Lions for Lambs

What will you live for? What will you die for? What will you fight for? What will you stand for?

These questions were posed in the 2007 movie Lions for Lambs starring Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise. Matthew Michael Carnahan was the screenwriter/producer along with Robert Redford.

In one scene Professor Malley (Robert Redford) talked with a college student in the professor's office about the student missing classes. The student launched into cynical words about politics, government, elections, science, and work. When the student finished, Professor Malley said,

"You almost convinced me. You're great with words, son. But you know what would make them even better? If they had a heartbeat. If they were rooted in any kind of experience. If you had knocked on doors, licked envelopes, been to any public rally. Just put yourself on the line in any meaningful way."

The scene then switched to rugged snow covered mountain peaks of Afghanistan where two soldiers are in a gun fight for their lives as they waited for a rescue helicopter. Unbeknownst to the professor, the two soldiers were his former students.

In another scene the Malley is talking with a couple of students and tells them about how much World War I German soldiers admired the bravery of the British grunts. The professor said,

"Germans soldiers wrote poems about the bravery of British grunts. They admired them almost as much as they laughed at the British High Command who wasted these same grunts by the hundreds of thousands. A German officer wrote: Nowhere else have I seen such lions led by such lambs."

The professor continues, "That statement is so dead-right on now! These starch collars who started this war (referring to Iraq and Afghanistan), that are running it now are nowhere near the best and brightest. They are not even in the same galaxy. These are the ones that when some of our men are blown to bits in the middle of some gun battle say 'shit', like the enemy may have blooded our nose but we're learning from our mistakes."

Next week we should begin to learn if we elected a lion or a lamb to lead our country.

Have a good week!