Journalists of today like to call what they write “the rough draft of history,” but this is only true if you assume that history will share the interests and values of the journalists. Admittedly, there are few signs as yet that it will not. There is no reason that I know of to suppose that subsequent generations of the English-speaking American elites will be any less devoted to pop-cultural trivia and stories of the heroes of our various “liberations” from traditional restraints than today’s are. Yet it does seem just possible that they might also recover an interest in more traditional kinds of heroes, in which case they may find the rough draft our times have bequeathed them a little bit inadequate, particularly when it comes to military men.

This is to some extent a worldwide problem. In March Peter Oborne, political columnist of the London Daily Express, wrote an article for The Spectatortitled “Of Hacks and Heroes,” in which he argued that the attention given by the British media to the deaths of two prominent journalists, Auberon Waugh and John Diamond, was a sign of the increasing self-obsession of the British press and media culture. At roughly the same time that these two hacks bit the dust, a number of men with what once were thought to be rather impressive accomplishments to their credit, including “Johnnie” Johnson, Britain’s top air ace of the Second World War, also died and were accorded little more than respectful