George Washington. The Indispensible Man.

in·dis·pen·sa·ble/ˌindiˈspensəbəl/Adjective: Absolutely necessary or essential.

I want to briefly introduce you all to a man I consider the epitome of what a true hero is and should be. He is a man to whom we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude. He, George Washington, is somebody I truly regard as one of my greatest heroes, a man who I deeply admire, and one day will have the honor and privilege to meet and thank with all the sincerity I possess for his example, sacrifice, and character.

Please, I invite you to continue reading as I share a few incredible stories of George Washington in an attempt to convey in some small way who this great man was.

He was unanimously elected as the commander-in-chief of the New American Army, unanimously elected as the presiding officer of the constitutional convention, unanimously elected by the Electorate College twice as the president of the United States, and he did not want to do any of it. What kind of person is that?

Ours is a rich and unique history filled with men, great men who we call the founding fathers. Samuel Adams earned the title "The Father of the American Revolution." Jefferson even called him the "Patriarch of Liberty." But there was only one man who could have been called the father of our country and that's George Washington.

There was a story about a fellow named William Payne who is the only man who ever physically assaulted George Washington and got away with it. It was during one of the early elections before George Washington was world famous. Washington came to Alexandria to support a friend of his who was running for the colonial legislature. This Mr. Payne supported an opponent, and their discussion turned into an argument. All of a sudden, Payne reaches up because he's considerably shorter as almost every American was considerably shorter than George Washington, and knocks him to the ground.

Well, he was the commander of a Virginia regiment at that time, and all of his fellow officers and soldiers stepped forward to take care of this guy, and Washington waved them off and said, "No, it's OK. Let him go." He went back to the inn where he was staying, and almost immediately wrote a letter saying, "Mr. Payne, I'd like to visit with you tomorrow morning." Payne was scared to death as you can imagine. If you had to face George Washington and his legendary physical power, you'd be scared too. But when he showed up the next morning, Colonel Washington, which is what he was then, he put forward his hand and said, "Mr. Payne, I'd like to apologize for losing control of my temper in an unprotected moment and I hope we can still be friends." They ended up being friends for the rest of their lives. Amazing guy, but he did this consciously. It was important to him to learn how to demonstrate respect for his fellow men because of who he was and who he felt they were.

During the French and Indian War when George Washington was in his early 20's was an aide to British General Braddock. They were leading about almost 1,500 troops out to western Pennsylvania, Fort Duquesne, around Pittsburgh now. Because Washington knew the area he had warned Braddock that there are places that are real good ambush sites, and told him, "I wouldn't go there."

Well, General Braddock, he was a British general, and most of them are quite proud. So they march right through this area, and almost 1,000 French troops with Indians ambushed them and just started mowing them down. Out of the almost 1,500 that they started with there was over 1,000 wounded and/or dead. Among those were all of the officers including Braddock, except George Washington. When he wrote the next day to his family he said, "I don't know why I'm still here. It must be the hand of Providence that had preserved me. I've got bullet holes in my hat, through my clothing. I've had two horses shot out from under me."

15 years later in 1770, Washington was with a group of men that were reviewing and kind of scoping out the same area, and an old Indian was part of an Indian band that discovered them and invited them to sit down in the council around the council fire. This old Indian chief gets up and he said, "I was there. As a matter of fact I was in command when the Indians and the French drenched this area with the blood of the soldiers, and we killed a lot of them. But we could not kill that man." He said, "I had moved my best marksmen on him and I told them they cannot miss and they usually did not miss." "But this time," he said, "we couldn't hit him."

That was his prophecy. He said, "I'm telling you, the great spirit is with that man. He will one day be the great chief of a great nation."
"He cannot die — he cannot die in battle."

There are at least 67 occasions during the Revolutionary War alone when he said that the American cause of independence would have come to a complete disaster except for one thing and that was the direct intervention of God to save us. Later on, after he was elected president, he said the same thing about the constitutional convention. He used the word "miracle" more than once.

A lot of people say that George Washington and some of the other founders were deists. A deist is understood certainly today as somebody who believes in God, but believes that God basically wound up the universe and then took off and said good luck.

I am here to tell you that Washington was no deist. After attributing the salvation of America on dozens of occasions to God's intervention, he said this after being elected president, "No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency."

"When I contemplate the intervention of providence in guiding us, I feel almost overwhelmed. I feel that nothing — nothing is due to my personal agency."

That is truly remarkable.

It is so astonishing to me that we have writers today who say the founders were only deists, and in some cases atheists. George Washington was one of the most vocal, but virtually all of them said that the reason that this country was created was because of the intervention of God. Nobody said it more often or more effectively than George Washington.

My aim in posting this was out of hope that those who read it will gain a deeper appreciation and respect for the great father of this nation- George Washington. It is men like him, God-fearing, honest, humble, hard-working, that truly make a difference. One man, one woman is all it takes to make a difference and influence the entire course of history. In these most troubling times we face, let us emulate and follow the examples of men and women like George Washington, as we strive to rebuild and restore a love for liberty in this great nation we call home.