I've been reading a biography of George Washington, which has been really interesting. But the thing that has struck me the most so far was on the first page of the introduction, in describing Washington at the end of the Revolutionary War:
No one could have been more eager for peace than Washington. At fifty-one, he had spent the last eight and a half years in uniform. In those years he had been home to Mount Vernon for only three days; since the Continental Congress had given him command of a rustic rabble in 1775, he had lived in 280 borrowed homes.
Three days out of eight years. Makes me grateful my husband is at war in 2008 instead of 1776.
