Although he was a native of Pennsylvania, George C. Marshall was very proud of his Virginia roots. He was a distant relative of Chief Justice John Marshall and traced other family connections to the commonwealth. A 1901 graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, Marshall’s first wife, Lily Coles, lived just beyond the limits gates at VMI. In one of the few examples in his life when he broke the rules, Marshall “ran the block”(left the barracks at unauthorized times), risking certain demotion and possible expulsion, to visit Lily.

As with many great men and women who gave extraordinary service to our nation, George Catlett Marshall is waning from the national consciousness and memory. To military and diplomatic historians he remains a towering figure of the previous century. Two new books published this year were about Marshall or had a large part devoted to him. A major new biography of Marshall by Josiah Bunting, the former superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, is due out this fall.

In 1976 in the movie “Network,“ Peter Finch opened his window and shouted: “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.“ Now, over 30 years later the American public—fed up with reckless government spending and unnecessarily burdensome regulations—is beginning to echo Mr. Finch’s sentiment. We didn’t reach this point overnight. First, Washington handed out $2 trillion for bailouts and a so-called stimulus—both of which were loaded with political pork and special earmarks. As more and more Americans became aware of this excess, many voters organized “tea party” rallies to publicly voice their opposition to the surge in government spending and the resulting higher taxes.

Dick Cheney has signed a million-dollar contract to write his memoirs. The blogs are having fun. Bill Clinton wrote his memoirs. Hillary Clinton wrote her memoirs. Although George H.W. Bush has not written formal memoirs, he has written books about policy and his role in making it. Ronald Reagan wrote his memoirs. Jimmy Carter has written several books, some with a subject best described as himself. Richard Nixon wrote several memoirs, and rates as the finest presidential memoirist of the lot.