The Great Adventures of Winston and Teddy

It was a heroic age. Men believed exploration of the South Pole was heroic. They believed freezing to death was heroic. They believed fighting in wars was heroic. The awful carnage of the twentieth century had yet to prove the utter futilty of war. Winston Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt grew up in the heroic age and both men set out to prove themselves at a very young age.

Teddy lost his mother and wife the same day and went West for three years. He deliberately put himself in harms way and was nearly killed by a Grizzly Bear, shot by an armed man in a saloon, scalped by four Indians, and trampled by stampeding cattle. He was out to find the myth of the West and to that end he threw himself into one dangerous situation after another demanding that life give him back adventure and prove himself to himself.

Winston Churchill was not much different. He went off to the Boer War hoping to find adventure and to prove himself as a solider. What happened was he ended up a journalist but this didn't stop him from rescuing a train under attack and then getting captured by the Boers. Churchill believed he would survive when all around him were dying. He believed he was destined for greater things and that would see him through.

Both men demanded adventure from life and carried a sense of their own destiny. When one reads about Teddy out West or Winston in the Boer War in Africa you come away with a belief in destiny. How else can we explain survival against all odds.

Forging A President How the Wild West Created Teddy Roosevelt

We Could Sure Use A Teddy Roosevelt Today

We could sure use Teddy Roosevelt about now. Think of a man who just lost his wife and child and who heads West to remake himself. He is then plunged into the Badlands and ends up facing down a badman in a saloon who calls him four eyes and demands he buy him a drink. Teddy Roosevelt is small and just there from New York and yet he stands up and knocks out the man cold.

Or when he goes to cross a river that is overflowing with ice and moving swiftly. Everyone tells him not to do it but he takes his horse and tries to cross it anyway and ends up being knocked off his horse and managing to cross the river anyway and not freeze to death. Or when he lassos another man and saves him from a swiftly moving river and hauls him to the shore.

Or when he goes after three  men who have stolen from him and follows them all across the Badlands and then captures them and takes them all the way back to the sheriff. Or when he faces down five Indians by himself and manages to hold them off and escape. What is it? Courage. Grit. Destiny. Fortitude. Morality. Take your pick.  But Teddy Roosevelt embodied the man who did what he believed was right regardless of the cost.

We could sure use a Teddy Roosevelt now.

Forging a President How the Wild West Created Teddy Roosevelt