Each member of the Class of 2005 has the means within him or her to truly change the world, the noted historical novelist Jeff Shaara told University of Delaware graduates during Commencement exercises.

“If you understand nothing else about your future,” Shaara said, “understand that you are blessed with opportunity. You have already accomplished something formidable in completing a college education. You must leave here today with a sense of confidence, and it is not simply a cliché to say that every one of you is important and that any one of you might change history.”

In his speech, Shaara spoke of the lives of many Americans who rose from modest circumstances to greatness, not by namesake or design but by rising to the challenges of the day.

“George Washington, John Adams, Abigail Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln, John Pershing—these people have several things in common” with one another and with everyone in the stadium today, Shaara said. “None of these people were born into greatness. None were hand-picked to become heroes. None of them self-promoted themselves or hired a publicist, or appeared on Larry King or Charlie Rose or Oprah to make them famous. We know these names because of what they accomplished in their lifetimes. None of these people could know at the time how deeply their actions would affect the nation or the world.”

Shaara said that when the Founding Fathers, including members of UD’s first graduating class—George Read, Thomas McKean and James Smith—debated the Declaration of Independence, they had no idea how that document “would inspire us for more than two centuries, providing for a system and philosophy that continues to function and prosper today.”

When George Washington began to lead his troops across the Delaware River on Christmas Day 1776 to face the British at Trenton, he “did not have his eye focused on history and had no way to predict what would follow,” Shaara said. Rather, Washington undertook a “desperate move to inspire his ragged Continental Army and to keep his soldiers from simply going home.”           

What he accomplished, Shaara said, was an action that so shocked the British commanders that it turned the tide of the Revolutionary War and provided for ultimate victory by the Americans.

The author said he draws his greatest inspiration from “listening to the voices of the people who made history,” to their tales of heroes and villains, victory and loss, joy and accomplishment, life and death.

“As I have come to know these people and to tell their stories, my greatest surprise is how very much they are like us,” Shaara said. “We share something with them. Every one of us has the ability to do something, to accomplish great things, to leave a legacy.”

Shaara’s most recent book, To the Last Man, published last year, is a World War I novel that has received praise from Gen. Tommy Franks, Gen. Wesley Clark and Steve Forbes, who said that it “cements his reputation as a war writer of Tolstoyan or Homeric dimensions.” Shaara is now at work on the first volume in a trilogy about World War II.

Shaara recently wrote to President David Roselle, saying his participation in UD’s Commencement has left a lasting impression and one that is quite positive.

Although Shaara has traveled extensively, addressed national conventions and Civil War round tables and met with governors, senators, generals, admirals and entertainment industry leaders, he wrote that “not one of these experiences compares to the impact your Commencement made on me.”

When first invited to be the speaker, Shaara wrote, he was “intimidated by the very prospect of facing so many people on a day that would rank as one of the most significant of their lives.”

However, he added, “By the end of the ceremony, I was a part of that experience. I cannot measure what impact, if any, that my words may have had. But I can promise you, the impact of that event on me is something I will remember for the rest of my life.”

Shaara wrote that the “hospitality and graciousness” extended to him by the UD community “did much to make me feel that, for a brief time, I was a part of the University of Delaware family.”