Hi, I'm Olivia, and today's Happy Nugget! comes from George Washington, the remarkable
first president of the United States of America.
Washington had numerous achievements as a statesman, soldier, general and commander
in chief of the continental army during the American Revolution.
His bravery, honor, and popularity led him to be known as the "father of the country."
George Washington's character is best described by the loyal men he led into battle.
Long before the American Revolution, after five difficult years as Virginia's leading
military figure, George Washington resigned his commission in 1759 returning to civilian
life.
His officers wrote him a letter.
From James Thomas Flexner's fantastic biography "The Forge of Experience," Washington's officers
wrote, "The happiness we have enjoyed and the mutual honor we have acquired together…In
our earliest infancy you took us under your tuition, trained us up in the practice of
that discipline which alone can constitute good troops…Your steady adherence to impartial
justice, your quick discernment and invariable regard to merit…first heightened our natural
emulation and our desire to excel…Judge then how sensibly we much be affected with
the loss of such an excellent commander, such a sincere friend, and so affable a companion!
How rare it is to find those amiable qualifications blended together in one man.
How great the loss of such a man."
George Washington was born in 1732 in Virginia to a line of ancestors who'd forged their
fortunes in the New World.
His father was a gentle businessman, his mother self-willed and determined.
As a boy George saw his two eldest half brothers sent to England to study in the same school
his father had attended and George was expected to attend.
When he was eight, his brother Lawrence, who was a great influence in Washington's life,
became a captain in the regular British Army.
When George was eleven his father died and with him the promise of studying in England.
George became the oldest child in the household helping to care for his younger sister and
three brothers.
His mother mismanaged their farm and George grew up wanting for many things.
Extremely self-centered, Washington's mother resented anything that took her son's attention
away from her.
She put down his achievements, and tried to stop him from getting any opportunities.
Early on, George learned to rely on himself forever longing for the love and domestic
stability he never got as a child.
Because of his father's death, Washington's formal education ended when he was fourteen
or fifteen.
Everything he knew he taught himself from experience, conversations, and books.
When George was a teenager his brother Lawrence worried about his future urging him to join
the British navy.
He didn't, but Washington was already harboring military dreams.
For years he made a living as a surveyor mapping Virginia's back country, frontier and wilderness
falling in love with the vastness and the promise of the American landscape.
At nineteen he invested his earnings on buying land.
When he was twenty his brother Lawrence died after a prolonged battle with tuberculosis,
one of the greatest losses in Washington's life.
To escape his mother's clutches, Washington paid calls to prominent Virginia ladies in
the hopes of securing marriage without luck because Washington came from a secondary family,
the only thing to his name was a second rate farm, but this did not stop him from dreaming
of a better future.
As was common practice in those times, Washington began to lobby for the military position his
brother Lawrence had held, but beyond intelligence and boundless energy he had no qualifications
for the job.
Persistent, focused, and diplomatic, George Washington rode up and down the Virginia countryside
paying his compliments and request to those influential in the Virginia government and
he succeed in securing the appointment.
At the time England and France were vying for much of the world, including colonial
possessions in America.
In 1749 France laid claim to all the land draining into the Ohio, engaging in bitter
rivalries over Native American land and treaties.
The Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, a representative of the British crown, insisted that they should
build forts on the Ohio and that they should send an emissary to the upper wilderness to
see if the French were really on English soil.
That emissary was to deliver a letter requesting the French to depart peacefully, and if they
refused, by order of the British King, they would be driven out by force of arms.
Through a combination of skill, luck, and being in the right place at the right time,
George Washington was selected to be that emissary described as being 'used to the
woods, a youth of great sobriety, diligence and fidelity.'
George Washington was an ordinary young man thrust into extraordinary circumstances of
world shaking implications.
As the bitter winter approached, Washington set out into the Ohio wilderness amidst excessive
rains and snow.
After weeks of hardship, Washington met with the Indians and delivered his fateful message
to the French.
He headed back after making note of their military fortifications with an official letter
for the British.
That letter would help plunge the European powers into a terrible seven years war.
Wrecked with anxiety, Washington carried his lethal message through half-frozen rivers
and ice-chocked wilderness, barely escaping a bullet shot by an Indian.
Washington was convinced the French had offered a reward for his scalp and his companion's.
In the darkness of night they hid, and come morning they hoped for a frozen river so they
could cross, but they found the opposite.
Washington and his companion chopped wood for most of the day to escape on a raft.
Jammed by the ice, Washington expected to sink and perish at any moment.
Trying to secure the raft, Washington was flung into the freezing wild river.
He escaped drowning through sheer physical strength only to sleep in the freezing cold.
The next morning he thanked God the river had frozen.
Now he could cross it and deliver his message.
For his bravery George Washington was appointed second in command of the newly formed Virginia
army encountering the difficulties he would face throughout his career of enlisting, clothing
and feeding his soldiers but at twenty-one years old George Washington persevered, undaunted,
perhaps naive, often falling short of the insurmountable expectations, but never wavering
in his commitment, his courage on the battlefield unmatched.
During the French and Indian War, Washington failed miserably in diplomacy with the Indians,
with the French and as functioning commander of the expeditionary force.
Washington was inexperienced, often proud and sometimes foolhardy, but to the people
his bravery was absolute, to his neighbors he had already become a hero.
When George Washington resigned his commission in 1759 he was stung with a sense of failure.
For the next seventeen years he built a peaceful and domestic life with his wife Martha as
a landowner, farmer and businessman.
Kind and generous he was a loved and respected member of his community.
By the time the seeds of the American Revolution were sown, Washington had no intention to
serve or to lead, but history had other plans.
Washington's popularity had only grown.
He was loved by the people, respected, admired and envied by his contemporaries, but Washington
was modest and humble enough to acknowledge his shortcomings, equipping himself at every
turn with as much knowledge as possible to be able to rise to whatever occasion he might
be called upon.
In 1775 George Washington was overwhelmed when he was unanimously elected to command
the continental forces for the defense of American liberty.
Two days later, Washington wrote his wife Martha a letter and he said, "My Dearest:
I am now set down to write to you on a subject, which fills me with inexpressible concern,
and this concern is greatly aggravated and increased, when I reflect upon the uneasiness
I know it will give you.
It has been determined in Congress, that the whole army raised for the defense of the American
cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately
to Boston to take upon me the command of it.
You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you, in the most solemn manner that,
so far from seeking this appointment, I have used every endeavor in my power to avoid it,
not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a consciousness
of its been a trust too great for my capacity, and that I should enjoy more real happiness
in one month with you at home, than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad,
if my stay were to be seven times seven years.
But as it has been a kind of destiny, that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope
that my undertaking it is designed to answer some good purpose."
George Washington was not born a hero, and he made many mistakes along the way, but he
never stopped working tirelessly to perfect himself through the exercise of his own skill
and will.
His bravery and tenacity were always there, but his wisdom and strength developed with
time and in the process and American hero was forged.
Washington was not an intellectual, he was a man of action, who kept his gaze forward,
who carried in his heart the lessons from the past, who lived in the present fully,
and who fought for the future and freedom of all Americans.
George Washington was never just a military figure.
He was the embodiment of the indomitable American spirit, of courage, energy, ingenuity, and
an unshakable will.
Sometimes life has plans for us we don't expect, but if we live an honorable life,
if we acknowledge our weaknesses and work to improve ourselves we will always rise to
meet the challenges life has in store for us, no matter how big and insurmountable they
may seem.
Heroes are not born, they're self made.
And that's today's Happy Nugget!
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I hope you have a wonderful day.
Thanks for watching.
See you next time.
For more infomation >> Washington lawmakers visit Northwest Detention Center - Duration: 2:54. 
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