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ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS HERALD |
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HANGING ON IN THE DEPTH OF WINTER Psychologists, ministers and others who make careers of divining the complexities of the human spirit might tell us why it is so hard to hang on to a difficult task or position – indeed to life itself – in the dark and cold of winter. Although global warming scaremongers warn us that we shall all roast for our environmental sins, the fact is that more people die in the colder seasons of the year. Historically, winter has been tough on mankind. Shakespeare has Richard III speaking of “…the winter of our discontent…” – pushing the Bard’s idea that Richard’s twisted body and personality made him a malcontented wretch. But the famous line also evokes the common notion that stress and depression are winter’s products. All would surely be righted when “…this sun of York” finally warmed the land. Of course, things didn’t turn out that way, as Richard was completely routed and actually slain at Bosworth Field in 1485. (“My kingdom for a horse…”) In another stern winter test a European King stood in the snow for three days, awaiting an audience with the Pope. This seems absurd today, but in those days a king who got crossways with the Pope could be excommunicated and the people of his realm would lose communion with the Church. This tended to make a king unpopular and might cost him his crown and his head. On our own shores, winter has proved equally inhospitable. The Puritans – religious refugees from England who had lived in Holland since 1608 – landed at Cape Cod on December 21, 1620. Their first American winter left half of them dead. Yet they hung on, made peace with the Indians, and learned the skills they needed to survive in New England. The Massachusetts Bay Colony grew into the northern pole of what became the greatest nation in history. When the British Army occupied Philadelphia in the fall of 1777, George Washington’s Continental Army of only 12,000 men made winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The position allowed the Americans to observe the British Army, while protecting themselves from surprise attack. Exceptionally severe weather – even for Pennsylvania – exacerbated the effects of inadequate clothing, shelter and food to produce extreme suffering. Over 2,000 men died during the winter of 1777-’78. Isaac Potts, a local farmer, testified to seeing General Washington kneeling in the snowy woods, praying earnestly for his men and his country. Yet the grim encampment proved to be a turning point in the war. In February 1778, Baron von Steuben (pronounced schtoy-ben) – a former Prussian General Staff officer with a wealth of military knowledge – joined Washington at Valley Forge. He introduced tactical training and drilled the American troops – many of them lacking proper shoes and uniform – into an effective fighting force.
The Prayer at Valley Forge (by Arnold Friberg) In June 1778 that winter of grit and von Steuben’s drills helped Washington’s army to fight the British to a standstill at Monmouth, New Jersey. (It was von Steuben, then Washington’s new Inspector General, who first reported British movements toward Monmouth.) Three years later that same army besieged a British force at Yorktown, Virginia, forcing Lord Cornwallis to surrender. Ultimately this produced the Treaty of Paris, guaranteeing the independence of the American colonies. The revolution was a long, discouraging war, with many legitimate opportunities to quit. That winter at Valley Forge was critical to the formation of our nation. Following their disastrous defeat by Robert E. Lee at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862, the Union Army of the Potomac camped at Falmouth, Virginia, to regroup and repair. Extreme winter weather, inadequate supplies, and unsanitary conditions caused terrible privation and hundreds of deaths. Observers called the Falmouth Encampment the “Union’s Valley Forge”. But the army came back from that terrible winter to stop the Confederates at Gettysburg in July 1863. On July 3rd, as they repulsed General Pickett’s dramatic assault on the Union center, Union troops chanted “Fredericksburg, Fredericksburg”. Winter had been overcome again. In December 1944 the war on the European Western Front seemed all but won. The Allied breakout from Normandy in August had sent the German Army into headlong retreat across Belgium and France. There was excited talk of being home by Christmas. Only a few voices of caution noted that Germany had merely fallen back and still had 6 million men under arms. On the morning of December 16, 1944, the German Army launched a massive attack through the Ardennes under cover of the worst winter weather in living memory. The German spearhead of 500,000 men, including eight armored divisions, smashed through the thinly held Allied lines, surrounding several American units and creating a “bulge” in the Allied front. The month-long offensive cost the Allies 81,000 casualties (killed, wounded, and missing); the Germans suffered 100,000 casualties. Historians mark the Battle of the Bulge as the costliest to the American Army, in terms of losses, of the entire war. But the Germans did not achieve their strategic objectives (reaching the River Meuse, trapping four Allied armies, and forcing a negotiated peace in the West). Surrounded by superior German forces at Bastogne, the American 1st Division grimly held out and sent the surly reply, “Nuts”, to the German demand for their surrender. By mid-January 1945, German forces had been driven back to the pre-December 16 line. The front was stabilized. The agitation the Germans expected on our home front for a negotiated peace did not materialize. Once again, American boys who had grown up on ice cream proved tougher than the German High Command anticipated. And another winter challenge had been overcome. Today Americans face a new winter challenge. The casual observer might say our challenge is in Iraq, but that is only the surface issue. In the two and one-half years since we intervened there, the military threat formerly posed by Iraq has been neutralized. A ruthless dictator, who killed hundreds of thousands of his own citizens and terrorized uncountable numbers more, has been deposed and is standing trial for his crimes. His two debauched sons are dead. Terrorist “militants” are being steadily crushed not only by American occupation troops but by Iraqi security troops being trained to assume responsibility for their country’s safety. The Iraqi people have adopted a constitution and are choosing their own leaders in democratic elections. The task is well on its way, but it is not yet completed. In December 1861 (another winter’s day), with his country divided and civil war raging, Abraham Lincoln said to the Congress, “The struggle of today is not altogether for today – it is for a vast future also.” Just so, our struggle for today is within ourselves and for a vast future. Today we are in process of deciding whether we are still a people who can take on difficult challenges and do difficult things to achieve noble objectives. As in Lincoln’s day, a noisy faction believes we cannot do this. They say the task is too hard, that we must give up, that we must make an accommodation with evil. They are betting against the courage and optimism of the American people the way short-sellers bet against the collective optimism of our markets. Short-sellers of stocks gain financial advantage by crashing the market. The political short-sellers want us to fail so they can gain political advantage. It is the kind of defeatism one expects in the dark and cold of winter. But I have lived a long time, and I know that winter always ends. Spring comes round, warm winds blow, the ice melts, and life is reborn. During the next year, I predict, the people of Iraq will assume more and more responsibility for their own governance and security. Attacks from imported terrorists will diminish to nuisance level. With their noble mission completed, American troops will begin to come home. The bud of freedom will flower in the most unlikely of places. And the gloom and despair of winter will fade into a dim and harmless memory.
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