In the first chapter Webb uses the photographs and mementoes in his Senate office to explain "those who went before me, those who were young with me...and those who will be here long after I am gone. They look over my shoulder as I work."
Webb's life experience - comprised of military service, government work, university teaching, journalism, writing, and now holding political office - has prepared him for the Senate in ways few others there have been. Yet, all the while he has never forgotten where he came from.
The titles of several essays are intriguing: "Scorpions in a Jar," "Dancing with the Bear," "Uncles on My Shoulder." Like any good writer, Webb understands the value of a good hook, and he explains the origin of them in his text.
In "Dancing with the Bear," Webb decries the state of affairs in the nation today. "We are in a dangerous cycle of confusion in our politics...foreign policy without clear direction...changing demographics with divergence between the wealthy and the rest of the population"...an upper class that views its success through the lens of "socioeconomic Darwinism...openly consumed by self-justifying greed."
Webb calls upon the Democratic Party to return to its Jacksonian, worker-oriented roots. He notes that the nation is in great danger of splitting into "three Americas," an upper class that controls ever more of the nation's wealth, a shrinking middle class, and a permanent underclass mired in poverty.
The essay ends with the words that gave Webb the title of the book: "Sometimes, the times are simply ready for change...Sometimes, it takes smart, tough leaders to change the times...Sometimes...we need the times and the leaders to coincide. When that happens, it is time to fight."
The essays titled "Uncles on my Shoulder" and "A Nation Descended from Many Nations" let us see more of James Webb's personal side. In them we learn how the wisdom he gleaned from his family, from the strong people who guided him, is the origin of the values he lives by.
His "Great Santini" father who forcefully told him, "You can get anything you want in this country. And don't you forget it."
His grandmother, who taught him, "Persist. Endure. Look back, but not in anger. Never lose hope. And in the end, prevail, no matter how others might measure the magnitude of your victory. That was my Granny."
His mother, whose determination said to him, "If you don't have a job, make a job."
His Uncle Tommy, who once told Webb, "I never kissed the a** of any man."
His Uncle Paul, whose life gave him "an appreciation for tragedy. An understanding that we are sometimes visited with circumstances we do not deserve."
Jim Webb, like many people of Scots-Irish heritage, came from a military family. He and his brother served in the Marine Corps, as his son is right now. His father was a career military man. Both of his sisters married military men. His ancestors fought in the Revolution and the Civil War.
His family, like all military families, moved from place to place, the children changing schools sometimes more than once a year. When his checkered school record meant he had to use a NROTC scholarship and personal interviews to get into the Naval Academy, Webb learned other lessons that more people in government need to learn:
"America needs to remain a nation of second chances for people who somehow get knocked off track," and "America is a coat of many colors, a nation descended from many nations...This is what has made us strong."
Webb concludes Part One with an informed and highly nuanced discussion of the role of our federal system of government and our Constitution in shaping our nation and how right now that balance in government is out of kilter. Unfortunately, those who seek to find controversy where there really is none may seize upon one element of the essay and twist it out of context.
In discussing the Bill of Rights in relation to American history, Jim Webb accurately explains how the South at the time of the Civil War "wanted to keep slavery" but justified keeping it by insisting that the powers in the Tenth Amendment included the right to withdraw from the Union, since state governments existed before the Union was formed.
Webb is not saying that "states' rights" was the cause of the Civil War. He is saying that the South used the principle of "states' rights" to justify secession in order to keep Southern slavery and that a case was able to be made for that point of view. His accurate description of our history, however, could be twisted by those who want to malign him.
"The Genius - and the Limits - of the Constitution," in 16 pages, gives the reader a fair, accurate summary of the Constitution's unique place in the history of government - a document where, as Webb says, "the opportunity for unbounded wealth and power is adamantly protected by law, and yet where the legal structure just as adamantly protects the rights" of the individual and of minorities from the tyranny of the majority. A document open to interpretation by each generation of Americans.
All in all, the first section of A Time To Fight gives us a better understanding of Virginia's soon-to-be senior Senator - a man of great intelligence, thoughtfulness, and good judgment, a man who is grounded in the very best of American values.