Here's a piece written for the Birmingham Post-Herald for May 18, 2002, by Clarke Stallworth:
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I recently made a speech in Montgomery at a reunion of United Press civil rights reporters and told them they were the eternal underdogs, fighting the resources of the mighty Associated Press. I reminded them of the Battle of Agincourt, as Shakespeare might have rewritten it, if the UP (later United Press International) and AP were covering it.
Here's the rewrite:
It is 1415. Up on the hill above the French meadow of Agincourt are 60,000 French knights and soldiers, spoiling for a fight. Henry V, the young English king, has come to conquer France. And, with an army of about 12,000 men, he is outnumbered five to one.
It is a magic moment in the history of warfare. The French knights are all decked out in their body armor and metal helmets, ready for hand-to-hand combat. On the other end of the field, English soldiers are not weighed down by all that heavy armor, but they have the long bow.
Most of Henry's soldiers are archers, yeoman farmers back home in England. And if you wanted to eat meat, you took your long bow and slipped into the nobleman's forest and came home dragging a deer. So it was the long bow versus heavy armor and the broadsword.
The AP bureau chief from Paris is with the French. He is writing his story in what we call "takes," small pieces of copy that could be snatched out of the typewriter and sent to the composing room to be set in type. He has 15 horsemen, and one by one, they grab their piece of parchment and gallop for Paris.
Down the hill with the English is the London AP bureau chief. He is writing his story, and he has a horseman waiting, ready to ride the story back to the French coast. On the coast, the London bureau chief has chartered a fast fishing boat to sail the story across the English Channel.
And the lone UPI reporter? He's out in the middle of the field, dodging arrows and broadswords, trying to tell everybody he is a non-combatant.
"I'm not in this fight,' he yells, "I'm a newspaperman. Don't hit me, I'm just covering the story." Neither the English nor the French pay any attention to him, and a blow from a mace lays him out on the field, unconscious, for 20 minutes.
That's the way it was in the civil rights days, when the reporters were in the middle. The cops didn't like them, and in a race riot, they were dodging bullets from black people, too.
Well, to wind up the Agincourt story, the hail of English arrows won the day. The French lost the battle and 10,000 men. The English won the battle and lost about 30.
The battle of Agincourt changed the nature of warfare. The long bow put distance between the combatants. Since then, the distance between soldiers has grown farther and farther. Now it's 5,000 miles.
Henry V was always my favorite Shakespeare play, because of one short speech. Just before the battle, an English nobleman named Westmoreland wishes for another 10,000 men, and Henry V calls him on it.
Speaking to his men, Henry V tells Westmoreland "wish not one man more the fewer men, the greater share of honor."
Henry offers safe passage home to any man who wants to leave, and then he fires up his men with these words, one of the great speeches of all time:
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; "For he today 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 whilest any speaks "That fought with us upon St. Crispin's Day."
I told the UPI veterans they were a band of brothers, the underdog Englishmen fighting the great French host of the AP.
Nowadays, of course, Shakespeare would have to write "We band of brothers and sisters," since Christine Amanpour of CNN and her sister news reporters have put themselves in harm's way.