London Calling

Our hearts are with Londoners these days, but they've been through even tougher times.  I've chosen this issue of Time featuring Winston Churchill as the 1940 "Man of the Year" to remind us of how tough, feisty and downright courageous the British have been.  Recall that as this magazine was going to the presses, America was not yet in the war, Hitler had pummeled London with a sustained aerial attack in the "Battle of Britain" and as Churchill took office countries fell like bowling pins: Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium, France.

Man of the Year
January 6, 1941

Time chose to begin its coverage of Churchill with the first speech he delivered to the British House of Commons on May 13, 1940 as Prime Minister.  You know the one -- where he declared: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."  He said more, much more.  Listen to it again, and think of it in the context of the global War on Terror.

"You ask, what is our policy?  I say it is to wage war by land, sea and air -- war with all our might and with all the strength God has given us -- and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime.  That is our policy.  You ask, what is our aim?  I can answer in one word.  It is victory.  Victory at all costs.  Victory in spite of all terrors.  Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival."

Maybe Tony Blair is not Winston Churchill, but he has the same spirit.  Battered by his association with war in Iraq, and a bruising election campaign, Blair showed us again why we like him.  He has integrity, guts and, like Churchill, he has resolve about the things that really matter.  Here's how the article put it after describing the litany of disaster and defeat Britan had endured under Nazi assault in 1940:

But Churchill was not without accomplishment.  He gave his countrymen exactly what he promised them -- blood, toil, tears, sweat -- and one thing more: untold courage.  It was the last that counted, not only in Britain but in democracies across the world.

We stand with London today, as our parents and grandparents did with London in the dark days of World War II.