One year from now, on September 10, 2013, will be the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie, in which out-gunned 27-year-old Rhode Islander Oliver Hazard Perry—his flagship, Lawrence, shot out from under him—rowed over to the U.S. Niagaraand completed the battle, defeating the British and sending his message to General William Henry Harrison at Fort Meigs, near what is now Toledo: “We have met the enemy, and they are ours: two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.” Perry's flag had on it the famous naval motto, “Don't give up the ship!” The monument to Perry's victory is one of the tallest in the U.S.—second only to the Washington Monument.

Few readers in the 21st century will remember Pogo, the Walt Kelly newspaper cartoon about critters down in the old Okeefenokee Swamp, although there are still some books on the market featuring the critters. Publication of the daily cartoon apparently ceased in 1975. One was famous; it showed the critters prepared for battle, and the famous statement by Pogo: “We have met the enemy, and he is us!” One of these Iconoclast columns back in September of 1985, a bit of a rant about lawyers, was titled, “We have met the enemy, and they wear wigs,” a reference to the periwigs worn by attorneys and barristers in many nations' courts.