Still True
While UK troops bleed and die for a cause only partially their own, I’d like to post again a few words I wrote when this site was three weeks old. Here they are:
VodkaPundit unashamedly calls England “the Mother Country.” Most of my forefathers got their asses kicked by Brits at one time or another; hell, some of us got kicked out of England herself — literally 86ed from an entire country. And yet I hold no grudge against the UK, even though I’m famous for doing so for even the slightest slight.
Why?
I could pay the usual lip service in thanks to England for inventing modern individual liberty, but that’s not it. Not all of it, anyway. I think, instead, the most important thing we mongrel Americans have kept from our pasty-white cousins is character. That same Jack Bull stubbornness which produced the Magna Carta; that created, endured, then got rid of Oliver Cromwell; that made for such hearty pioneers who first dared tame North America; that stood up to Napoleon when no one else would; that lost an entire generation of young men rather than see the Continent under the Kaiser’s fist; that survived the Blitz, and that lost an Empire while keeping a stiff upper lip.
These are the reasons I love the Britons. Except for one more.
In the last eighty years, the Brits have watched their upstart younger cousins here first grow as strong, then far stronger, than themselves. The French sneered at us for it. The Germans did worse. And everyone else resented us, at best. But not the Brits. Through every crisis from the Berlin Airlift to the Present Mess, they have stood with us shoulder to shoulder — even when their elites told them not to. And it is that strength of character we inherited from them which will allow us to prevail in the new global war.
Thank you, Britain.
And today, specific thanks to those men of the Desert Rats fighting near and in Basra.
A nation blushes.
Also: I just spotted this on the Corner at NRO
I haven’t checked whether it’s true (why ruin a good story by excessive concern for truth?) but if it is, then those guys have got to be Royal Marines:
“UK defense minister Geoff Hoon has reportedly described Um Qasr as being
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
-Winston Churchill
Steve, shhhhh, you’ll give my limey wife a big head with that kind of talk.
Gave me goosebumps man.
That was an ecellent post Stephen.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Brits rule!
Stephen
Folk memories still run deep in Britain. Memories of the US helping in WW1 and WW2 (OK, we can make the jokes about Yanks arriving late). More importantly, memories that US power has protected Britain and Europe for 50 years or more.
For someone of my generation, an Aussie/Brit, it is axiomatic that we should stand by the US as long as the cause is necessary and just.
But I never thought than an issue like Iraq would expose such a deep fault-line between “Anglosphere” and “Old Europe”.
Hear, hear, Stephen. Great post.
It pus me in mind of Henry V
“And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. ”
Well put, Stephen. The Little Brother is now the Big Kid, and we do have our differences (see 1776, 1812, etc.), but when it counts we stand shoulder to shoulder. I hope that when this is over and more Iraqi atrocities are revealed that Tony Blair is vindicated.
Stephen,
Outstanding post. And Steve, events in Iraq have already vindicated Blair.
Hey, Tim:
As you indicated, we both agree that events in Iraq have already vindicated Blair. However, I keep hearing how UK opinion is against him, though it has been better since the shooting started.
Go Desert Rats! Give those punks some of what you gave Bergonzoli and Rommel!
I was remembering the time of the Falklands today, when I would watch the Argentine generals giving their bombastic speeches. They just couldn’t grasp what they were in for. I knew you’d take those Islands back if it took a decade and all the ships, planes, and marines in the Royal Navy. As I recall, a US carrier battle group was loitering off the Argentine coast just in case. An expatriot Englishman showed up for work in those days wearing a T shirt I wish I had now, featuring a bulldog in a Union Jack, glaring out over the words “The Empire Strikes Back”. I remember also living for a year in Normandy in the 60s. All those graves, yours and ours, and others too. And here we are again, watching each other’s flanks. Thanks again.
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A century hence, people will still be reading the speech written by Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Collins, the 42-year-old commander of The Royal Irish battle group, which he delivered to his troops in Kuwait on Wednesday afternoon, just hours before they went into battle. Colonel Collins has a history degree, but does not look like a poet. Readers of The Times will have seen his photograph, in shades and combat gear, a cigar clamped between his teeth. He has the air of a Rambo, but the literary touch of a Rimbaud.
Imagine you are in the Kuwaiti desert, your face sandpapered raw, scared to your bowels and stoned on adrenalin, knowing you are about to fight, and kill, or die. And hear this:
THE enemy should be in no doubt that we are his Nemesis and that we are bringing about his rightful destruction. There are many regional commanders who have stains on their souls and they are stoking the fires of Hell for Saddam. As they die they will know their deeds have brought them to this place. Show them no pity. But those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send. As for the others, I expect you to rock their world.
We go to liberate, not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people, and the only flag that will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Don
Paragraph 2. Put that on Al Jazeero.
Thank you for having the skill to write what so many hearts and minds hold true.
Its a great post. Americans and Brits have much in common but we are lucky that they are the mother country. What would we do if we had France as the mother country?
Wait till my wife sees this. She’ll not let me live this down.
Steve,
Great post and I just want to add my own most sincere thanks and gratitude to the British people.
Just look no farther than Quebec.
Well said!
Bravo Zulu, Steve. Damn good post.
Always nice to read stuff like this. BTW, the British Empire lives on in the cross-relationships of it’s former component nations and it’s boss is now Uncle Sam, not John Bull. That’s a good thing: the US exports technology and knowledge just like my Victorian forefathers did. The map is no longer mostly pink but you can see the stain if you look closely. America IS New Britain.
The Western Industrial nations will be fighting Muslim extremists for a long long time to come. The Brits will be there.
Here, here!
The Brits are there for us when we need them, and that’s the definition of “ally.”
It’s good that this crisis has separated the real allies from the fake ones.
Hey, Britain. If you need a hand, you know who to call!
>>>In the last eighty years, the Brits have watched their upstart younger cousins here first grow as strong, then far stronger, than themselves. The French sneered at us for it. The Germans did worse. And everyone else resented us, at best. But not the Brits.
That is because they view themselves as the Mother Country as well, and rightfully so. They are not a envious neighbor, they are a proud parent, content with watching their progeny grow strong and prosperous. They know that all we achieve is by dint of the character imbued upon us by them.