The words of Thomas Paine in 1776 ring just as true today: “The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country.” There are no fair-weather soldiers among our ranks.
A year later, just before the brutal Winter at Valley Forge, George Washington wrote, “We should never despair. … If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.”
