This Ship Needs A Captain Not Just A Businessman
In this day of the history challenged it may not be safe to assume that everyone knows that it was Captain John Paul Jones who in the fall of 1779 said the famous words, “I have not yet begun to fight.” Even fewer may know that his ship the Bonhomme Richard had its upper decks nearly blown off and with what may have looked like a tattered raft the fight continued. Two hands assuming that both captain and first officer had been slain went about to lower the ship’s pendant from the mainmast, but were interrupted by Jones who flew toward them with pistols in hand.
The captain threw his unloaded pistols at the mates missing one and striking the other on the head leaving him unconscious. The master of the powerful British warship Serapis called out to Jones and asked if he was about to quarter. (Give up and surrender) Jones’ famous reply has been the example of every great naval officer since, but it doesn’t stop there. The best fighting men, statesmen and ordinary
Americans, ever since, have been heard to say the same.
Only moments after Jones replied to the master of the Serapis a grenadier threw a hand bomb across the deck of the Serapis that tumbled into a lower magazine and ignited the powder and shells. The rest is history. But is it?
The Wall Street Journal published an article the day Mitt Romney won the Michigan and Arizona primaries, entitled “Relieved Republicans Seek to Keep Focus on Economy” on March 1, 2012; it was followed by a compliment of more than two hundred reader comments on the day it was posted. Echoes of the warnings of scripture and the unanimous voices of this nation’s best preachers and prophets came through the ether like the barely perceptible ramblings of old ghosts on a quiet street. How often it has been cried aloud in blog, website, newscast, radio broadcast and from the wilderness to the city. Exactly what are they saying?
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