Washington to Roosevelt? I don't think so.

Initially, I thought that I could make a quick point about Character and Leadership by pointing out a few things about the problems our founding fathers had with traitors. I thought that Washington's great and good character would be an excellent place to start as he had traitors to deal with during his time of leadership.

Seemed like Benedict Arnold was a great example of that so I used him as the first victim of my editorial. When I found him to be listed as #1 on the top ten list of American traitors, I felt pretty good about that choice.

Moving on, I began thinking about the time frames that would best suit my purpose and the goal of this editorial so I decided to jump forward to Teddy Roosevelt. I reviewed all kinds of things about the Rough Riders, Speak Softly But Carry A Big Stick, the Panama Canal, our industrial complex, labor, employment, his love of the environment and a few other things.

Just before I was ready to post my findings, I decided to make one more review of history so I hit the ole google button and pulled up a list of all the Presidents and Vice Presidents that served from day one until now. That's when I found Aaron Burr.

I remembered his name but couldn't attach anything specific or traitorous to his legacy. I simply forgot about him and concluded that my memory loss was the reason I decided to jump from Washington to Roosevelt. As it all unfolded, I read the accounts of his life in politics and his place as the Vice President of the United States. I also read about the day he killed Alexander Hamilton in an old fashion duel that took place in 1804. Did I forget to mention that Hamilton was the President of the United States? Oh well. More research.

In any event, I began to think of the time frame that began with the first Continental Congress and Aaron Burr's duel with Hamilton. It was only 30 years. Most of us have kids older than that and from that perspective, I concluded that it was a very short period of time. Seems to me that knowing this would allow one to logically conclude that we had a ton of guys with poor character messing with men of good character during the early days of the United States.

Not wanting to get too far off topic, I decided to do a more thorough study of traitors with the hopes that I might find a shorter route to the main point I wanted to make about "Character" and how that effects us today. If you will remember, all of this began from a focus on the Character of Draft Dodgers and how that demonstration of dis-loyalty or cowardice, still exists in our population.

It seems that we've had a ton of bad people around us from the very first days of our attempts to reach some degree of self determination. Lots of bad people trying to undo that then and apparently, trying to do that now. In the words of my friends Curt Lambert and Bill Reinhardt: "My God, it's a book".

In any event, I think that it's very important that we all take a refresher course in the sacrifices that have been made to keep the United States free from oppression, free from occupation by other Nations and free to operate within the concepts of "One Nation Under God". More than anything, this goal was the inspiration for me to skip from George Washington to Teddy Roosevelt because he was so clear and specific about the things necessary for us to stay on that course.

As time would have it, I have to try and accomplish that in smaller steps because it's pretty difficult to be stoned on meds and keep a focus on keeping the post simple and easy to understand. It's pretty difficult to do that when there were so many traitors out there trying to UNDO everything we were trying TO DO.

With that in mind, I hope you will understand why I'm not able to hit the point in time I wanted to in a very short series of posts. It just ain't that simple. Go to google and type in "The Top 10 American Traitors" and you will see what I mean. For whatever it's worth, Aaron Burr was number 1 and Jane Fonda was number 10. Despite that, there are lots of others in between those two and oddly, no one mentioned after that time.

I'm going to go ahead and post this anyway so that those who are helping me can assist with information here that may be off the mark. The key word here is Mark. He's one of the guys from the Cav that is helping with the informational edit. Hell, it may not have been Alexander Hamilton that Aaron Burr killed, but even if it isn't, two things will happen. Mark will find it, I will correct anything that needs correcting and you will eventually get the point about Character..........both good and bad.

This is the part about historical editorials that are so tough. They have to be accurate and SHOULD be written by someone better able to deliver that accuracy than me.