SureFire

The Man in the Arena

President Theodore Roosevelt’s famous quote, “The Man in the Arena” from his speech, “Citizenship In The Republic” has long been associated with Special Operations Forces. Special Forces recently created a video depicting their unique capabilties as a narrator recites the quote.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

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5 Responses to “The Man in the Arena”

  1. Joe says:

    I know this is coming off wrong but dang, that narrator sucks

    • Wake27 says:

      Yeah they really should have done something different than auto-tuning the narrator.

    • SSD says:

      I didn’t like the narration either. But the sentiment is great.

    • G3SM says:

      Agreed. There was an Air Force Reserves video recently that had the same problem. Great footage, good editing, hokey voice.

  2. Robert says:

    Powerful words.

    I posted a link to this speech for all of the cowardly, uninformed haters who inspired LAV’s “Why I’m Fat” video.

    May they remain cold and timid souls for eternity.