Baseball Quiz: 1) Name the top 5 all-time in doubles. Hint: All
have at least 3,000 hits as well. 2) Of the top 10 lifetime in
innings pitched, name the 5 who last pitched in either the 1980s
or 1990s. Answers below.
Sunday was depressing, to say the least, but as John McCain
wrote in an op-ed piece for the Washington Post, “(Americans
fight) for love of freedom, our own and all humanity’s.”
It’s also an appropriate time to take another look at Douglas
MacArthur’s speech at West Point, May 1962. More than ever,
our military needs to know how much we love them.
“Duty, Honor, Country” / Douglas MacArthur
No human being could fail to be deeply moved by such a tribute
as this… But this award is not intended primarily for a
personality, but to symbolize a great moral code – a code of
conduct and chivalry…
“Duty,” “honor,” “country” – those three hallowed words
reverently dictate what you want to be, what you can be, what
you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when
courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little
cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn…
The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a
flamboyant phrase. Every pendant, every demagogue, every
cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and, I am sorry to
say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to
downgrade them…
But these are some of the things they build. They build your
basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the
custodians of the nation’s defense. They make you strong
enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face
yourself when you are afraid.
They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but
humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for action;
not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of
difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm, but to
have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before
you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that
is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach
into the future, yet never neglect the past; to be serious, yet never
take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will
remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true
wisdom, the meekness of true strength.
They give you a temperate will, a quality of imagination, a vigor
of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a
temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, an
appetite for adventure over love of ease.
They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope
of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you
in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.
And what sort of soldiers are those you are to lead? Are they
reliable? Are they brave? Are they capable of victory?
Their story is known to all of you. It is the story of the American
man at arms…
His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen.
In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that
mortality can give. He needs no eulogy from me, or from any
other man. He has written his own history and written it in red
on his enemy’s breast.
In 20 campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand
campfires, I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic
self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have
carved his statue in the hearts of his people…
I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory
of their death. They died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with
faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go
on to victory.
Always for them: duty, honor, country.…
Their resolute and determined defense, their swift and sure
attack, their indomitable purpose, their complete and decisive
victory – always through the bloody haze of their last
reverberating shot, the vision of gaunt, ghastly men, reverently
following your password of duty, honor, country.
You now face a new world, a world of change. The thrust into
outer space of the satellite, spheres, and missiles marks a
beginning of another epoch in the long story of mankind… And
through all this welter of change and development your mission
remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars….
Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure
knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that if
you lose, the Nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of
your public service must be duty, honor, country.
Others will debate the controversial issues, national and
international, which divide men’s minds. But serene, calm,
aloof, you stand as the Nation’s war guardians, as its lifeguards
from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiators in
the arena of battle….
Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes
of government….
These great national problems are not for your professional
participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like
a tenfold beacon in the night: duty, honor, country….
From your ranks come the great captains who hold the Nation’s
destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds.
The long, gray line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a
million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray,
would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic
words: duty, honor, country.
This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary,
the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must
suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always
in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato…. “Only the dead
have seen the end of war.”
The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My
days of old have vanished – tone and tints. They have gone
glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their
memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed
and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen then, but with
thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing
reveille, of far drums beating the long roll.
In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of
musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in
the evening of my memory I come back to West Point. Always
there echoes and re-echoes: duty, honor, country.
Today marks my final roll call with you. But I want you to know
that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of
the corps, and the corps, and the corps.
I bid you farewell.
—
Top 3 songs for the week of 3/22/75: #1 “My Eyes Adored You”
(Frankie Valli) #2 “Lady Marmalade” (LaBelle) #3 “Lovin’
You” (Minnie Riperton)
Baseball Quiz Answers: 1) All-time doubles: Tris Speaker, 792;
Pete Rose, 746; Stan Musial, 725; Ty Cobb, 724; George Brett
665. 2) Top Ten innings pitched, those last pitching in 80s or
90s. #4 Phil Niekro, 5404; #5 Nolan Ryan, 5386; #6 Gaylord
Perry, 5350; #7 Don Sutton, 5282; #9 Steve Carlton, 5217.
#1 Cy Young, 7375; #2 Pud Galvin, 5941 (he pitched in 1880s /
90s, so you may not find him on every list); #3 Walter Johnson,
5924; #8 Warren Spahn, 5244; #10 Grover Cleveland Alexander,
5190.
*Just one note on the NCAA tourney. My Demon Deacons
played four lousy games in a row, going back to the ACC
tournament, and deserved to lose against Auburn. But we’ll be
back next year, gosh darnit.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday. Let’s pray for better news.
