Imagine, it is 1940, Nazi bombs are raining from the sky in what seems like a never-ending hailstorm, not only smashing your city, but crushing your countrymen’s hope for survival as well. You are filled with a sense of trepidation and can hardly see through the rubble and smoke that has become the normality of your weary home, but as this acrid smoke clears you see a figure. A man who, until recently, had a tarnished reputation that seemed beyond repair, a man that inspires hope and faith into your heart: Churchill.”Churchill the Unexpected Hero” shows that Winston Churchill was by no means always considered the perfect hero that he can be made out to be in today’s history books; he had huge political and social setbacks that could have made him quit, however, he persevered. We see a similar situation in the news article “Wes Moore and Barbie”, a story of two men who were both named Wes Moore and who were raised in difficult situations. One man turned his life around, refusing to give up, pursuing his dreams, and became a Rhode scholar, and an adept author. The other man was not as successful and ended up in prison for a “botched robbery” in which a policeman was gunned down.
“Churchill the Unexpected Hero” by Paul Addison, is very much an analytical book about the life of Winston Churchill. It’s chapters take you through the chapters of Churchill’s life, from the very beginning to the end. All along it show the differing opinions of Churchill. A clear example of this would be when the poet Sitell, a popular artist of the time wrote in a mock voice of Churchill’s, “Only 3 years ago/ I was allowed to waste/ a million lives in Gallipoli”(Addison 105). This shows the country’s view of him several years after what is considered to be his most famous military fiasco. It gives us an idea as to the negative opinions of him, and the general agreement that he had squandered lives in a carless manner. This harsh judgment shows how difficult his obtaining popularity would be in the future. While this book quotes many sources of clear opinions like the one above, the author himself lacks zeal when recounting the life of Churchill. He seems to be more a historian then a raconteur. This is a stark contrast to the new article about the two Wes Moore men. The author, the successful Wes Moore, writes about his past with a passion and intensity that is almost palpable. From both of these stories, I learned about the importance of never giving up, even when situations seem hopeless.
We see many times when Churchill failed: in school and at a point, the military, but, these failures did not discourage him to continue his career; they only encouraged him to try harder. When he was informed of the attack on Pearl Harbor and of America’s sub sequential decision to join the war effort he said, “So we have won after all.” This quote shows that he might have felt disheartened about the way the war was going, but he never let it show to the British people. He never let these feelings affect his leading or his determination to win. The same can be said for the Wes Moore that was a Rhode Scholar. He may have grown up without a father, and he may have been arrested before he was even a teenager, still he did not allow these past problems to influence his future.
“Churchill the Unexpected Hero” is a detailed account of the great British politician’s life. “Wes Moore and Barbie” is a story showing the incredibly different paths a life can take based on your decisions. The former of these two stories is and inspiring and informative onethat I would recommend to my friends, but the latter is one that seems to have more emotion within its short pages. They help show that people from any background can have an amazing future. You could be born into a family with a horrible reputation, or a family of meager means; that does not have to affect what you do with your life. Both of these show the importance of not letting obstacles, as big as they might seem to you at the time, get in the way of your future. As Churchill once said, “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” As this statement so accurately points out, you may have many failures in your lifetime, but to be truly successful, you must not let them negatively affect your future. You, not these past events, decide what is in store for you.
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