It's hard to imagine there would have been a United States of America without George Washington.

He was there at the birth of the nation.

He successfully guided it through war and nurtured it in peace.

How did he do it?

Not by being a great general, a potent political theorist, or even a clever politician.

He was none of those things.

And yet he was admired by generals, political theorists, and politicians.

Why?

Because he was a man great men trusted.

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and so many others looked

up to him.

Literally, he was one of the tallest men of his year at six feet three.

Add courage, integrity, and wisdom, and you have a truly impressive figure.

Let's start with his courage.

That was never in doubt.

If anything, he had too much of it.

Out to the point of rationalism as a young man, he fought for the British against the

French over control of the Ohio Valley, then the westernmost point of the American wilderness.

Throughout that conflict known as the French and Indian War and the American Revolution,

Washington was always in the thick of the action.

His aides often struggled to keep him from surging too far ahead of his own troops.

In one battle, his coat was pierced four times by musket fire.

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