Happy Birthday, To His Excellency

Today marks the anniversary of the birthday of George Washington, a man to whom I feel perhaps no accolades can be exaggerated.  I believe no single individual approaches Washington's influence in the founding of our republic; quite simply, without him the United States of America would have been strangled in infancy, if not by the British during the War for Independence, then by our own domestic squabbles following our establishment as an independent nation.  

I join today with Henry Lee in affirming that George Washington, the General, the President, the American, was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countryman."