I had an appointment with my surgeon this morning; a check-up to make sure I'm doing OK two weeks after my surgery. I'm doing fine. That's not the point.

On the way to my appointment, Wendy and I were listening to Laura Ingraham, who played several long clips from the Commencement Address given by General Peter Pace at the Citadel on May 6th.

The speech was given a week and a half ago, and it might be old news to many of you, but it was new to both Wendy and me. We'd never heard a word of it. It was, to put it succinctly, the best speech I've ever heard in my life.

Wendy and I both sat in the car in rapt attention. By the time we got to the doctor's office, we were both wiping away tears. It was that good.

I encourage you to listen to General Pace's speech no matter who you are. It's the kind of thing that anyone would benefit from hearing and pondering at any point in his or her life. General Pace has four pieces of advice for the students in his address, and I felt deeply moved and inspired by his remarks.

The things he had to say will stay with me for some time to come.

You can read a transcript of Genral Pace's speech here, and you can download and listen to an MP3 of the speech here. The MP3 is an 8 meg file and the speech lasts about seventeen minutes. Seventeen minutes very well spent.

It took me a few tries to get the MP3 of the speech to download... I think the Citadel's server must be pretty busy today. I'd have spent an hour trying to get this speech if I'd had to. It's that good. If you're serious about getting it and can't get it to download, send me an e-mail and I'll put it up on my server space. I feel that strongly about helping people hear what General Pace had to say.

It's rare to hear such truth spoken so powerfully and with so much focus.

My only question now is how we go about getting this guy to run for President.