Ambitious Effects In Frankenstein English Literature Essay

Ambitious Effects In Frankenstein English Literature Essay In Mary Shelleys novel, Frankenstein, the book examines a variety of aspects of ambitionfor instance, with Victor, ambition proves to be his undoing, and, in turn, Victors example becomes a forewarning for Robert Walton; meanwhile, the Creature is, in a sense, Victors child and thus inherits facets of Victors ambitionbut because the Creature is also a conglomerate of all the humans who embody him, he is thereby also symbolic of Mankinds ambitions that do not fully come to realization nor fulfillment, which is why readers can identify with the Creatures tragic elements. Frankenstein explores the repercussion of man and monster chasing ambition blindly. Victor Frankenstein discovered the obscure secret that allowed him to create life. And after Frankenstein discovered the source of human life, he became utterly absorbed in his experimental creation of a human being and it consumed his life completely. Victors boundless ambition and his yearning to succeed in his efforts to create life, and to have his creation praise him as his creator for the life he gave it led him to find ruin and anguish at the end of his ambition. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardor that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. (P. 42) Walton wanted to sail to the arctic because no other sailor had ever reached it or discovered its secrets. The monster was created against his will; his ambition was to requite his creation as an appalling outcast and to attain some satisfaction for crumbling the world around Victor. These three characters all acted upon the same blind ambition. Modern man is the monster, estranged from his creator-sometimes believing his own origins to be meaningless and accidental and full of rage at the conditions of his existence. Since the monster has no name of his own, hes not quite an autonomous fellow. Instead, he is bound to his creator. He is naught without Victor. He is as much a part of Frankenstein as he is his own self. The monster comes into the world by a pretty horrendous set of circumstances. He has the physique of a giant, yet a puerile mind. He has an amiable nature, yet his physical deformity hides his benevolence and makes everyone fear and abuse him. His own creator even rejected him because of his hideous looks. His feelings are the most deep and poignant of any characters in this novel, as well as the most conflicted. When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, the, a monster, a blot upon the earth from which all men fled and whom all men disowned? (P. 105) To make matters more complicated, the mons ter is correlated to both Adam and Satan in Paradise Lost. This may seem slightly nebulous. The thing to keep in mind is that the idea at the heart of the monster is his duality. He has a very abstruse duality. He is at once man in his immaculate state before the Fall (the Fall = evil), and yet the manifestation of evil itself. This is starting to sound like Victor Frankenstein. Abstruse dualityà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦conflicting characterizationà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦could it be that the monster mirrors his maker in his duality? Of course, the other reason the monster turns on humans is because Victor was his last tie to humanity. The monster is one of many people in this text that is affected by loneliness, isolation, and an all around desire for companionship. Victor may have scorned him, resented him, and tried repeatedly to eradicate him, but at least he talked to the monster. At least he recognized the monsters existence. And for a creature that spent most of his wretched life in hiding and ex ile, alone without anyone there for him, this can be pretty good reason to pursue Victor. Good or bad, Victor is the only relation hes ever had and he tries desperately to cling to this relationship. Do we accuse him? Do we spite him? Do we adore him? Hes tenderhearted. He articulates well with others and he even rescues a little girl from a river. He just gets the cruelty and hatred because hes ugly. Can we blame him if he lashes out in abrupt and absurdly violent ways? From that moment he declared everlasting war against the species, and more than all, against Frankenstein who had formed him and sent him forth to this insupportable misery. (P. 99) This sounds like more clashing emotions. Could it be that we, the reader, feel the equivalent duality of emotions that the monster and Victor feel for each other? One more thing, what does it mean that the monster is made out of dead-person pieces? If hes made up out of people, then hes essentially a person himself. But if theyre inert, then hes never really extant in the first place. You could also say that, since hes an aggregate of human parts, hes also a conglomerate of human traits. This might show us the nature of his complex duality. Modern man is also Frankenstein, furthermore estranged from his creator-usurping the powers of God and irresponsibly tinkering with nature, full of benign purpose and malignant results. Both Frankenstein and the monster begin with affable intentions and become murderers. The monster may seem more softhearted because he is by nature an outsider, whereas Frankenstein purposely removes himself from human society. When Frankenstein first becomes enthralled in his efforts to create life, collecting materials from the dissecting room and slaughterhouse, he breaks his ties with friends and family, becoming increasingly confined. His father reproaches him for this; eliciting Frankenstein to ask himself what his single-minded quest for knowledge has cost him, and whether or not it is morally acceptable. Looking back, he concludes that it is not, contrary to his credence at the time, If no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquility of his domestic affections, Greece h ad not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his country; America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed. (p. 35). Natural world is like Eden and will be corrupted through too much knowledge (science). [ProofBiblical Conception of Knowledge; man evicted from paradise for knowing too much; Prometheus reined in by Gods; novel written in Romantic era which upholds the values that Progress is Dangerous and that there must be a return to Idealized Past]. Through Victor and Walton, Frankenstein represents human beings as deeply ambitious, and yet also deeply erroneous. The labors of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind. (P. 29) Both Victor and Walton fantasize of transforming society and bringing prestige to themselves through their scientific conquests. Yet their ambitions also make them ignorant. Blinded by dreams of glory, they fail to consider the repercussions of their actions. So while Victor turns himself into a god, a creator, by bringing his monster to life, this only highlights his fallibility when he is ultima tely inept of fulfilling the obligation that a creator has to its creation. Victor thinks he will be like a god, but ends up the progenitor of a devil. Walton, at least, turns back from his quest to the North Pole before getting himself and his crew annihilated, after hearing Victors tale about the devastating aftermath of pushing the boundaries of exploration. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow. (P. 33) He learns from Victors tragedy. After Victor dies, he turns the ship back to England, trying not to make the same mistakes that Victor made in the obsessive compulsion that destroyed his life, but he does so with the resentful conclusion that he has been deprived of t he glory he originally sought. Frankenstein is an expostulation of humanity, specifically of the human concept of technical progress, science, and enlightenment, and a deeply humanistic effort full of empathy for the human state of our own condition. Victor is a brilliant, sentimental, visionary, and accomplished young man whose studies in natural philosophy (p. 31) and chemistry evolve from A fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature. (p. 22). As the novel develops and the plot thickens, Frankenstein and his monster oppose each other and fight one another for the portrayal of the main protagonist of the story. We are inclined to identify with Frankenstein, whose character is admired by his immaculate friends and family and even by the ship captain, who saves him, berserk by his pursuit for vengeance, from the ice floe. He is a human being, nevertheless. Notwithstanding, regardless of his humanitarian ambition to Banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death! ( p. 43), Frankenstein becomes tangled in a hostile pursuit that causes him to destroy his own well-being and shun his fellow-creatures as ifguilty of a crime (p. 35). His irresponsibility is the stimulant, the foundation of what causes the death of those he loves most, and he falls under the ascendancy of his own creation and fails to break free from the chains that bind him. Neither Victor nor Walton could liberate themselves from their blinding ambitions, they made it seem that all men, and notably those who pursue to raise themselves up in renown above the rest of society and even god, are in fact impetuous and imperfect creatures with feeble and defective natures. We can all learn from Victors last words to Walton, Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries. (P. 162)

For the Period Before 1750, Analyze the Ways in Which Britain’s Policy of Salutary Neglect Influenced the Devlopment of American Society Essay

For the Period Before 1750, Analyze the Ways in Which Britain’s Policy of Salutary Neglect Influenced the Devlopment of American Society as Illustrated in the Following: Legislative Assemblies, Commerce, Religion As soon as the Americas were discovered, tens of thousands of people wanted to migrate across the sea. The fastest the voyage could be made was approximately one or two months. Communication between the colonies and England was extremely difficult. The regulation of religion was basically impossible. Without the government to intervene, colonists were free to grow whatever they wished and do what they wished with their money. Also, it is exceedingly difficult to govern a colony from thousands of miles away, so the colonies needed to develop their own system of governing. Britain at this pointed adopted a policy of salutary neglect. Salutary neglect allowed the North American society to develop and change into something completely different from what it originally was in England. The land in the new world was found to be very good for farming. All of this new farmland was found to be viable and a great source for crops that were not able to be grown in England, such as tobacco and sugar cane. North American farmers were supposed to plant one acre of corn for every acre of tobacco they planted, but since it was such a cash crop and England was so far away, there was no way to enforce the rule. So much tobacco was made in fact, that the value of it dropped to the point where it was no longer profitable to grow. Farmers at this time did not fully understand supply and demand at this point so they just kept growing it. In the West Indies they would grow sugar cane. This was a valuable crop that sold for high prices in England. Religion in the colonies was freer and more persecution free than ever. While religious persecution still existed, it was much milder and there were many places one could go to escape persecution. The Church of England had no effective form of power in the colonies, so they could not enforce the church upon the colonists in the area. Meanwhile, areas such as Rhode Island had extremely tolerant policies of religion and even allowed those who did not believe in the divinity of Jesus to live there without fear. Even atheists and Jews could escape persecution. With the monarchy so far overseas, the colonies did have to develop their own self-governance. This was prominently seen in the Virginia colony with the House of Burgesses. The House of Burgesses was the first example of self-governing in the colonies. It served as a template for which a colonial government should be created. The House of Burgesses was made up of the Royal Governor and his appointed council of leading plantation owners. The HOB was able to legislate and create laws for the Virginia colony and was a viable replacement for the English government well into the seventeenth century. Another example of government in the colonies can be seen aboard the Mayflower. The Mayflower landed very far from their intended destination so they had no form of regulation or anything to guide themselves by. They decided upon and wrote the Mayflower Compact. The Mayflower Compact was an agreement between the 102 settlers on the Mayflower to form a crude government such that they could func tion properly until a proper government could be established. Salutary Neglect means the beneficial ignorance of something. When England practiced salutary neglect towards the colonies, it allowed American society to flourish and it provided an easy ruling for the English while still technically controlling the colonies.

Leadership In The Military

There is surely no more talent nor more hope for the future than right here in this room. I envy you and I wish I could trade places with you, but at the same time, looking at all of you I am supremely confident that here among you sit the future great captains of our military and that we can all be very confident about tomorrow. And I am convinced that if he were alive today, Gen. Marshall would be right here, for there is nothing that that great soldier loved more than to talk about service and to talk about leadership.As he himself once said on a similar occasion, looking across a room full of future leaders, â€Å"You're young,† he said, â€Å"and you're vigorous, and your service will be the foundation for peace and prosperity throughout the world. † Certainly as I look at you the same is true this morning. Truly you here in this room are our future. And it is most fitting for us to come together right here in these very halls where George Marshall once walked to h onor him and to reflect on his great contributions and to share some thoughts on leadership.If you were to think back over this century, you would realize very quickly that our Army has produced some truly remarkable military leaders. I am confident that if I were to ask all of you to take pen to paper and to write down the names of the great Army leaders of this century, you would be at it for a very long time, and when you were done, the lists that you produced would be very long. Just to name the most famous, there was, of course, Black Jack Pershing, Omar Bradley, George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Lightning Joe Collins and most recently two of my former bosses, Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell.Each of these officers was remarkably gifted. But if you study them closely, you realize that each was very different, that the fame they acquired had very different roots. Omar Bradley — simple, unadorned, humble, but of them all he was the soldier's soldier à ¢â‚¬â€ loved by his subordinates and considered by Eisenhower to be the boldest and most dogged of his Army group commanders. Or there was Eisenhower himself, a leader of incalculable depth, intricacy and complexity.Some say his outward appearance and reputation were those of an officer who compromised easily, and who others thought was only thinly grounded in the knowledge of war fighting, but one with a keen sense for what it took to maintain cohesion within our W[orld] W[ar] II coalition. But if you were to look closer, you would discover that these were the traits Eisenhower wanted others to believe, for he was surrounded by huge egos, both among the talented commanders in his theater and among the nations that comprised our alliance.Quite contrary to these assertions, he held deep convictions, and he never ceded or compromised any point that he felt important. Our campaign to seize Europe from the Nazis was the very campaign he visualized at the start of the war back in 1942, a plan for which at first there was only lukewarm support among American leaders and nearly total opposition from our British allies.Yet when it was done, it was Eisenhower's approach we executed, and it was militarily brilliant. And any study of our great generals must include that incredible warrior, George Patton, a tenacious and hard-bitten fighter who felt the pulse and flow of the battlefield in his veins, who had an innate knack for inspiring soldiers to fight beyond all limits of their endurance, but also a soldier with a renowned appetite for fame and approval.And we could talk about so many others, for our Army has produced such a rich abundance of talented leaders. But there is one giant who stands above them all. That officer was, of course, George Catlett Marshall. More than any soldier of this century, I'm convinced Marshall epitomized the qualities that we want in our leaders. He had MacArthur's brilliance and courtliness. He had Patton's tenacity and drive. He had Br adley's personal magnetism, the  ability to inspire confidence and deep affection from any who came into his presence.But more than that, Marshall had the organizational skills that in a few short years converted an Army of only several hundred thousand, with only a handful of modern weapons and no modern battlefield experience, into an Army of over 8 million — the best equipped, the best fighting army in the world, an army that defeated the two most powerful empires of its time.More than that, he had a rare intuition, a nearly flawless inner sense for other men's strengths that allowed him to see the spark of leadership in others, and when he saw that spark, to place such men into key assignments and then to fully support their efforts. He did that time and again, hundreds of times, with remarkable accuracy. And as we learned after the war, he was as well perhaps the greatest statesman and visionary of his age.All of us should remember that the occupations of Germany and J apan were commanded by military officers, but we should also remember that the architect of these occupations was Marshall. But even beyond this, in 1948, with a few words uttered in a speech at Harvard, Marshall put in motion the plan that would rebuild Western Europe, that would recover its people from enormous poverty, that would reweave the entire tapestry of nations from the conflict-addicted patterns of the past to what we see today: a Western Europe poised on the edge of becoming a cohesive union of nations.What an accomplishment! It is staggering to think of what this one officer accomplished in his career of service to his nation. But most humbling is to realize that to his death Marshall remained an entirely selfless man, a man who returned to service even from a well-deserved and long-sought retirement because a president requested him to do so, a man who never, ever exploited his reputation for any personal gain. If we were to ask a sculptor to produce a bust of a great leader and  described to that sculptor all of the traits and qualities that that bust should reflect, I have absolutely no doubt that that bust would look exactly like Gen. George C. Marshall.And so for those of us like you and I, who make soldiering our way of life, it is always instructive to take the time to reflect on Gen. Marshall's career, for by so doing we are reminded of much that we should try to emulate. But you are here for a different reason. You are here because I think you worry about these next steps for you, which will lead to a gold bar of a second lieutenant.I doubt very much that you are searching for answers about how to mobilize for war, how to free an enslaved Europe or how to rebuild a destroyed nation, although some day your country may ask just that from you. If you are like I was when I waited to pin on my lieutenant's bars, your thoughts are more about the challenges of a platoon leader than those of a general. The other week while a guest on Larry King 's show, Larry asked me when I first thought of becoming a general and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The answer was very simple.I told him that when I was a private my ambition was to become a good one so someday I could become a good corporal. And when 36 years ago, in 1959, the year that Gen. Marshall died, I was commissioned a second lieutenant and shipped off to Fairbanks, Alaska, and became a platoon leader in the mortar battery of the 1st Battle Group of the 9th Infantry, my thoughts were certainly not on becoming a general or colonel or major or even a captain!My thoughts were on becoming a good platoon leader, about being up to the challenge of leading my soldiers, about not making a fool of myself in front of Sgt.1st Class Grice, the platoon sergeant of that first platoon of mine. And I was right to concentrate on the job at hand, for the job of a lieutenant is a tough one — in many ways, perhaps, the toughest one — but it is without a doubt also the most important, and if you take to it, also the most rewarding. I was very fortunate, because I had Sergeant Grice to guide me and to teach me. And teach and guide me he did, without ever making me feel inadequate and without ever permitting me to be ill-prepared, because he was the best!And if there is one thing I wish for each and every one of you, it is a Sergeant Grice to teach you about soldiers, about leaders, and the responsibilities and joys of soldiering together. Not everyone is as blessed as I was; not everyone finds his Sergeant Grice, and many don't not because he isn't there, but because unknowingly and foolishly they push him away. Don't do that. Look for your Sergeant Grice; NCOs have so very much to teach us. Well, what did I learn from Sergeant Grice?Certainly more than I have time to tell you here, and also because many helpful hints have probably by now faded from my memory. But what I learned then and what has been reinforced in the 36 years since is that good leader ship, whether in the world of a lieutenant or in the world of a general, is based essentially on three pillars. These three pillars he taught me are character, love and care for soldiers, and professional competence. Oh, Sergeant Grice didn't exactly use these terms, but what he believed and what he taught me fit very neatly into these three pillars.He used to say that if the platoon ever sensed that I wasn't up front with them, if they ever believed I did something so I would look good at their expense, I would very quickly lose them. How right he was. Often he would say, â€Å"Look down. Worry about what your soldiers think. Don't worry about looking up, about what the captain thinks of you. † He never said it, that's not the kind of relationship that he and I had, but I knew that if I ever said something to the platoon or to him that wasn't the absolute truth, he would never trust me again and I would be finished as a platoon leader.I would be finished as a leader. Someone once said that men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied men of power are feared but only men of character are trusted. Without trust you cannot lead. I have never seen a good unit where the leaders weren't trusted. It's just that simple. And it isn't enough that you say the right things. What counts in a platoon is not so much what you say, but what they see you do. Gen. Powell, speaking here a few years ago, put it this way: â€Å"If you want them to work hard and endure hardship,† he observed, â€Å"you must work even harder and endure even greater hardship.†Ã¢â‚¬Å"They must see you sacrifice for them,† he said. They must see you do the hard things, they must see you giving credit to the platoon for something good you did, and they must see you take the blame for something they hadn't gotten just right. But Sergeant Grice also understood that hand in hand with character, with this inner strength that soldiers will want to see, they will also want to know and see that you really care for them, that you will sacrifice for them, that you simply enjoy being with them. Words won't get you through there, either.If you don't feel it in your heart, if you don't love your soldiers in your heart, they will know it. How often Sergeant Grice would prod me to spend the extra time to get to know the members of the platoon better, to know who needed extra training and coaching so he could fire expert on the rifle range the next time around; to talk to Pvt. Taylor, who just received a â€Å"Dear John† letter; to visit Cpl. Vencler and his wife, who had a sick child. Every day you will have soldiers who will need your care, your concern and your help.They expect and, I tell  you, they have the right to expect, 150 percent of your time and best effort. And how well I remember those evenings in the field when Sergeant Grice and I would stand in the cold, with a cup of coffee in our hands trying to warm our frozen fingers, watching the p latoon go through the chow line. Grice taught me that simple but long-standing tradition that officers go to the very end of the chow line, that the officer is the last one to eat, that the officer will take his or her first bite only after the last soldier has had a chance to eat.This tradition, as you so well know, is founded in the understanding that leaders place the welfare of their people above their own, that the officer is responsible for the welfare of the troops; that if mismanagement results in a shortage of food to feed the entire unit, that the officer will go without; that if the food gets cold while the unit is being served, that the officer will get the chilliest portion. It is a tradition that surprises many officers from other nations, but it goes to the core of the kind of leadership we provide our soldiers. But caring for our soldiers does not stop at the chow line.Nor, for that matter, does it stop with the soldiers themselves, for you know that our units are fa milies, and a soldier must have the trust that you will take care of his family, particularly when he's away from home. But caring for soldiers actually starts with making them the best possible soldiers they can be. Their satisfaction with themselves, their confidence in themselves and in the end, their lives will depend upon how well you do that part. And that perhaps is your greatest challenge as a lieutenant. It is hard work, and make no mistake about it, there are no shortcuts.But what a joy it is to watch or to talk to young men and women in uniform, who know that they are the best because a Sergeant Grice and his or her lieutenant cared to teach them and to work with them and to make them reach for the highest standards. Which brings me to the third pillar I spoke of, and that is your professional competence. As we look back on Marshall and on Patton and on MacArthur and all of the others, we realize that the skills and qualities and knowledge that made them great generals to ok decades of training, of experience and of evolution.For all of the differences between these leaders there is one thing that they had in common. Their careers were marked by a progression of difficult assignments and intense study. Always they were a snapshot of a masterpiece still in progress, still in motion. From the beginning of their careers to the end, each of them was continually applying new brushstrokes to their knowledge and to their skills. And Grice understood that very well, although he had different words for it.He knew that if our platoon was going to be good at occupying a position and firing our mortars, at hastily leaving our position should enemy artillery have found our location, at the countless things that would make us a finely honed war-fighting machine, then he had to show me, he had to teach me and to practice with me, so that when I walked that gun line the soldiers would know that I knew more than they; that if I asked them how to cut a mortar fuse, th ere was no doubt that I would know the answer, just as I would know if there was too much play in the sight mount on that mortar.And I had to feel confident that knew before they would feel confident with me. In every good leader I have met in my years of service there always was the evidence of these three qualities: character, love for soldiers and professional competence. And because they possessed these qualities, they managed to inspire their soldiers to have confidence in them. And you know, the truly great ones like George C. Marshall did not only inspire soldiers to have confidence in their leaders, but they also inspired their soldiers to have confidence in themselves.With that, let me close. As I told you in the beginning, I am deeply envious of each of you. Since the days when I first put on my uniform, I fell in love with soldiering and with soldiers, and it has been for me, by any measure, a great passion. If I could start all over today, I would not hesitate for a sing le second. I would go out and I would find old Sergeant Grice and we would be ready tomorrow morning! Good luck to you all. I envy you. Leadership in the Military There is surely no more talent nor more hope for the future than right here in this room. I envy you and I wish I could trade places with you, but at the same time, looking at all of you I am supremely confident that here among you sit the future great captains of our military and that we can all be very confident about tomorrow.And I am convinced that if he were alive today, Gen. Marshall would be right here, for there is nothing that that great soldier loved more than to talk about service and to talk about leadership.As he himself once said on a similar occasion, looking across a room full of future leaders, â€Å"You're young,† he said, â€Å"and you're vigorous, and your service will be the foundation for peace and prosperity throughout the world.† Certainly as I look at you the same is true this morning.Truly you here in this room are our future. And it is most fitting for us to come together right here in these very halls where George Marshall once walked to hono r him and to reflect on his great contributions and to share some thoughts on leadership.If you were to think back over this century, you would realize very quickly that our Army has produced some truly remarkable military leaders.I am confident that if I were to ask all of you to take pen to paper and to write down the names of the great Army leaders of this century, you would be at it for a very long time, and when you were done, the lists that you produced would be very long.Just to name the most famous, there was, of course, Black Jack Pershing, Omar Bradley, George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Lightning Joe Collins and most recently two of my former bosses, Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell.Each of these officers was remarkably gifted. But if you study them closely, you realize that each was very different, that the fame they acquired had  very different roots. Omar Bradley — simple, unadorned, humble, but of them all he was the soldier's soldier â⠂¬â€ loved by his subordinates and considered by Eisenhower to be the boldest and most dogged of his Army group commanders.Or there was Eisenhower himself, a leader of incalculable depth, intricacy and complexity. Some say his outward appearance and reputation were those of an officer who compromised easily, and who others thought was only thinly grounded in the knowledge of war fighting, but one with a keen sense for what it took to maintain cohesion within our W[orld] W[ar] II coalition.But if you were to look closer, you would discover that these were the traits Eisenhower wanted others to believe, for he was surrounded by huge egos, both among the talented commanders in his theater and among the nations that comprised our alliance. Quite contrary to these assertions, he held deep convictions, and he never ceded or compromised any point that he felt important.Our campaign to seize Europe from the Nazis was the very campaign he visualized at the start of the war back in 1942, a p lan for which at first there was only lukewarm support among American leaders and nearly total opposition from our British allies. Yet when it was done, it was Eisenhower's approach we executed, and it was militarily brilliant.And any study of our great generals must include that incredible warrior, George Patton, a tenacious and hard-bitten fighter who felt the pulse and flow of the battlefield in his veins, who had an innate knack for inspiring soldiers to fight beyond all limits of their endurance, but also a soldier with a renowned appetite for fame and approval.And we could talk about so many others, for our Army has produced such a rich abundance of talented leaders. But there is one giant who stands above them all. That officer was, of course, George Catlett Marshall. More than any soldier of this century, I'm convinced Marshall epitomized the qualities that we want in our leaders. He had MacArthur's brilliance and courtliness. He had Patton's tenacity and drive. He had Bradl ey's personal magnetism, the  ability to inspire confidence and deep affection from any who came into his presence.But more than that, Marshall had the organizational skills that in a few short years converted an Army of only several hundred thousand, with only a handful of modern weapons and no modern battlefield experience, into an Army of over 8 million — the best equipped, the best fighting army in the world, an army that defeated the two most powerful empires of its time.More than that, he had a rare intuition, a nearly flawless inner sense for other men's strengths that allowed him to see the spark of leadership in others, and when he saw that spark, to place such men into key assignments and then to fully support their efforts. He did that time and again, hundreds of times, with remarkable accuracy.And as we learned after the war, he was as well perhaps the greatest statesman and visionary of his age. All of us should remember that the occupations of Germany and Japa n were commanded by military officers, but we should also remember that the architect of these occupations was Marshall.But even beyond this, in 1948, with a few words uttered in a speech at Harvard, Marshall put in motion the plan that would rebuild Western Europe, that would recover its people from enormous poverty, that would reweave the entire tapestry of nations from the conflict-addicted patterns of the past to what we see today: a Western Europe poised on the edge of becoming a cohesive union of nations. What an accomplishment!It is staggering to think of what this one officer accomplished in his career of service to his nation. But most humbling is to realize that to his death Marshall remained an entirely selfless man, a man who returned to service even from a well-deserved and long-sought retirement because a president requested him to do so, a man who never, ever exploited his reputation for any personal gain.If we were to ask a sculptor to produce a bust of a great leade r and described to that sculptor all of the traits and qualities that that bust should reflect, I have absolutely no doubt that that bust would look exactly like Gen. George C. Marshall.And so for those of us like you and I, who make soldiering our way of life, it is always instructive to take the time to reflect on Gen. Marshall's career, for by so doing we are reminded of much that we should try to emulate.But you are here for a different reason. You are here because I think you worry about these next steps for you, which will lead to a gold bar of a second lieutenant. I doubt very much that you are searching for answers about how to mobilize for war, how to free an enslaved Europe or how to rebuild a destroyed nation, although some day your country may ask just that from you.If you are like I was when I waited to pin on my lieutenant's bars, your thoughts are more about the challenges of a platoon leader than those of a general.The other week while a guest on Larry King's show, L arry asked me when I first thought of becoming a general and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The answer was very simple. I told him that when I was a private my ambition was to become a good one so someday I could become a good corporal. And when 36 years ago, in 1959, the year that Gen. Marshall died, I was commissioned a second lieutenant and shipped off to Fairbanks, Alaska, and became a platoon leader in the mortar battery of the 1st Battle Group of the 9th Infantry, my thoughts were certainly not on becoming a general or colonel or major or even a captain!My thoughts were on becoming a good platoon leader, about being up to the challenge of leading my soldiers, about not making a fool of myself in front of Sgt. 1st Class Grice, the platoon sergeant of that first platoon of mine.And I was right to concentrate on the job at hand, for the job of a lieutenant is a tough one — in many ways, perhaps, the toughest one — but it is without a doubt also the most important , and if you take to it, also the most rewarding.I was very fortunate, because I had Sergeant Grice to guide me and to teach me. And teach and guide me he did, without ever making me feel inadequate and without ever permitting me to be ill-prepared, because he was the best!And if there is one thing I wish for each and every one of you, it is a Sergeant Grice to teach you about soldiers, about leaders, and the responsibilities and joys of soldiering together. Not everyone is as blessed as I was; not everyone finds his Sergeant Grice, and many don't not because he isn't there, but because unknowingly and foolishly they push him away. Don't do that. Look for your Sergeant Grice; NCOs have so very much to teach us.Well, what did I learn from Sergeant Grice? Certainly more than I have time to tell you here, and also because many helpful hints have probably by now faded from my memory.But what I learned then and what has been reinforced in the 36 years since is that good leadership, wheth er in the world of a lieutenant or in the world of a general, is based essentially on three pillars.These three pillars he taught me are character, love and care for soldiers, and professional competence.Oh, Sergeant Grice didn't exactly use these terms, but what he believed and what he taught me fit very neatly into these three pillars.He used to say that if the platoon ever sensed that I wasn't up front with them, if they ever believed I did something so I would look good at their expense, I would very quickly lose them. How right he was.Often he would say, â€Å"Look down. Worry about what your soldiers think. Don't worry about looking up, about what the captain thinks of you.†He never said it, that's not the kind of relationship that he and I had, but I knew that if I ever said something to the platoon or to him that wasn't the absolute truth, he would never trust me again and I would be finished as a platoon leader. I would be finished as a leader.Someone once said that men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied men of power are feared but only men of character are trusted. Without trust you cannot lead. I have never seen a good unit where the leaders weren't trusted. It's just that simple.And it isn't enough that you say the right things. What counts in a platoon is not so much what you say, but what they see you do.Gen. Powell, speaking here a few years ago, put it this way: â€Å"If you want them to work hard and endure hardship,† he observed, â€Å"you must work even harder and endure even greater hardship.† â€Å"They must see you sacrifice for them,† he said. They must see you do the hard things, they must see you giving credit to the platoon for something good you did, and they must see you take the blame for something they hadn't gotten just right.But Sergeant Grice also understood that hand in hand with character, with this inner strength that soldiers will want to see, they will also want to know and see that you really care for them, that you will sacrifice for them, that you simply enjoy being with them. Words won't get you through there, either. If you don't feel it in your heart, if you don't love your soldiers in your heart, they will know it.How often Sergeant Grice would prod me to spend the extra time to get to know the members of the platoon better, to know who needed extra training and coaching so he could fire expert on the rifle range the next time around; to talk to Pvt. Taylor, who just received a â€Å"Dear John† letter; to visit Cpl. Vencler and his wife, who had a sick child. Every day you will have soldiers who will need your care, your concern and your help. They expect and, I tell you, they have the right to expect, 150 percent of your time and best effort.And how well I remember those evenings in the field when Sergeant Grice and I would stand in the cold, with a cup of coffee in our hands trying to warm our frozen fingers, watching the platoon go through the chow line. Grice taught me that simple but long-standing tradition that officers go to the very end of the chow line, that the officer is the last one to eat, that the officer will take his or her first bite only after the last soldier has had a chance to eat.This tradition, as you so well know, is founded in the understanding that leaders place the welfare of their people above their own, that the officer is responsible for the welfare of the troops; that if mismanagement results in a shortage of food to feed the entire unit, that the officer will go without; that if the food gets cold while the unit is being served, that the officer will get the chilliest portion. It is a tradition that surprises many officers from other nations, but it goes to the core of the kind of leadership we provide our soldiers.But caring for our soldiers does not stop at the chow line. Nor, for that matter, does it stop with the soldiers themselves, for you know that our units are families, and a soldier must have the trust that you will take care of his family, particularly when he's away from home.But caring for soldiers actually starts with making them the best possible soldiers they can be. Their satisfaction with themselves, their confidence in themselves and in the end, their lives will depend upon how well you do that part. And that perhaps is your greatest challenge as a lieutenant. It is hard work, and make no mistake about it, there are no shortcuts.But what a joy it is to watch or to talk to young men and women in uniform, who know that they are the best because a Sergeant Grice and his or her lieutenant cared to teach them and to work with them and to make them reach for the highest standards.Which brings me to the third pillar I spoke of, and that is your professional competence. As we look back on Marshall and on Patton and on MacArthur and all of the others, we realize that the skills and qualities and knowledge that made them great generals took decades of training, of experience and of evolution. For all of the differences between these leaders there is one thing that they had in common. Their careers were marked by a progression of difficult assignments and intense study. Always they were a snapshot of a masterpiece still in progress, still in motion.From the beginning of their careers to the end, each of them was continually applying new brushstrokes to their knowledge and to their skills.And Grice understood that very well, although he had different words for it. He knew that if our platoon was going to be good at occupying a position and firing our mortars, at hastily leaving our position should enemy artillery have found our location, at the countless things that would make us a finely honed war-fighting machine, then he had to show me, he had to teach me and to practice with me, so that when I walked that gun line the soldiers would know that I knew more than they; that if I asked them how to cut a mortar fuse, there was no doubt that I would know the answer, just as I would know if there was too much play in the sight mount on that mortar. And I had to feel confident that knew before they would feel confident with me.In every good leader I have met in my years of service there always was the evidence of these three qualities: character, love for soldiers and professional competence. And because they possessed these qualities, they managed to inspire their soldiers to have confidence in them.And you know, the truly great ones like George C. Marshall did not only inspire soldiers to have confidence in their leaders, but they also inspired their soldiers to have confidence in themselves.With that, let me close. As I told you in the beginning, I am deeply envious of each of you. Since the days when I first put on my uniform, I fell in love with soldiering and with soldiers, and it has been for me, by any measure, a great passion.If I could start all over today, I would not hesitate for a single second. I would go out and I would find old Sergeant Grice and we would be ready tomorrow morning!Good luck to you all. I envy you.

Parenting Practices Essay - 1002 Words

Janet Michelle Lewis Parenting Practices April 12, 2014 PARENTING PRACTICES Parenting a child is a very important role. Parents teach a child how to behave and they provide the needs for the child. Parenting practices varies from generation to generation. In the chart below I have described parenting practices over generations in my family. | Generation 1: Years (1960-1970) | Generation 2: Years(1980-2000) | Generation 3: Years(2000-2014) | Parenting Practice 1: Education | Medium standards | Medium standards | High standards | Parenting Practice 2:Religious Involvement | High standards | High standards | High standards | Parenting Practice 3:Breastfeeding | High standards | Medium standards | Low standards |†¦show more content†¦Parenting emphasized how healthy and important it was to breast feed. Throughout generations family members began to rely more on formula, than breast feeding. Early on in our generation, parenting did not focus on extra curriculum activities as much. All of the kids in the neighborhood loved to go outside and play street ball, skate and just hang out. However, for Christmas parents would but balls, games, skates, jump ropes and etc. Later in our generation parents in our family suggested that we participated in sports in school, but they did not push us to participate. Cohort effects and its influence on the parenting practices of each generation: The effects of being born at about the same time, exposed to the same in society, and influenced by the same demographic trends and thus, having similar experiences that make the group unique from other group. Cohort effects are most likely to be a problem during cross-sectional study as it is difficult to separate effects of developmental changes from cohort effects when examining age effects across a wide range of ages (Cozby, 2009). Educated Black Americans were role models in all generations such as Martin Luther King Jr., Myia Angelo, Booker T. Washington, and many others. 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