Speech Elements to Help John McCain

The Poet once wrote "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more..." Now is not a time to retreat or shrink from our duty to the brave soldiers serving in Iraq.

We cannot abandon our posts. We must summon the spirit of our better angels. For the ship is not yet safely into harbor! Iraq is yet in peril.

We remember that peril ourselves.

We have experienced it many times in our history, when in the cold of winter, leading a tattered army, a tall silver-haired general knelt in the snow and petitioned the God of Nations for the survival of this American revolution.

We remember the peril, when after four years of the bloodiest war in our history, just as the ship of our state was nearing safe harbor, fanatics of an insurgency gunned down our Captain - lying cold upon the deck, in Ford's Theater.

We remember the peril on a bleak day in Dallas.

Will the work of uncovering the mass graves continue after we have fled our duty?

Shall the murderous work of kill and conceal continue in Iraq? If we leave too soon will we then return to uncover newly dug mass graves?

Now is the time to "stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood," and complete the mission.

In peace nothing so becomes a man and woman as modest stillness and humility.

But when the bell tolls for an assertive defence, let us take to the field and stand between our homes and the war's desolation!

We, at home, cannot abandon our soldiers in the field and stand idly by. Ladies and gentlemen may cry Peace, Peace! But there is no peace with the fanatic terrorist.

For when we lower our guard, as we did in the years prior to the attack on our Twin Towers, the forces of evil gather strength, and pour war upon all nations. Save only for good men and women to stand and do something, dictators will continue their works of death.

[Still a work in progress.]