1776: “Major Wilkinson ~ This is a Glorious Day for our Country”

Bryan W. Brickner finds an appreciation for the teenage spirit in Richard Hanser’s 1976 book, The Glorious Hour of Lt. Monroe, a biographical tale of revolutionary moments. Brickner has a 1997 political science doctorate from Purdue University and is the author of several political theory books, to include The Promise Keepers (1999) and The Book of the Is (2013).

“The phrase youth is wasted on the young,” opened Brickner, “does not apply to Lt. Monroe.”

On 26 December 1776, after a night crossing of the icy Delaware River, General George Washington and the Continental Army attacked the British camp in Trenton (NJ): the American victory became a turning point for the Spirit of ’76.

Richard Hanser (1909-81) was a Peabody Award winner and newspaper and television writer; he joined NBC after World War II and collaborated in writing “Victory at Sea,” a naval history of the war. In the posting “Major Wilkinson ~ This is a Glorious Day for our Country,” Brickner praises Hanser’s use of General Washington’s words – though he notes his portrayal of Lt. Monroe’s teenage sense-of-self as the high point.

“Hanser’s book depicts a willful American teen,” summed Brickner, “caught up in a crazed world – a world at war – and this young Lt. Monroe doesn’t appear to be motivated by glory: it reads like duty.”

The Bryan William Brickner Blog is a collection of published works and press coverage and an ongoing resource for the political science of constitutions and the biological science of cannabinoids.