>In a time when "leadership" and "courage" tend to mean telegenic "charisma" and self-important political posturing by celebrities addressing the like-minded and sycophantic, it doesn't hurt to remember acts of extraordinary human accomplishment in the face of genuine threat.
>
>Today is Battle of Britain day in the UK.
>
>It has long been fashionable for a certain class of insecure "intellectual" to dismiss such commemorations as jingoistic chest-thumping - lacking "nuance", celebrating outmoded ideas of patiotism, sacrifice and service.
>
>But that luxury to indulge in our modern redefinitions of "hero" and forget the meaning of real courage was bought over the skies of Britain in the fall of 1940 by Hugh Dowding and the RAF.
>
>69 years ago, a few thousand young men - and their extraordinary nation - were part of one of the truly critical moments in the history of Western civilization.
>
>Churchill, of course, had it right.
>
>Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few

Here here! Hooray for Winston who after the battle also said - "Men of the Navy, Men of the Army and GENTLEMEN of the Air Force"