brie Larsons, and certainly no dresses and high heels.
They’re ready… we’re not.
Whether you accept or deny that fact, it’s reality.
Technology alone can’t beat 10 million of these men. Feelings and feminism won’t even slow them down.
We need young men… lean, mean, green men.
I fear Pete Hegseth has very little time to turn things around.
Or take this more recent group photo of the SAS. Most of them look like fellas who’d turn up at your front door offering to tarmac your drive with some leftover ‘blacky’ from a council job.
You make a point, no doubt. However, I see Hegseth differently. You said that today’s gym culture creates fitter men than in the 40s. But I think Hegseth and his Olympian body type clearly show that the pendulum is swinging back from the normalization of extremes like fat beauty contests, pregnant people, and women with penises. Do you admit that the progressive left agenda went too far, and it is time to head back to the center?
Excellent breakdown of authoritarian creation. You did leave out one very important fact. You started by explaining where Donald Trump's father, Fred, made his money. You should also inform readers that his father, Friedrich Drumpf, a failed barber in Germany, circa 1880's, was due to be drafted into the German army so he at 17, give or take a year, left for America. His older sister had married an American and was living in Queens, New York. She brought him to our country. He had no money, no job, no real skills. It was pure chain immigration, the very thing Trump has demonized. So, Grandpa Drumpf failed as a barber once again only this time in Queens. He then headed out to the Pacific Northwest where he got a job in a hotel that just happened to also serve as a brothel. Now, he found his calling. He was a pimp of sorts. He followed the gold miners up the coast selling women and even illegally selling seemingly unused mining claims, but that's yet another chapter in the birth of the Trump Crime Family. He amassed $30,000 and went back to Germany to marry a girl from his village. He tried to re-start his former life there, and the German government told him he had to leave because he was a draft dodger and now an American traveling under an American passport. His German citizenship had long been revoked because he was a draft dodger who was now an American. He had to leave Germany. He went back to Queens and started investing in real estate; hence, the start of the Drumpf fortune. At the onset of World War 1, he recognized his German name Friedrich Drumpf would be unpopular so he changed it to a more anglified Fred Trump. The Trump patriarch died in the 1919 Spanish Flu epidemic. His very young and only son, Fred, took over the family business and as you said used very unscrupulous tactics, including mob connections to build a fortune upon which little Donnie has been able to skate through life. Fred also had Donnie mentored for years by his own personal lawyer, Roy Cohn the famous and highly unethical mob lawyer. He taught Donnie how to be what he is today, and that too is story for another post. Thank you again for hopefully opening people's eyes as to the roots of our most corrupt president.
Character trumps all. And the best exemplar I can think of is Air Commodore Len Birchall, the Saviour of Ceylon. Canadian as it happens. Not physically impressive at all. But the very exemplar of leadership, courage, and moral fibre that he demonstrated in spades as a prisoner of the Japanese.
This is the article I wanted to write, but way better. I've recently read a couple of books about Peleliu, Okinawa and Sicily, and you really hit the mark. WW2 was fought by ordinary guys doing a job no one should ever be asked to do with incredible courage and determination and , yes, fear and self-doubt. Hegseth and Trump have no idea.
While not a “warrior”, my mother too fought overseas in the CWAC in WWll. Too often the women are forgotten.
Often overlooked is the famines and food shortages of the 1930’s which contributed to those smaller bodies. Contrasted to the supplemented jacked up freaks that Hegseth seems to value they were more supple and flexible. Muscle mass does not equal intelligent reaction.
You have to wonder if there’s an underlying communication system these generals have that the Fox News weekend host isn’t aware of.
I haven’t read the article yet, but something has been going round in my head about Hegseth. And that is that people who have been in wars would never talk about ‘total lethality’. People who have seen war up close don’t tend to glorify wars nor the military.
They know that wars are sometimes necessary but they generally would prefer disputes to be sorted out via three-shirt summits in a smoke-filled conference room in Brussels rather than sending young people to Flanders.
Hegseth is an idiot.
https://www.badassoftheweek.com/hester
My dad was drafted into the US Marines in the Korean War. But he was not one of those muscle-bound Marines. He learned to type, and served bureaucratic purposes, as a conscientious objector (after they'd put him in detention while they tried to figure out why they drafted him). More than one way to serve your country.
Great article, thank you! Loved the picture of the SAS.
Boy did you hit the nail on the head … I have tried (and failed) to come up with two boobs less likely to be in charge of the mighty US military … what a couple of clowns.
The “straight out of central casting” view brings with it a stereotypical sense of leadership as well - one that harkens back to an American reverence for the individual cowboy who made the world what it is today. It is also reflected in the George C. Scott depiction of Patton. Single great men are all that is needed for societies to advance and prosper - we just have to follow slavishly their wisdom and talent in order to have the kind of world we want. Nothing is seen as a collaborative effort when in reality nothing gets better because of the brilliance of just one man. Even if that person has pretty white teeth, a square jaw and muscles.
Thank you, Dan Gardener for this article. You are so spot on about the pathological image consciousness of the culture surrounding Trump et al. Hegeseth may have muscle, but I have yet to see an ounce of ability to lead, an ounce of intelligence or an ounce of knowledge. He is comparable to a peacock, I think. It is no wonder that the generals in his audience sat in silence during his speech. We can only hope that other countries avoid following the American example and only appoint people to roles such as SecDef who know what they are doing who have advisers who know what they are doing!
Stats say muscle and stature have never been important in warfare. While there are obvious standouts, like Richard Lionheart or Frederick of Saxony, the vast majority of extant armour shows that soldiers of the time, of any time, probably, including nobility, who could afford good food, were, well, average. You could say "duh", because any large sample will be close to average, but this is something that seems to be counterintuitive.
Anyway, it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. Just look at Joe Pesci :)
Thank you for this article! I live in Eastern Europe, two steps away from the war. When I saw the news with the excerpts from the "warrior" meeting I felt appalled, disgusted and disappointed, though, to be honest, not for the 1st time this year (don't want to revisit the dezastruos February meeting). My thoughts revolved around: are these the most important values and beliefs you want to instill in your soldiers or are these the most pressing matters to discuss with your upper military echelon today? I am already numb from all this human foolishness.
I know exactly how you feel. So much foolish thinking of the sort we know, from the pages of history, can only lead to misery. Sometimes I fear we will never learn.
I was actually a bit (!) emotional when leaving my previous comment and totally missed to comment on your address regarding the perfect warrior image and your numerous examples that defy the brainwashing torrent of the necessity for a flawless heroic body. Your examples were many and various, and I was thinking if I can provide such an example but of the present day. And yes, I found such one - the Azovstal defenders, mostly soldiers from various units, whom courageously and heroically defended their stronghold for almost 3 months amidst a totally bombarded city. And no, they did not (also do not - some are still alive) have perfect puffed and tanned bodies, and no perfect haircuts as well, some of them were women, and some civilians. But they became a symbol of global courage, resistance and national dignity, you can check out their story if you are interested. So yes, I was meaning that you are totally right: the bravest/ smartest/ wisest/ etc., warrior does not come in perfect “package”.
Every single person you pictured was a physically fit white male and is not a depiction of the current average US service member. You're correct that is what a warrior looks like.
They all look like they could pass a PT test. And they all look presentable in uniform. The same cant be said for our current formations. Is it the most important thing... no. Are we focusing on anything important. No. That's the point.
Everyone should check out LT Gen Mark Hertlings speech on obesity and its risk to national security. It was in 2015 lol.
All I know is we be 38 trillion in debt talking about spending more on stupid tech and proxy wars.
No sane person disputes that a certain level of fitness matters, with the requirement varying by role, as any general or admiral knows perfectly well. But you seem to be equating “not fat" with “fit.” That is scientifically incorrect. It is also ahistorical. Do you know why Audie Murphy was so short and thin? He was the son of a poor sharecropper. In that era, poverty stunted growth and made those who suffered it extremely thin. In this era, poverty leads to horrible diets, which make people fat. Hence, poverty is associated with excessive weight in much the same way poverty was once associated with insufficient weight.
More to the point, Hegseth is making a fetish of training of the sort that squares with our bullshit images of what a tough and strong person looks like — an image that has been wrong for a very long time and is getting more wrong by the day. That is the point of the article.
No Im equating that you used combat proven special operations dudes and a medal of honor recipient that proved his fitness in combat to his men for that medal. Yea that era was called the great depression.
I mean the dude didnt even use muscular in his speech... he just said everyone has to pass the height and weight standards, pt standard 2x a year. He said he thinks people should be clean shaven and we'll groomed. Then said its gross to see fat people in uniform...
So I think every picture of a warrior you posted fits pretty well into that mold.
This essay might be the most ridiculously naive post I’ve read in weeks.
All of these photos are 80+ years old. Improvements in training and knowledge of nutrition has added pounds of muscle onto the average athlete’s frame today. Nevertheless, I’d bet that these old-timers could do pushups, pull-ups, and sit ups until the author puked just from watching them.
I have never heard Pete Hegseth say, infer, or imply that he wanted to build an army of roid-riddled gym freaks.
The left only hears what they want to hear.
Yes, anyone who says anything you don't like is "the left."
Hegseth ordered an almost unprecedented gathering of generals and admirals to hear a speech from the secretary of defense, who talked about ... fitness. And getting rid of fatties because fat people are "not a good look." That is demented. Generals and admirals know perfectly freaking well fitness is important in military roles. There are fitness standards. So why that? Because Hegseth wants women out of combat roles on the spurious grounds that they lower standards. That is stupid for too many reasons to explain. But the more fundamental point is the one you are studiously ignoring: Military technology has steadily diminished the importance of muscle, and even physicality more generally, for the past 500 years, and that trend has accelerated massively since WWII. Burpees don't do much against hypersonic missiles or drones. That's the cutting edge -- and that is what one would think a secretary of defense would focus his attention for a speech to the entire cadre of the nation's generals and admirals. But he didn't. Why? Because Trump and his minions are obsessed with images, not reality -- especially images of "warriors," not the reality of modern war.
Women in combat roles. My mother always complained that while my dad fought one enemy at a time (Germans then Japanese) she had to fight the Americans, Canadians, Poles, Free French, Czechs...
A little illustration of my point: https://substack.com/@dgardner/note/c-163177940?r=20b1i&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
Technology will never fully replace a hardened body with mindful resolve, Dan. The Vietnamese taught us this very important lesson 50 years ago.
There will always be a need for MEN to occupy boots on the ground. And those men must be conditioned, by pain, to kill at a moments notice.
Pete knows this… you, clearly, are willfully unaware.
So by all means, send more links, to more bullshit articles and essays that insist that I’m wrong.
Holy straw man! Show me where I said anything REMOTELY like what you are denouncing. (By the way, do you know what percentage of the US military is infantry? By the most generous measure, it's probably between 10 and 15%.)
Well… glad I checked back in.
First, there’s no strawman here, Dan.
I’ve read, and read again, your entire essay just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Your entire essay is meant to discredit Pete Hegseth and, by proxy, discredit his Commander-in-Chief. There’s no underlying theme here… no allegory. There’s just inferences of incompetence.
You haven’t “said something that I don’t like”. You’ve said some things that are patently false. Big difference.
You included 80 year old pictures of shirtless GIs with the clear implication that a bunch of scrawny 18-20 boys won WW2. You were right. They did. And I guarantee you that every single one of them could pass Pete’s physical fitness standards.
What you’ve failed to show us are the pictures of dudes in dresses hunkered in ash at the foot of Mt. Suribachi.
Or the battalion of Brie Larsons and Jessica Chastains storming Utah Beach.
Or the pictures of the bearded, potbellied drone pilots moving on Manila to retake the Philippines. (Ok… a little strawman and hyperbole here, but you get the point)
You can’t find those pictures, Dan, because it’s not reality. Not in 1944, and not now.
I understand why you might question the need for support personnel to meet these fitness standards, after all, they’re not front line infantry.
Well, I can give you an example.
My uncle Buddy was killed one night in 1968. He had volunteered for the Army because he was guaranteed a job in motor transport. That’s right, Dan, he was a fucking mechanic. During Tet, he had to drop his wrench and pick up his rifle. Ya see, the NVA and Vietcong didn’t give a shit whether he was infantry or support personnel. Uncle Buddy caught one right in the sneezer and that was the end of that beautiful, scrawny 20 year old warrior.
This is not a rare occurrence.
Unlike dad and Uncle Buddy, I chose the Marine Corps. In the Corps, every swingin’ dick is an infantryman. You’re either infantry, or you’re backup infantry… period. I chose infantry (because who wants to be a backup).
In a combat infantry unit, cohesion and uniformity are paramount. Individualism is catastrophic. And every General and staff officer in the Hegseth meeting is well aware of that fact.
Lastly, the title of your essay is “What does a warrior look like”. Dan, just google “Chinese army infantry” and take a gander at some warriors. Not an ounce of fat, no beards, pot bellys, no Jessica Chastains or Brie Larsons, and certainly no dresses and high heels.
They’re ready… we’re not.
Whether you accept or deny that fact, it’s reality.
Technology alone can’t beat 10 million of these men. Feelings and feminism won’t even slow them down.
We need young men… lean, mean, green men.
I fear Pete Hegseth has very little time to turn things around.
And the right only hears what they want to hear.
Or take this more recent group photo of the SAS. Most of them look like fellas who’d turn up at your front door offering to tarmac your drive with some leftover ‘blacky’ from a council job.
https://robinhorsfall.co.uk/product/robin-horsfall-and-the-king-signed-sas-photograph/
You make a point, no doubt. However, I see Hegseth differently. You said that today’s gym culture creates fitter men than in the 40s. But I think Hegseth and his Olympian body type clearly show that the pendulum is swinging back from the normalization of extremes like fat beauty contests, pregnant people, and women with penises. Do you admit that the progressive left agenda went too far, and it is time to head back to the center?
Excellent breakdown of authoritarian creation. You did leave out one very important fact. You started by explaining where Donald Trump's father, Fred, made his money. You should also inform readers that his father, Friedrich Drumpf, a failed barber in Germany, circa 1880's, was due to be drafted into the German army so he at 17, give or take a year, left for America. His older sister had married an American and was living in Queens, New York. She brought him to our country. He had no money, no job, no real skills. It was pure chain immigration, the very thing Trump has demonized. So, Grandpa Drumpf failed as a barber once again only this time in Queens. He then headed out to the Pacific Northwest where he got a job in a hotel that just happened to also serve as a brothel. Now, he found his calling. He was a pimp of sorts. He followed the gold miners up the coast selling women and even illegally selling seemingly unused mining claims, but that's yet another chapter in the birth of the Trump Crime Family. He amassed $30,000 and went back to Germany to marry a girl from his village. He tried to re-start his former life there, and the German government told him he had to leave because he was a draft dodger and now an American traveling under an American passport. His German citizenship had long been revoked because he was a draft dodger who was now an American. He had to leave Germany. He went back to Queens and started investing in real estate; hence, the start of the Drumpf fortune. At the onset of World War 1, he recognized his German name Friedrich Drumpf would be unpopular so he changed it to a more anglified Fred Trump. The Trump patriarch died in the 1919 Spanish Flu epidemic. His very young and only son, Fred, took over the family business and as you said used very unscrupulous tactics, including mob connections to build a fortune upon which little Donnie has been able to skate through life. Fred also had Donnie mentored for years by his own personal lawyer, Roy Cohn the famous and highly unethical mob lawyer. He taught Donnie how to be what he is today, and that too is story for another post. Thank you again for hopefully opening people's eyes as to the roots of our most corrupt president.
Character trumps all. And the best exemplar I can think of is Air Commodore Len Birchall, the Saviour of Ceylon. Canadian as it happens. Not physically impressive at all. But the very exemplar of leadership, courage, and moral fibre that he demonstrated in spades as a prisoner of the Japanese.