Today, Friday the 24th, was the coldest day of the year in sun-blessed San Antonio. The Phillips family was joined by Kevin Turley (Vision Forum director of operations) and his clan for an evening of family fellowship by our Riverwalk.

Beall with Providence, just hours before our official “shearing of the bear.”

Liberty, Jubilee, and Faith Evangeline cuddling near the Alamo.

We detoured for an hour into the Menger where I recounted to our team the history of this grand hotel from its beginnings in the 1850s, the famous visit of Robert E. Lee when he rode his horse into the front lobby and swooped up the owner’s daughter, the raising of the Rough Riders in May of 1898 by Teddy Roosevelt, to its famous Texas centennial celebration with FDR, and more. In this picture, Joshua Phillips takes aim with his replica revolver and points to a spot on the second story of the Menger Saloon where bullet holes remain in the wall from TR’s triumphant (but rowdy) Rough Riders speech.

Though my political views vary from those of TR, I will always appreciate his vigor and manly character of this man who left the Republican Party to run as a third party candidate for President. Take a moment and read this remarkable letter from the former United States Secretary of the Navy concerning TR’s Spanish-American war “folly.”

Roosevelt understood that armchair quarterbacks and pompous pundits would never change culture. This nation needs men of action. Yet the great modern need is not only for leaders of character who will refuse political and internationalist pressure for Americans to go to war unless such wars are biblically justified, but for leaders who will play the part of men and refuse to commit the moral abomination of sending girls and mothers into combat.

The children gather in front of the “Line in the Sand” statue of William Travis which guards the hall of the Menger.