Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It Now [NOOK Book]

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Overview

Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal column has been must reading for thoughtful liberals and conservatives alike. Now she issues an urgent, heartfelt call for all Americans to support the next President. Because it is not the threats and challenges we face, but how we face them that defines us as a nation.

The terrible events of 9/11 brought us together in a way not seen since World War II. But the stresses and divisions of the Bush years have driven us apart to a point that is ...

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Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It Now

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Overview

Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal column has been must reading for thoughtful liberals and conservatives alike. Now she issues an urgent, heartfelt call for all Americans to support the next President. Because it is not the threats and challenges we face, but how we face them that defines us as a nation.

The terrible events of 9/11 brought us together in a way not seen since World War II. But the stresses and divisions of the Bush years have driven us apart to a point that is unhealthy and dangerous. Today, Noonan argues, the national mood has swung the other way and it is well past time for politicians to catch up. We long for leaders who can summon us to greatness and sacrifice, as they did in the long struggles against fascism and communism.

In this timely essay, written in the pamphleteering tradition of Tom Paine's Common Sense, Noonan reminds us that we must face our common challenges together—not by rising above partisanship, but by reaffirming what it means to be American.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
On the eve of the 2008 presidential election, Noonan projected her fears, hopes, condemnations and predictions for what the U.S. needs in order to climb out of its current funk. From the political arena to the living room, Noonan explains that what is needed is patriotic grace; not jingoism in the guise of flag waving and not political correctness run amok, but poise, composure and eloquence about the significance and potential good of this country. Granted, politically she presses a bit harder on the left than the right, but her effort is sincere and well argued. Noonan has a lively voice that, at times, has a bit of a lilt to it, especially when waxing nostalgic. Her delivery is deliberate and reserved, yet emphatic where needed, giving the narration its own sense of grace. A Collins hardcover.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780061982163
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 10/6/2009
  • Sold by: Harpercollins
  • Format: eBook
  • Pages: 208
  • Sales rank: 507,375
  • File size: 328 KB

Meet the Author

Peggy Noonan is the best-selling author of seven books on American politics, history, and culture. Her essays have appeared in Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other publications. She lives in New York City.

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Read an Excerpt

Patriotic Grace
What It Is and Why We Need It Now

Chapter One

This happened to my friend John, an average American kid from New Jersey who grew up in Montclair in the 1930s and '40s. I stress average. He kept a pigeon coop in the backyard, weeded lawns for ten cents a bucket, and went to the local public school.

When World War II began, John joined the navy, and in May 1944, at the age of twenty-two, he was an ensign on the USS Thomas Jefferson, a former luxury liner that had been converted to an assault vessel. There he was placed in charge of five of the landing craft for the invasion of Europe.

Each would carry twenty-five soldiers from the TJ, as they called it, onto the shore of France. John's landing site was to be a fifty-yard stretch of shoreline dubbed Dog Red Beach. It fell near the middle of Omaha Beach, which was pretty much the center of the assault.

The TJ sailed to England's Portsmouth Harbor, which was jam-packed with ships. On June 1, the army troops arrived, coming up the gangway one by one. "They were very quiet," John said when he told me his story in July 2008. Word came on June 4: the invasion would begin that night. They geared up, set off, but were ordered back in a storm. The next morning, June 5, the rain was still coming down, but the seas were calmer. So about 8:00 that night they cast off to cross the channel. The skies were dark, rain lashed the deck, and the TJ rolled in the sea. At midnight they dropped anchor nine miles off the coast of France. The men were summoned to a big breakfast, eggs and ham. At 2:00 a.m. the crew began lowering the landing craft, calledHiggins boats. The Higgins boats were thirty-six feet long, rectangular, flat bottomed, "a kind of floating boxcar, with head-high walls." A crane would lower them over the side, and the soldiers would climb down big nets to get aboard. "They had practiced, but as Eisenhower always said, 'In wartime, plans are only good until the moment you try to execute them.'"

The Higgins boats pitched in the choppy water. The soldiers, loaded down "like mountaineers," with rifles, flamethrowers, radio equipment, artillery parts, tarps, food, and water, "seventy pounds in all," had trouble getting from the nets to the boats. "I saw a poor soul slip from the net into the water. He sank like a stone. He just disappeared in the depths of the sea. There was nothing we could do." So they improvised, deciding to board the Higgins boats on the deck of the ship, and hoist them, full, into the sea. John scrambled into a boat with his men, and the crane lifted it, but the boat got caught on the TJ's railing and almost tipped over and tumbled the men into the water. They held on for dear life. Just at that second a wave came and righted the ship, which untangled the boat, and they were lowered safe into the sea.

It took John's five little boats four hours to cover the nine miles to the beach. "They were the worst hours of our lives. It was pitch black, cold, and the rain was coming down in sheets, drenching us. The boats were being tossed in the waves, making all of us violently sick. We'd all been given the big breakfast. Hardly anyone could hold it down. Packed in like that, with the boat's high walls. A cry went up: 'For Christ's sake, do it in your helmet!'

"Around four a.m. the dawn broke and a pale light spread across the sea, and now we could see that we were in the middle of an armada—every kind of boat, destroyers, probably the greatest array of sea power ever gathered."

Now they heard the sound, the deep boom of the shells from the battleships farther out at sea, shelling the beach to clear a path. And above, barely visible through clouds, they saw the transport planes pushing through to drop paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions. "Those were brave men."

At 5:00 a.m. they were close enough to shore to recognize some landmarks—a spit of land, a slight rise of a bluff. In front of them they saw some faster, sleeker British boats trying desperately to stay afloat in the choppy water. As the Americans watched, three of the boats flipped over and sank, drowning all the men. A British navigator went by in a different kind of boat. "He was standing up, and he called out to my friend in a jaunty British accent, 'I say, fellows, which way to Pointe du Hoc?' That was one of the landmarks. It was expected to be the toughest beach of all. My friend yelled out that it was up to our right. 'Very good!' the man cried out, and then went on by with a little wave of his hand." John later doubted the man had lived another hour.

Closer to shore, a furious din—"It was like a Fourth of July celebration multiplied by a thousand." By 6:00 a.m. they were eight hundred yards from shore. All five boats of the squadron had stayed together, a triumph in those conditions. The light had brightened enough that John could see his wristwatch. "At six twenty, I waved them in with a hard chop of my arm: Go!"

They faced a series of barriers, heavy metal rods. They made a sharp left, ran parallel to the shore, looking for an opening, got one, turned again toward the beach. They hit it, in a foot or two of water. The impact jarred loose the landing ramps to release the soldiers as planned. But on John's boat, it didn't work. He scrambled to the bow, got a hammer, and pounded the stuck bolt. The ramp crashed down and the soldiers lunged forth. Some were hit with shrapnel as they struggled through to the beach. Others made it to land only to be hit as they crossed it. The stuck ramp probably saved John's life. After he'd rushed forward he turned and saw, to his horror, that the man who'd been next to him the whole trip, the coxswain to whom he'd barked orders—"Hard to port, make it smart, we'll look for an opening!"—had been hit by an incoming shell and decapitated. The shell likely would have hit John too if the bolt hadn't stuck and the door hadn't jammed and he hadn't run for the hammer.

Patriotic Grace
What It Is and Why We Need It Now. Copyright © by Peggy Noonan. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
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Sort by: Showing 1 – 8 of 7 Customer Reviews

  • Posted November 5, 2008

    A timely invitation to change in the tone of public conversation.

    Pegggy Noonan has conservative credentials and a centrist heart for America. In this small book, she makes the case for turning down the heat in our public discourse about the best course for the nation. Patriotism, in this instance, is not about wearing a flag but rather acting like adults in our debate over decisions for the future of America. After nearly two-decades of increasing volume and reduced thought in the public arena, this book suggests an alternative for all Americans - from highest levels of government to neighborhood talks over the backyard fence. With a new administration, it may be possible.

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted December 18, 2008

    I Also Recommend:

    Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again
    Imagining the Future: Science and American Democracy
    Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

    why bother?

    It is beyond me why anyone reads Noonan anymore. This book is a prolonged meditation on the Rodney King "Can't we all get along, folks?" plaintive whine.Politics is serious enough so that conflict is inevitable. Grace is a lovely idea -- unsuited to the forum. <BR/>Noonan used to have something to say. But she has descended to the level of emotional blather, dumping re-constructed conversations with her friends, and warmed over feelings where real thought and analysis ought to be. If you want thoughtful political analysis, there are real books to read. So many good books out there -- this is one you don't have time for.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 8, 2008

    Patriotic Grace, AWESOME!!!!

    Patriotic Grace by Peggy Noonan was wonderful. Not only did she show a conservative side, but she really explained a lot of things that some people might not always understand. She explained how when 9/11 happened, everyone came together, as one big nation. Patriotic Grace was a great story about how as a nation we can all be one and not separated by different cultures and backgrounds. I believe that the major message that Peggy was trying to tell us was that we need to get out of our social class and political groups and just be one. Instead of having the political parties bash each other, why can¿t we be one and have a great nation. She said that we were all together when we went into the Revolution and 9/11, we worked together and maybe that would solve a lot of problems in our society. What I liked about the book was how she was not always on the conservative side, she really balanced it out. Like when talking about the Bush administration, it had two sides, maybe something that one person would believe and then another that someone else would believe. It was very well balanced and really didn¿t lean too far to one side. I really didn¿t have any dislikes about the book, maybe some disagreements about some of the thing that were said but overall no real dislikes. I highly recommend that you read this book, therefore if you feel like our country needs some togetherness and not so much separation. I would defiantly recommend it for people who are into politics. It not only helps you understand it more, but it shows you really what our country is going through and why we really need patriotic grace. My over all rating for this book is very high. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give it an 8 ½ , it was very well written and told you a lot about our country and why how ¿Patriotic Grace¿ would really help us as Americans out.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 20, 2008

    I Also Recommend:

    Light At The End Of My Pen

    Author, Light at the End of My Pen

    This has my interest, am going to order a copy!

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

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    Posted May 10, 2009

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    Posted December 31, 2010

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    Posted December 12, 2009

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    Posted June 15, 2011

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