a publication of UNIVERSITY of the CUMBERLANDS
September 2010 • Volume 1 , Issue 2
Zell Miller
has had a diverse career. He has served as a
United States Senator, a nationally acclaimed governor of Georgia, a
best selling author, a university professor, and a United States marine
sergeant. He is also a dedicated Christian. A colorful and an enduring
political figure, people know exactly where he stands on the issues.
This is one reason why he is in such demand as a public speaker.
While a Democrat “to the day I die,” he was a supporter of President
George W. Bush. Indeed, he was the keynote speaker at the Republican
National Convention in 2004. Yet he also gave the keynote address at
the Democratic National Convention in 1992. He is the only man
to have given the keynote addresses at both the Republican and
Democratic National Conventions.
The following is an adaptation from a speech presented at the University of the Cumberlands on
March 29, 2007 in the “21st Century Leadership Series” sponsored by the Forcht Group of Kentucky
Center for Excellence in Leadership.
What Price Freedom?
President Taylor, it is an honor to be in your presence. It is an honor to be on this picture-perfect
university campus that US News and World Report has called one of the best in the nation. It is an
honor to participate in this patriotic leader program. How appropriate to be at the home of the
Patriots, talking about patriotism.
The world we live in today is the world after 9/11. It’s a world where much of what we live with is a
consequence of that day. And it’s going to be that way for a long, long time. I
think, deep down, we all knew that would be the case, as the horror of 9/11
unfolded before our eyes. In those moments before we comprehended
the significance of the attack, we still dreamed of that world in
which we thought the worst of history was over. The
Berlin Wall had come down. The nuclear standoff had ended. The core freedoms of pride and
property and markets were taking root in the
Third World and even communist China.
We saw a world of promise, where freedom
and prosperity would peacefully displace
tyranny and poverty as the light of freedom
swept forward. Then, that light flickered and,
with a crash, we became conscious again of all
A full-scale replica of the Liberty Bell graces
Patriot Park, on Cumberlands’ campus.
that history we had almost forgotten. In that
moment, we all rediscovered those hard words
spoken long ago, by Plato, “Only the dead have
seen the end of war.”
A tragic fact is that most of the progress made
in this world has depended on some struggle
somewhere of patriots guarding the gates
against the barbarians of their day. That is why
Thomas Jefferson said “The tree of liberty must
be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of
patriots and tyrants.” History’s greatest lesson is
that there is always an on-going struggle between
freedom and tyranny. We have to make a choice
between the two. To vacillate or appease or put
off is to make a choice. To make a choice requires
patriotic leadership and the choice always exacts
a terrible toll. But, if freedom wins, the result is
the most glorious of pay-offs.
The pay-off was evident, at least as far back as
490 B.C. The citizen soldiers of ancient Athens,
Greece, turned back the Persians on the Plains
of Marathon. A man named Phidippides ran
the 26 miles back to Athens with the news
of that great victory. Marathoners still run
that distance. But a far greater significance of
that battle was that free men defeated the hired
soldiers, mercenaries, and slaves of a tyrant. That
victory led the way to Athenian Democracy and
all the good things that come with it: individual
rights, trial by jury, freedom of speech.
The glorious pay-off was also the result of
events that began that April day in 1775, when
American colonial patriots stood up to the
Redcoats at Lexington and Concord and fired
that shot heard around the world. Two weeks
later, George Washington took command of
the Continental Army to oppose the tyranny
of George III. And, still later, our founding
fathers famously pledged their lives, fortunes,
and sacred honor to the conflict that lay ahead.
After a hard and bitter struggle, those patriotic
leaders won our liberty.
In Cumberlands’ Patriot Park, the Shaft of
Steel Memorial stands in memory of the fallen
of 9-11. The 20-foot steel obelisk is a beam
from Ground Zero of the World Trade Center,
which was placed in honor of Andy Croley, a
Cumberlands friend and volunteer who worked
in D-Mort body identification for weeks following the attack.
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“Every morning my faith is restored when I see
the clean cut, mannerly, hard working, mountain
students walk with purpose, with head held high,
body erect and with pleasant smiles on their faces.”
President Jim Taylor
The pay-off was gloriously true in 1863, when a
son of Hodgenville, Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln,
made the famous address at the Gettysburg
ceremony
where
7,000 men had
died. Their bodies
lay rotting for
months after
the battle.
T h e
Bust of Kentucky native son, Abraham Lincoln, in
University of the Cumberlands’ Hutton School of
Business.
governor of Pennsylvania had put the event
together and invited the foremost orator of
the day, diplomat Edward Everett, to give the
address.
Having the president come was an afterthought.
Someone said “Well, shouldn’t we invite the
president?” and someone else said “Uh, well he’s
not very popular right now. Lots of people don’t
like him but I guess you’re right. Maybe he won’t
come.” But Abraham Lincoln came riding from
the train station on a little mule that made him
look even more awkward. He arrived at the field
and the crowd was entertained by the glorious
oratory of Edward Everett, who spoke for two
hours. Then Lincoln got up, and before the
crowd adjusted themselves and the cameraman
had even gotten in place, Lincoln had spoke and
sat back down. He said to the man that sat by
him, “That speech won’t scour,” a phrase that
means a plow won’t cut through the ground.
All the newspapers except one thought it was
a failure. One wrote “What an embarrassment it
is to have a foreign visitor look at this man, and
we have to say ‘That’s the President of the United
States.” But Edward Everett knew better. He
wrote to Lincoln, “Mr. President, I wish I could
have come as close in two hours to the meaning
of the occasion as you did in two minutes.”
President Lincoln’s few words explained better
than anyone ever has what the Civil War was
all about. A test is what he called it, a test of
whether a new nation conceived in liberty can
long endure. The Civil War solved two great
issues. One: no state would ever again try to
secede from the Union. And two: slavery in the
United States would be ended forever. A true
patriotic leader doesn’t govern by public opinion
polls; he or she leads by following what is right
and what is wrong.
The glorious pay-off was true in 1917. Within
just a few months, more than a million American
patriots volunteered to fight the Germans in
World War I, and they turned the tide from
possible defeat to an allied victory on the Western
Front. My father was among those volunteers.
He died when I was two weeks old; I never knew
him. But I can remember wearing his coat with
those sergeant stripes on it when I was so young
it dragged on the floor. My arms did not extend
more than halfway down the sleeves.
The glorious pay-off was true that late spring
of 1940 because of one single strong patriotic
voice—a magnificent and eloquent voice that
would not let up in his opposition to Adolf
Hitler, one of the most evil men who ever lived.
While Winston Churchill had repeatedly warned
against the dangers of appeasement and pleaded
that Hitler be stopped and destroyed, nobody
would listen. Finally, when only Britain was left,
in desperation, they turned to this great patriotic
leader. As their prime minister, and with stirring
oratory and unflinching courage, he led them out
from under the heels of Hitler during Britain’s
finest hour.
All during the 1990s, I worried that same kind
of appeasement and that same kind of softness
and self-indulgence was turning my country
into a land of cowering men and women before
the world’s mad bullies. I watched with disgust
when we did nothing in 1993 after the World
Trade Center was attacked for the first time,
3
4
killing six and injuring more than a thousand
Americans. I was amazed in 1996, when sixteen
U.S. servicemen were killed in Saudi Arabia in
the bombing of the Khobar Towers, and still we
did nothing. When our embassies in Tanzania
and Kenya were attacked in 1998, killing 263
people, our only response was to fire a few
missiles into an empty tent. More American lives
were lost in 2000 with the bombing of the USS
Cole in Yemen. No one seemed to remember
Lincoln’s warning, 140 years earlier, that you
cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by
evading it today.
Then came September the 11th, 2001. “The
worst day in our history,” David McCullough,
the great historian, has called it. I went to the
floor of the United States Senate and said our
response should not only be swift, but it must be
sustained. Our will as a country was being tested;
later, I gave the President my full support both
for the invasion of
Afghanistan and for
the regime change
in Iraq.
And I told my
fellow senators this
true story. I was
doing some work
on my back porch
at home, tearing out
a section of stacked
rocks that had been
there for many years.
All of a sudden, I
uncovered a nest
of four copperhead
snakes. A copperhead is poisonous; it can kill
you. It could kill one of my grandchildren or
great grandchildren who play in the back yard
often.
When I discovered those poisonous
copperhead snakes, I did not call my wife Shirley,
like I do on just about everything else. I did not
ask the city council to pass a resolution. I did not
even call any of my neighbors. I just took a hoe,
hacked them in two, and killed them all dead as
doornails.
I guess you could call that unilateral action.
It was certainly a preemptive strike. Several
preemptive strikes, in fact. I took their poisonous
heads off because they were a threat to me and to
my home and family. They were a threat to all I
hold dear. I told the Senate that day, “Isn’t that
what this war is all about?”
In my Senate office, in the Dirksen Building in
Washington, I had a 3 x 5 painting of the raising
of the flag at Iwo Jima. This image of six men
raising an American flag on Mount Suribachi, in
one of the bloodiest battles ever fought, is one
of the world’s most vivid symbols of the price of
freedom. But it is easy to miss what I consider
to be most important about it. There are six
young warriors in it. But unless you look very,
very closely you can only see five because only
a single helping hand of one warrior is visible.
Most significantly, they are all virtually faceless.
If you are like most Americans who have looked
at this famous scene time and time again over the
past six decades, you may have missed that. You
cannot really identify a single face. But isn’t that
how it is too often with most of our freedom’s
soldiers? They are unknown and all too often
unappreciated, faceless, nameless patriots who
fight our wars to keep us free.
Kentuckian Franklin Sousley was one of the six
U.S. servicemen in the famous photograph of the
raising of the flag on Iwo Jima. Sousley was killed
during the battle for the island.
That is why what we are doing here in this
auditorium tonight is so important. You may
remember that it was in New York City, at the
Republican Party Convention in 2004, that I
reminded Americans that never in the history of
the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the
freedom and liberty of total strangers than the
American soldier.
I also pointed out that our soldiers do not just
promote freedom abroad; they preserve it for us
here at home. For it has been said so truthfully
that it is the soldier, not the reporter, that has
given us freedom of press. It is the soldier, not the
politician, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given
us the freedom to protest. It is the soldier, who
salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose
coffin is often draped by the flag, that gives that
protestor the freedom he abuses to burn that
flag. As lovers of freedom, we are indebted to
those who bore the burden and paid the price
before us, and to those brave men and women
who are doing it now. God bless these patriots,
these soldiers of freedom.
There have been mistakes made in the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq. There are mistakes
made in every war. Mistakes made in every
battle. Mistakes by the hundred were made
during D-day. And I can remember when
General Douglas McArthur told President
Harry Truman that the Chinese would never
come across the Yalu River into North Korea.
But those soldiers who were trapped at Chosin
Reservoir found out that intelligence was very
bad.
War has been defined as the unfolding of
miscalculations. As an old history professor,
and one who has lived through World War II,
Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War, I believe
that the current threats of Islamic extremism
are even more dangerous than were the threats
from Nazism and Communism. Then, as now,
we face fanatics who will stop at nothing to
dominate us. Then, as now, we either win or
we lose. There is no other choice.
Many people talk about this war as if it were
something done on an impulse by President
George W. Bush or simply an attempt to create
fledgling democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is a much broader war than that. Iraq
and Afghanistan are only two of many, many
battlefields in this war, a war which now
includes every continent except Antarctica.
I cannot understand why it is so hard for so
many Americans not to see the nature of this
war. It is certainly not because the enemy is
keeping it a secret. Every major Islamic fascist
leader, from heads of countries and heads of Al
Qaeda and heads of Islam, has openly identified
the United States as their prime target. They
have said that they want to kill us. They have
repeatedly promised the creation of a new world
order, and yet too many citizens refuse to come
to terms with this terrible reality. I wish that
they could realize war does not decide who is
right. War decides who is left.
If we learned anything from the 20th century,
it should be this lesson: When leaders say they
are prepared to kill millions of people to achieve
their goals, we must take them at their word.
This is particularly true when today’s enemies
People I have Met at
University of the Cumberlands
At Homecoming 2009, Dr. Robert Michael
Duncan, a 1971 alumnus, gave a speech
entitled “Five People I Met at Cumberland
College.” Duncan, a recent chairman of the
Republican National Committee and currently serving as chairman of the Tennessee
Valley Authority, spoke about several lasting
friends that he had made at Cumberland and
still talks to quite frequently. Over the coming issues of Morning in America several of
these will be featured. In this issue he introduces Nelda Barton-Collings, who served as
the Republican National Committee woman
from Kentucky for twenty-eight years.
Duncan declared that Barton-Collings of
Corbin, Kentucky had been introducing him
to political and business leaders since he
joined the Cumberland College Republicans
Club in 1968. And “she taught me networking and encouraged me to look for adventure
in life.” Duncan tells the story of how Nelda
introduced him to a “gangly wire-haired political nerd, an itinerant student not enrolled
at Cumberland, but someone very interested
in our active College Republican Club” … who
“was always asking us to bring students to
political conventions in different states and
talking about electing a President.” Duncan
viewed this young man as very bright, yet he
never graduated from any college. He did
keep getting involved with political candidates and organizing campus political clubs
around the country. After working in Washington at the Republican National Committee, he left for Texas to start his own computer business. But his goal was to help elect
a President of the United States. On January
20, 2001, Karl Christian Rove saw his dream
come true. From late 1998 until January 20,
2009, “Karl, Nelda, and I worked together for
George W. Bush,” the forty-third President of
the United States. Nelda Barton-Collings indeed helped Duncan to understand the value
of “adventure and networking.” Her encouragement allowed Duncan to enter some of
the highest political circles in the country.
5
see dying for their cause as a desired objective,
not a tragic consequence. We had no problem
branding Communism as an evil empire. It was.
We had no problem understanding that Hitler’s
Nazism and Japan’s Imperialism were evil
empires. They were. We must now bring that
same clarity to the war against today’s extremists.
It is the great test of this generation.
My concern is not what may happen in Iraq,
as much as what will happen in America. Even
if Iraq is divided into three separate states, it will
still be better governed than any of its neighbors.
So the main question is not the future of Iraq but
the future of America. Can the world’s leading
nation still lead? Or are we like that statue of
Saddam Hussein that we pulled down and then
found out was all hollow inside? That is how
the terrorists think of America. They know our
Editor
Eric L. Wake, Ph.D.
Contributing editor
Bruce Hicks, Ph.D.
Advisory Committee
Al Pilant, Ph.D.
Oline Carmical, Ph.D.
Graphics Editor
Jennifer Benge
Production Manager
Daphne Baird
Staff Assistants
Fay Partin
Meghann Holmes
Copyright ©2010
UNIVERSITY of the CUMBERLANDS
The opinions expressed in UC Morning in
America are not necessarily the views of
UNIVERSITY of the CUMBERLANDS
Permission to reprint in whole or
in part is hereby granted, provided
the following credit line is used:
“Reprinted by permission from
UC Morning in America, a publication
of UNIVERSITY of the CUMBERLANDS.”
6
military is a tough outer layer of steel, the best
warriors we have ever had in all our history. But
what is inside of that nation called America?
Are we becoming a nation that goes belly up
whenever our comfort level is threatened? Are
we becoming a nation that has no idea about the
cost of freedom or what a patriotic leader is?
Right after the World Trade Center attacks,
nine out of ten Americans said that they believed
that another terrorist attack would take place in
the United States within the next few months.
What nine out of ten Americans believed was
the prevailing wisdom back then. Yet now, more
than five years later, no terrorist attack on U.S.
soil has occurred. Not one. But in the other
parts of the world, there have been more than
600 attacks linked to Islamic terrorists. Should
not someone be thanked, commended, and
given some credit?
The center of gravity in Iraq is Baghdad. Secure
Baghdad and, with time, the rest of the country
will follow. Final stability throughout Iraq may
still not come for many months, even years. But
without a stable Baghdad, a stable Iraq is next to
impossible.
As we defeat the enemy in Baghdad, it will
become the center of a functioning government
and a place from which the rest of the country
can be governed and rebuilt. This is the intent.
Only God knows whether or not it will work.
But I believe it is worth the effort. And if
freedom wins here, it could be something big
and historically significant, just like those other
events that I talked about.
Omar Bradley was a World War II general,
as many of you know. He was a great general.
He did not possess the charisma of a Douglas
McArthur. Nor did he have the strategic
brilliance of a Dwight Eisenhower. But no one
was calmer under stress than Omar Bradley. He
was known as the G.I.’s general because of his
closeness to his men.
General Bradley once described freedom to
his troops this way: “Freedom--no one word
was ever spoken that has held out greater
hope, demanded greater sacrifice, needed to be
nurtured, blessed more the giver, damned more
its destroyers, or come closer to being God’s will
on earth, and I think that is worth fighting for.”
God bless America.
Remember Cumberlands
You can remember Cumberlands in your will or trust, or you might want to create a charitable gift
annuity to provide you with a lifetime income as you assist deserving students.
With charitable gift annuities:
• The rates are significantly greater than bond rates and certificates of deposits.
• Annuity payments are fixed and based on the age(s) of the annuitant(s).
• Annuity payments are extremely favorably taxed.
• The donor is entitled to an income tax charitable contribution deduction.
• Appreciated securities given to Cumberlands for a charitable gift annuity are valued on the
date of the gift; capital gains taxes are not immediately due as they are when securities are sold
by the donor.
• A gift annuity is the simplest of all split-interest planned gifts.
A Charitable Gift Annuity, will not only provide you a fixed income, guaranteed for life, but
also will create a significant legacy here at University of the Cumberlands. Benefits also include a
substantial income tax deduction.
University
of
the
Cumberlands offers numYearly
Annual
Charitable
erous planned giving
Age
Rate
Income
Deduction*
vehicles for people who
require a guaranteed income
65
5.5%
$ 550.00
$ 3,060.10
for the remainder of life. 70
5.8%
580.00
3,802.20
Others have established
trusts and deferred gift
75
6.4%
640.00
4,400.40
annuities
naming
a
loved one as the income
80
7.2%
720.00
5,005.60
beneficiary. With the low
85
8.1%
810.00
5,683.70
payout rates currently
on certificates of deposit
90
9.5%
950.00
6,218.70
(CDs) and the volatility of
the stock market, deferred
gift annuities are becoming *based on minimum age of 65; a gift annuity of $10,000; figures for
extremely popular for annual payment and IRS discount rate of 3.4%, as of May 2010
young adults who will not
be retiring any time soon but want to plan and secure a steady, fixed income that will begin when
they retire. For instance, a 45-year-old can defer a gift annuity for 15 years and receive income at a
rate of 9.2 percent for life. The income tax deduction would be immediate (during working years
when your tax bracket is higher) and the income would not begin until you are 60. As with regular
gift annuities, the entire amount of the annuity would be backed by all of the University’s assets.
If you are considering the establishment of a Charitable Gift Annuity to provide life-long income
for yourself and vital support for University of the Cumberlands, please contact Jim Taylor at
[email protected].
Remember, as a financial supporter of Cumberlands, you are encouraging today’s students as you
also demonstrate your continuing commitment to the college’s mission to educate individuals for
lives of responsible service and leadership.
7
6191 College Station Drive • Williamsburg, Kentucky 40769
NON-PROFIT ORG
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
LOUISVILLE, KY
PERMIT #879
The caliber of a University of the Cumberlands educationdemonstrated by two outstanding students, past and present.
General Floyd L. Parks, Major General
Benjamin Baker, Major General Ronald
Mason and Admiral Charles A. Blakely.
General David H. Petraeus (left) congratulates
Major General Kenneth S. Dowd.
Major General Kenneth S. Dowd, ’79, director
for logistics, J-4, U. S. Central Command,
MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., was recently named
commanding general of the 1st Theater
Sustainment Command, Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.
Additionally, University of the Cumberlands
is the alma mater of five other generals and
one admiral: Brigadier General Roy W. Easley,
Major General Charles Calloway, Major
Kiersten Friend, ’10, is the author of
“‘Let Not My Sex Be an Objection:’
Olympe de Gouges and the French
Revolution,” which was named the
best undergraduate paper at the state
regional conference of Phi Alpha
Theta, national history honor society.
Kiersten and Dr.
Eric Wake, professor
and chair of the
History and
Political Science
Department and
sponsor of Phi
Alpha Theta.