David Giffin of the College Conservative has written a touching remembrance of Andrew Breitbart, a year after his passing.

A Year Later – Remembering Breitbart

One year ago today, Andrew Breitbart passed away. Since then, he has been missed by many – including me.

I never met Breitbart. I’d only been a writer for my university paper, the Emory Wheel, and had only joined TCC’s staff a few months before. But I remember clearly waking up that morning and seeing the news of Breitbart’s death pop up in my web browser – and choking up as a result.

I was honestly shocked at that last bit. I’d never known the man, never met him, never had a chance like so many others to learn first hand how dynamic and genuine a personality he had, how much he cared for his family, and how masterfully he had navigated the mainstream media. I had no real reason to get so upset by his death, but I did anyway. It took me a while of pouring through the hundreds of thousands of words to realize that it was what Breitbart symbolized within the conservative movement that I mourned. No one could fill his shoes.

Breitbart knew exactly what the media and entertainment industries were up to when they started hammering home on politics and ideology, and as Meredith Dake points out he had the skills and strategy to wage #WAR on the liberal agenda. Dake, however, points out that it wasn’t just his skill that people admired, but his personality.

People remember Andrew Breitbart as the warrior, the one who would walk – no, run – towards the fire with reckless abandon. But he was more than that. He was the ultimate happy warrior. He loved to get into the middle of the fight, but he was having a ball while he was doing it. And when the fight was over he would yell, “Let’s all go to Applebees!”

We need more happy warriors.