Put Up Your Dukes!

"It is not the critic that counts,not the man who points out how a strong man stumbled, or where a doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to a man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worse, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
-Theodore Roosevelt

I'm not a big fan of this man's political policies, but when your right, your right! As the vice presidential candidate in 1900, he gave over 673 speeches, and traveled over 20,000 miles for the McKinley presidential cause.

Years after his presidency, while preparing to deliver yet another speech in Milwaukee, Roosevelt was shot in the chest by a would-be assassin. With a broken rib and a bullet in his chest he insisted on delivering the one-hour speech before allowing himself to be taken to the hospital for treatment.

On January 6, 1919, at his home in New York, Theodore Roosevelt died in his sleep. Then Vice President Marshall said, "Death had to take him sleeping, for if Roosevelt had been awake, there would have been a fight." When they removed him from his bed, they found a book under his pillow. Up until the very last Teddy Roosevelt was striving to learn and improve himself.

That's quite a tale of leadership, I'm willing to wager few of us were exposed to in our history class! It's the things you learn after the teaching process has ceased that make a difference!

God Bless!
Capt. Bill