There’ll Always Be An England and a Newfoundland

Something for the weekend.  There’ll Always Be An England.  This was always a favorite of my sainted mother.  It was played frequently during World War II in Newfoundland when she was a child. Newfoundland sent off a very high percentage of its military age male population to fight, about 10% of the entire population served in the British armed services and Merchant Marine during the War, and some 900 Newfies died in service.  (On a per capita basis that is roughly the equivalent of the US war deaths  in World War II.)  Mom always remembered how many Newfoundland fathers, sons, brothers and uncles never came back from that War, and taught her sons to remember this sacrifice by a small nation.

This sacrifice was typified by the stories she would tell about Uncle Bill Barry, her uncle, my great uncle.  Uncle Bill was a fun loving Irishman and a boxer.  He joined the Royal Army in 1939, saying that “Someone has to teach the Limies how to fight!”  He served throughout the War, and was in combat from D-Day to the fall of Germany.  Uncle Bill was a fighter indeed, and his courage earned him promotion to sergeant after his platoon took a village.  He was placed in charge of the village.  He told his men to do as he did and led them on a raid of a local wine cellar.  The Lieutenant in charge of the platoon found Uncle Bill and his men dancing in the village square, all blind drunk, when he got back.  The first thing he did was to bust Uncle Bill back to private, which did not upset Uncle Bill nearly as much as the hangover he had in the brig the next day.

George Washington and Constitution Day

 

Today is Constitution Day, the 224th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution.  Since 1788 our nation has been governed under a document, the Constitution, produced by a group of the wisest men ever to arise in our nation, collectively known as the Founding Fathers.  The video above from the magnificent John Adams series depicts the first inaugural of George Washington.  Washington for me is the standard by which all our other presidents are judged.  Without him of course, in all likelihood, there would be no United States as the American Revolution would have been lost without him to lead the starving, ragged Continentals to an against the odds victory.  In turbulent times he then led the nation for the first eight years under the new Constitution, setting the nation firmly on a course of prosperity, growth and expanding liberty.  A statesman like Washington comes to a people once every few centuries if they are fortunate, and we had him precisely when we needed a leader of his calibre most.

Would that our other presidents, with the exception of Lincoln, had possessed half of his ability to lead and his wisdom to chart a sound course.  I also wish that our other presidents had one of his minor traits:  brevity.  Here is his second inaugural address in its entirety.  His fidelity to our Constitution shines through its few words: