On Sept. 10, 1776, Nathan Hale set out on a spying mission for George Washington’s Army that would cost him his life. Hale’s dying words are among the most famous in American history, as he expressed regret that he had only one life to lose in the cause of his nation’s liberty. Exactly 249 years later, on Sept. 10, 2025, a deranged leftist assassinated Charlie Kirk for exercising the free speech for which Hale and the other revolutionaries had fought and bled.
Patriots talk often about the value of liberty, the importance of constitutional rights, and the heroism of dying for America, but most of us are not called to give the last full measure of devotion. Hale did, and his only regret before his execution was that he could not sacrifice and suffer more for our nascent nation. Charlie Kirk did, and he emphasized that no sacrifice asked of him by God or America was too great for him to make — he wanted only to do God's will and serve the cause of freedom.
Nathan Hale had been a brilliant young student at Yale, a teacher, and then a Connecticut officer in the Continental Army. Fired with enthusiastic patriotism and dauntless courage, Hale, by fall 1776, was eager for action. When George Washington and Thomas Knowlton needed a volunteer spy to scout out British positions and movements, Hale stepped forward. Different sources seem to disagree on whether Hale volunteered on Sept. 8 or 10, but certainly by Sept. 10 he was marked out as the volunteer spy ready to go behind enemy lines. He knew spies, when captured, were executed in disgrace with no chance for treatment as a POW, but he went anyway.
Disguised as a Dutch schoolmaster, Hale began his intelligence-gathering mission. Sadly, he was ultimately captured —sources disagree exactly how, but it was possibly a loyalist relative/acquaintance who recognized him — and hanged on Sept. 22, 1776. Witnesses testified to his dignity and courage to the end, and through the conduit of one witness and a fellow soldier we receive Hale's dying words: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
Related: 'We Are All Charlie': Don Jr., Vance Honor Kirk
Unlike Hale, Charlie Kirk did not realize he was about to be assassinated. He was in the middle of a free speech debate at a college campus, discussing the growing threat of transgender domestic terrorism, when he was murdered — allegedly by Tyler Robinson, a radical LGBTQ leftist who is now charged with aggravated murder. Kirk was not violent or vicious; he was not even an elected politician. He debated people with whom he disagreed with exceptional charity and respect. He was a loving father and husband, a courageous campaigner for truth, an inspiring leader, and a tireless patriot. But a sick young man radicalized by woke educational institutions put a bullet through Charlie's neck.
At Charlie's memorial yesterday, Donald Trump Jr. compared Kirk to St. Stephan, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that "there’s a lot worse things than death and one of those is if we lost our constitutional rights in this country," so "Charlie died with his boots on, and he died so that we did not have to undergo those fates worse than death." But I say Kirk also has a parallel to Nathan Hale, the zealous young patriot who became immortal through his death.
The British thought that by killing Hale they had erased him from history. Robinson and his ghoulish sympathizers in the Democratic Party thought that assassination would silence Kirk permanently. But both anti-American groups were wrong. Hale is remembered and honored in death as he never could have imagined during life, and many times more chapter applications are being submitted for Kirk's TPUSA organization in the days after his death than were during his life.
Just as patriots immortalized Hale and fought in his name, let us immortalize Charlie Kirk and defend liberty in his name. They regretted only that they had but one life to lose for their country, and as courage is contagious, we must all be Charlie now.
