Word: heroic
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...proud U.S. Marine Corps, whose often heroic Leathernecks had long boasted of being nothing short of the best, was confounded. "We've now got to operate on the thesis that this is possibly an endemic problem in the Marines," said a senior officer at the Corps's Washington headquarters. Declared another officer: "I'm stupefied, flabbergasted. We just never thought something like this could happen." So battered was the Corps that Marine Major General Carl Mundy resorted to an otherworldly defense when grilled by a House committee. He paraphrased the optimistic -- and now ironic -- Marine hymn: "If you look...
...areas of the country possess major league baseball or professional football, but it is only a slight exaggeration to say every state has a contender for this super bowl. In the past two weeks, network and cable- television stations have fairly throbbed with elimination games, often featuring heroic and nameless underdogs with authentic chances. Within 90 minutes of Southwest Missouri State's invitation, a spontaneous pep rally of 3,000 fans lighted up Springfield on a Sunday night. The Bears upset Clemson and almost Kansas...
...would be easy to stigmatize Hook as a collector of grievances and negatives. In fact, an almost heroic optimism invigorates his work. Twice in old age, he notes, his heart has stopped, and once he asked to be taken off life-support systems, only to be refused. Yet he feels that "the test of whether a human being has enjoyed a happy life is whether, if it were possible, he or she would accept another round of it. By this test I have had a happy life...
...formula. Admittedly, Reagan loves government as ceremony and majesty. The rituals of his office, so irksome to other Presidents, were the things he liked best and did best. He gave out medals and awards enthusiastically (and generously: the military granted more medals for % Grenada than actual troops landed there). Heroic government, on the epic scale, was his favorite movie -- the happy Nuremberg rally...
Reagan was reknowned for his ability to "visualize" games and--from scraps of paper--invent an absorbing world of heroic athletes. Listeners knew he was inventing the games, but pretended otherwise. It was more exciting that way. "There was a complicity in the make-believe," Wills writes. And why not? After all, a ball game had taken place, one team had won, and such-and-such a player had hit a home run while another struck...