Finals Studying

As I prepare for my U.S. Foreign Policy Final, I am again realizing how much I love the topic. I don't love history because I like to recount famous battles or documents. I study it because I love to study great men and women. The historical aspects that they usher into our nation come with the territory, but I am more interested in the often tragic elements of the people themselves. I wonder, as I read about President Nixon, for example, what it must have felt like to be him. He is associated with so many unpleasant memories for the nation, but we must remember that he too was just a man. He had a family, a past, and dreams just like the rest of us. He just happened to be President. I certainly don't like to revel in other people's sadness but it is just absolutely fascinating to study this man's uprising and subsequent downfall. I may be in the minority, when I state that I think he was a good man who just got mixed up in the wrong things. With those that possess greatness, as we learn in theater, there is always a rise and fall, and perhaps no one better exemplifies this natural cycle than Nixon.