News on Youtube Jul 1 2018

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.

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