Table of Contents
Praise for
The Politically Incorrect Guide toREAL AMERICAN HEROES
Forgetting the builders of our nation will lead to the collapse of our nation. Brion McClanahans Politically Incorrect Guideto Real American Heroes can help us avoid collapse and extend American civilization to future generations.
Leo Thorsness, colonel USAF (retired), Medal of Honor recipient, POW in Vietnam for six years
Ronald Reagan reminded us in his first inaugural address, Those who say that were in a time when there are no heroesthey just dont know where to look. Now they can look here! The Politically Incorrect Guideto Real American Heroes helps us distinguish true heroes from mere celebrities. As Calvin Coolidge said, Great men are ambassadors of Providence sent to reveal to their fellow men their unknown selves. This book is an overdue reminder of this timeless truth.
Steven F. Hayward, author of The Politically Incorrect Guideto the Presidents and The Age of Reagan
Brion McClanahan is on a mission to revive traditional American virtues. One way to do so, he thinks, is by restoring traditional American heroes to their lost place in our consciousness. Rather than focus solely on a panoply of victims, officials, and people who are famous for being famous, we ought to admire people for whom faith, devotion, duty, self-reliance, ingenuity, and sacrifice served as beacons on the path to their contributions to their communities and the broader society. His choice of explorers, statesmen, military leaders, business tycoons, and authors is not meant to be exhaustive; rather, McClanahan offers us an implicit challenge to ponder the lives of additional admirable Americans of our own choosing. To help us, he throws in a few tales of lionized people who deserve to be knocked off their pedestals.
Kevin Gutzman, author of The Politically Incorrect Guideto the Constitution and James Madison and the Making of America
You have to read a book that explains why well known men like Robert E. Lee and little known women like Augusta Jane Evans are American heroes, and why PC favorites like the Kennedys and Margaret Sanger should never have been given the title in the first place.
Clint Johnson, author of The Politically Incorrect Guideto the South
Brion McClanahans Politically Incorrect Guideto Real American Heroes answers a crying need. American kids are growing up ignorant of both the principles and the people that made America great. McClanahan reintroduces the explorers, founders, frontiersmen, soldiers, underdogs, and inventors that every child used to learn about in school, until the curriculum was gutted by the Left. These real American hero stories are an entertaining readand a valuable education in American ingenuity, self-reliance, and self-government.
Marybeth Hicks, author of Dont Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid: Confronting the Lefts Assault on Our Families, Faith, and Freedom
Collectivists are fond of claiming that it takes a village for big or good things to happen. Baloney! The strength of the village depends on the character of the unique individuals who drive it forward, often overcoming barriers the village idiots put in their way. With this book, Brion McClanahan helps us celebrate some notable heroes even as he reveals that others thought by many to be heroes shouldnt be in that category at all.
Lawrence W. Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education
To the victor belong the spoils is an adage that relates perfectly to Brion McClanahans Politically Incorrect Guideto Real American Heroes as McClanahan engages us in a fast-paced account of those heroes purged by the forces that have claimed political victories in the United States. Readers will be inspired by the final frontier escapades of Buzz Aldrin as by the adventures of his colonial frontier counterpart Daniel Boone. Equally inspiring is McClanhans vivid revival of Americas first historian and original misanthrope Mercy Otis Warren. The demigod FDR and classical-education-slayer Dewey are returned to their proper stations in American historys cellar. In an age that features hero worship of the laughable and decadent, McClanhan saves us by providing an exciting restoration of the heroic stories that tamed a continent with republican virtue.
Mike Church, writer-director of The Road to Independence and host of Sirius XMs Mike Church Show
McClanahan is one of the best historians of his generation and this may be his finest book. His portrayal of real American heroes like Daniel Boone, Booker T. Washington, and Buzz Aldrin is sure to encourage Americans. Here are people worthy of our admiration and emulation, not superficial celebrities. The Politically Incorrect Guideto Real American Heroes should appeal especially to parents who recognize the shallowness of public education and the popular media. Read this book. And share it with your children.
Sean Busick, professor of history at Athens State University and author of The Founding of the American Republic and A Sober Desire for History
Unless one is intoxicated by the scourge of political correctness, there can be no argument as to who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Self-evident truth remains common and sensible to those of us honest enough to genuinely scrutinize and study history, thereby identifying when good things happen and when bad things happen and just who the perpetrators are. Brion McClanahan identifies some of the long forgotten American heroes who helped shape the greatest quality of life the world has ever known in his book The Politically Incorrect Guideto Real American Heroes. Enormous upgrade will occur if this book is made an integral part of the education process for Americas youth so we never forget who the real heroes were and how to keep the dream alive.
Ted Nugent, rock n roll legend, outdoorsman, and author of God, Guns, & Rock n Roll; Kill It & Grill It; and Ted, White, and Blue
To those who fight for and live traditional American principles and valuesyou are real American heroes
INTRODUCTION
Americans need heroes. Perhaps our heritage mandates that. Americans have tamed a vast wilderness, plowed fields, built companies, won wars in the face of insurmountable odds, spread liberty and civilization across thousands of miles of territoryand accomplished most of this on our own hook. We are a fiercely independent, proud, hard-working, and, yes, heroic people. Yet, as the historian Frederick Jackson Turner lamented decades ago, the closing of the frontier in 1890 may have augured an end to this rugged individualism, this most truly American trait. Urbanization has made many Americans decadent. We have become dislocated from the heroic deeds of our ancestors and as a result look for heroes among the artists, musicians, actors, and politicians that dominate modern American life. It hasnt always been this way.
There is a calendar from the year of my fathers birth, 1940, on the wall of my parents home. It was a freebie from an insurance company based in the North, but I noticed several years ago that the birthdays of both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were included as holidays. There were no asterisks by their names setting them apart as slave-owners or traitors. This Northern insurance company considered two Southern heroes to be American heroes, tooworthy of celebration, no less. Americans of earlier generations would have been able to discuss the heroics of men such as Captain John Smith, Winfield Scott, Daniel Boone, Stephen Decatur, Davy Crockett, and Lee; and the accomplishments of contemporaries like George S. Patton and Charles Lindbergh would have rolled off their tongues. These genuine heroes were once as much a part of American life as baseball and apple pie. Unfortunately, the same reverence for the heroes of our past is missing from contemporary America. Neither students nor adults remember them.