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“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” On Oct. 25, we honor the martyrs Sts. Crispin and Crispian, their feast made famous to English speakers of all faiths by William Shakespeare’s immortal speech in Henry V. It encapsulates the fervor of men who fight a more powerful and numerous enemy, marching toward victory against all odds.

We patriots face the murderous malice of the Democrats and the feckless spinelessness of Republicans. Our institutions are infiltrated and even the current administration is continuing the reckless federal spending, pandering to foreign terrorists, and special favors to rich elites that every other administration has used to weaken our country. Can we win?

The Founding Fathers faced the world’s most powerful empire, but they did not flinch. The abolitionists and Union leaders who took on slavery were trying to abolish an evil institution nearly as old as sin itself, but they abolished it in America. The “Greatest Generation” had to take on two of the most murderous regimes in history (Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan), and they brought those regimes crashing down.

So as you read Shakespeare’s speech, a fictional but inspirational rallying call put in the mouth of the real Henry V before his historic victory at Agincourt, vow that you will fight the culture war to the end, to reclaim our country and renew it:

Westmoreland: O, that we now had here / But one ten thousand of those men in England / That do no work today.

Henry V: What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.

No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.