The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War [Paperback]

Beginning with the Roosevelt Family background, the reader is introduced to Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., Greatheart to his family, who taught his children the duties which go with privilege. Greatheart made one decision which would have a profound impact on his progeny: he paid a substitute to take his place in the Union Army. The shame of his refusal to serve which drove TR and his sons to on the battlefields of the world to seek to redeem Greatheart's failure.

TR began his redemptive act during his service as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, from which post he played a major role in getting America ready for and into the Spanish American War. This objective achieved, TR began an insatiable quest to get to the Front. Leaving his family behind, he went to Texas to organize the Rough Riders, an improbable mixture of cowboys and Indians, lawmen and outlaws, westerners and Ivy League athletes. Through TR's persistence they were deployed to Cuba where they charged up San Juan Hill and into glory on July 1, 1898.

After having served as President during a time of peace, TR's marital ardor was again stirred by the coming of World War I. TR, an early and enthusiastic advocate of American preparedness and intervention, raked the neutrality policies of the Wilson administration with merciless fire.

With America's entrance into the war, the cry for TR to, once again, get to the Front arose, not only from TR himself, but from European allies. Georges Clemenceau argued that Roosevelt's was the "one name which summons up the beauty of American intervention" and demanded that Wilson "Send Roosevelt!" In a personal interview, TR had to compliment Wilson in a effort to get command of a division of volunteers. Neither TR, nor allies pleading for a liberating hero, would be satisfied. Wilson, besides being unwilling to give center stage to an aggressive and popular political opponent, recognized that the days of the "Charge Of The Light Brigade" were over. There was no place in modern war for a half-blind, overweight, infection and rheumatism ravaged amateur soldier with a record of insubordination. TR's proposed volunteer division, which would have attracted many of the Army's most promising officers, would have presented a major impediment to the administration's goal of a draft army.

Blocked from the Front, TR made speeches is support of the war effort, while all of his sons would be wounded in action. Ted Jr.. and Kermit served on the ground in Europe while Archie served with British forces in the Middle East and Quentin dueled in the skies over Europe. Many comparisons contrasted the active service of TR's sons with the positions in the rear held by the sons of the Kaiser. Ted, Jr.'s wife, Eleanor, along Woodrow Wilson's son, serviced with the YMCA in France, a fact which provided the basis for sarcastic comparisons. Quentin's death in a dog fight cast a pallor over Sagamore Hill and inflicted a wound from which TR would never recover.

After Quentin's death, TR's life rapidly wound down. Tropical diseases and years of strenuous life finally took their toll with TR's unexpected death on January 6, 1919.

The military service of the Roosevelt family would not end with the death of the Old Lion. His three surviving sons would serve in World War II, two of them dying in uniform. Ted, Jr.. would win the Medal of Honor, a decoration which TR had been denied.

"The Lion's Pride" tells the fantastic story of the life of an extraordinary family. It is the best telling of the World War I era of TR's life which I have found. To learn about either of these topics, "The Lion's Pride" is an excellent choice.

Was Teddy Roosevelt a loving and devoted father, or was he a hawkish militarist who pushed his sons to enlist and fight a war he wished he could?

I'd say he was both!

Undoubtedly, TR loved all his children. And though his attitude toward them seems harsh by modern standards, I think he was a good father. Clearly his children all loved him dearly. He never asked more of them than he demanded from himself.

This is a wonderful book: sometimes sad, sometimes funny, but fascinating all the way through!