英雄難過美人關 (Even a hero can be seduced by a beauty)

(I am somewhat reluctant to use this Chinese idiom for the title of this post as it may give too much credit for their appearance)

Jo asked me who is the twin sister of “that girl” (of course, sophisticated and intrigued like this ‘heart affair', there are two “that girls”); this proves she hasn’t kept up-to-date with our national affair.  I always pay attention to the current events, especially when our national security is at stake.

Now I know not all West Point women are “Porcelain on Steel: Women of West Point’s Long Gray Line” (the book Janice introduced me and I dutifully read).  Both Petraeus and Broadwell are West Point graduates; Petraeus also got a Ph.D. from Princeton whereas Broadwell got a master from Harvard Kennedy School and I believe, she turned her dissertation into a book of “All In”.  It will be “All Out” when the dust has settled.  Not everything is teachable, even in Ivy League schools.

A Wall Street Journal editorial ends with “What a pity that his service should come to a premature end through the collision of personal error and a zero-tolerance culture that doesn’t always serve this country well”, insinuating the behavior like this should be tolerated.  This is why I always say I am more conservative than the New York Time and more liberal than the Wall Street Journal.

If you Google search “Petraeus and Shakespeare”, Maureen Dow’s (the NY Time’s columnist, the intellectual feminist) “Petraeus’s love affair becomes tangled, Shakespearean web” will pop up.  She uses Macbeth and Othello as the two examples.  This is another reason one has to pay attention to the national affair like this; one may learn a thing or two about the Bard.

A few months ago I read Omar Bradley’s A Soldier’s Story, fighting the WWII in the European theater with him.  I bought the book after finishing reading the one from library.  It is a Must Have book.  This is why I always found my heroes more in the past.  They don’t make the generals the way they used to.

Shortly before German army surrendered, Ike telephoned Bradley for a situation report, Bradley suggested Ike have a plane prepared to fly them to their thirtieth class reunion at West Point the first week of June [1945].  Gen.  Patton graduated from West Point 6 or 7 years earlier.  These are the golden days of West Point.

The Notable & Quotable at the Wall Street Journal a few days ago was a speech Gen. Douglas MacArthur made at West Point in 1962, “Duty-Honor-Country.  Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be . . . ”  A timely quotation