Ronald W. Reagan is 92 today. He has lived longer than any other U.S. President.

UPDATE: I highly recommend When Character Was King, by Peggy Noonan. It is one of the best books on RWR that I have ever read. Ms. Noonan was his speechwriter in the early years, and she really gives you a feel for who he really is.

The picture shown here has made the e-mail rounds for months, but this page built around it is cool.

God, I miss my Dad.

The greatest President of the 20th century.

I'm too upset to write now. I'll be back in a while.

Reynaldus Maximus.

The Great One.

These and many other terms of endearment have been, and will be bandied about over the next week. Even his old enemies seem effusive in their praise of Reagan the man, if not Reagan the politician. Of course there are the LLL who don't even have the class to keep quiet rather than speak ill of the dead, but that is a topic for another day.

The two men in this world whom I've admired the most were my father, and Ronald Reagan.

Every day, I am more convinced that we have another Greatest Generation on our hands. And here's one of the reasons why:

{Marine Corps. Commandant, General} Hagee's last story was about another 22-year-old squad leader, Cpl. Timothy C. Tardif, who was suffering from grenade fragment wounds and had been evacuated to Germany, but found a way back to the battlefields of Iraq.

"He was in a platoon that was in a very fierce firefight, and he was able to lead his squad across an open road into a village to secure the right flank of the village," Hagee said. "The good news is they made it across. The bad news is they were in a hand grenade-throwing contest.

The battle continued for a couple of hours. Tardif was seriously wounded by shrapnel, but he refused to be evacuated, the general said. "They were successful and secured the village," Hagee noted. "But as they were pulling out of the village, Corporal Tardif passed out because of loss of blood."

This is from Kim duToit's blog. I reproduce it here in full, so as to disseminate it as widely as possible:

Yesterday, some French troll came in and started whining about soldiers and militarism (until The Mrs. banned his a**).

Soon afterwards, I received this email, forwarded by a Reader. The letter has to do with the two GIs killed in Afghanistan this past weekend.

I wish I was writing to you with better news regarding 3/116th Infantry combat tour in Afghanistan. Yesterday we lost two of our best soldiers, SGT. Craig Cherry, and SPC Bobby Beasely. They and an interpreter were killed when a command detonated explosive device blew up underneath their Hummer.