Show me the way out. Lead me to the light.

On this day in 1943, a PT boat (equivalent to a British Motor Torpedo Boat), was cut in half by the Japanese destroyer, Amagiri, which bore down on it at a speed in excess of 25 knots. Two crewmen were lost but the rest of the crew, under the leadership of their captain, made a raft and swam to nearby Plum Pudding Island. They ate what coconuts they could, before the captain swam to two other islands to get help. The captain later led his group of survivors to Olasana Island, from whence they were rescued a week later.

The PT boat was an "expendable" strike craft, armed with torpedoes and depth charges. It was used to harry larger enemy ships using fast in, fast out and high maneuverability tactics.

So what you may ask? Well if I told you that the captain was a future president would that make it more interesting? He used his considerable family influence to get into the war quickly, but what happened to PT109 gave him more than enough of a leg up. He was branded a war hero and the story of his courageous actions were taken into US folklore. Although the incident probably accounted for the back problems that plagued his presidency, the fighting spirit of the man characterized his term as president. Sadly, shortly into his second term, his luck ran out and the fight in his eyes dimmed as his wife cradled his wounded head.

I was just a young boy when I read of Kennedy's death, so I do know what I was doing at the time.

Today is also the day when Iraq invaded Kuwait, triggering a series of messy wars that are still simmering twenty years later. The cost to the US taxpayer is now well over $1trillion, but it was an ill-advised search for non-existent WMD's that incurred the greatest cost in lives and Dollars. Was the region also "expendable"? If so, it badly needs courageous and practical leadership to lead a nation out of its own crisis, but, even as I speak, plans are being made for a possible military incursion into Iran. That expendable, sandy wasteland is fast becoming a very heavy albatross around the neck of the US administration.

There is breed of leaders who cannot resist the temptation to lead others into trouble and history judges them harshly - I think of Alexander, Napoleon, Hitler and Bush. But, the leaders that history most honors are those who led people out of trouble in the way that Kennedy was part of a liberating force, Churchill led Europe out of oppression into the light and Mandela led his people out of apartheid into liberty.

Te greatest emancipator of all was Jesus. He never led us into religion and religious wars - men did. Jesus preferred to lead us out of all of that, into peace, life and hope - and that, to me, is the soul of leadership.

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net