Two Lives, Two Deaths, Two Very Different Men

It’s kind of ironic that on the Washington Post website that they have back to back stories of Saddam Hussein and President Gerald R. Ford‘s funerals. Two world leaders and yet so very different men. One lead his people by killing off any opposition and the other by bringing his people together as one after a long nightmare. In the end Saddam is buried with very few mourners with little if no pageantry while President Ford is bestowed the respect and dignity even in death of a very grateful nation.

BAGHDAD, Dec. 31 -- Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was brought to his home village early Sunday morning in a simple wood coffin for burial, less than 24 hours after his execution. A few hundred mourners paid their respects in the pre-dawn darkness to a man who led their nation over three decades of fear, brutality and war. - Washington Post

Then there is this story…

Washington, D.C. -- Outside the Capitol and elsewhere in the Washington area, the new year marched in to the usual soundtrack of high heels clacking, alcohol sloshing, music thumping and fireworks exploding.
But inside the Capitol Rotunda -- where Gerald R. Ford, the nation's 38th president, lay in a flag-draped coffin -- there was stillness removed from the celebration. -Washington Post

Post mortem both of these men have many lessons for the world to remember. Saddam Hussein will be remembered as a tyrant and very evil man that ruled his people with a shotgun at his side. Thousands if not millions of his own people died simply because he wished it so.

President Ford will be remembered as a world statesman and healer of his nation. Not ruling his country by might but by political reason and honesty. A task that not many people truly understood for decades after he left the office of President. He returned the White house and the office back to its rightful owners, the people.

Papamoka

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EFFWIT

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