Bravery is not a skill so much as it is a temperament. On this Memorial Day, the most honored Americans are recognized for the ultimate sacrifice to their country – their own life. Ironically, a key value of bravery is fear, for if there is no fear, how can there be bravery. The issue became prominent when President Trump said of John McCain:
“He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured. Perhaps he’s a war hero, but right now he’s said some very bad things about a lot of people.”
The president, who has been given to fits of pique now and then, was raising an issue obliquely that has philosophical angles and questions that exposes the anatomy of the human heart and mind to examination.
During the course of a rough campaign Human bravery can make different appearances in different circumstances. Certainly, facing a hostile audience is an act of bravery, and in a remote way, it can be viewed as a sacrifice. But sacrifice and bravery are two different, unrelated things.
Here is a thought experiment: Two soldiers are in two different foxholes during a battle. The battle has heated up. Bullets are flying inches over the top of the foxhole, bombs are exploding and lighting the night sky, the soldiers are held back until the order to charge is given. Then the order comes. The two hypothetical soldiers, both fearful and praying, leap out of their bunkers at exactly the same moment, bayonets fixed, rifles loaded. Soldier one steps on the battle terrain and is immediately annihilated by a shell fired by the other side. Nothing is left to inter into a gravesite. Soldier two charges the opposition and miraculously is untouched by shell or shrapnel, and takes the enemy position after dispatching five enemy soldiers and saving the life of three of his comrades. One could argue that the soldier who took the enemy position was braver than the fellow soldier who died. He leapt from the foxhole as did his now deceased fellow soldier, and, also, faced the enemy five times and won. But one sacrificed his life and the other did not.
Equal bravery was required to jump out of a place of shelter and face the possibility of personal doom. But suppose the shell that killed soldier one had been aimed differently and had killed soldier two. War is unfair. Perhaps, soldier one would have been the survivor and the one alive to wear the medals. The results do not necessarily reflect bravery, but more the randomness of life. Nothing is certain and nothing is inevitable outside of divine intervention.
The movie Hacksaw Ridge depicts the heroism of Desmond T. Daws a conscientious objector who refused to take up weapons against the enemy and performed as a medic in WW II. He was the first to win the Medal of Honor without firing a shot. During the Battle of Okinawa, he saved seventy-five lives on the Maeda escarpment and was wounded four times. He, too, survived the war. It is anti-climactic to say that he had already won a Bronze star medal in a previous campaign in the Philippines and numerous other commendations.
Where does such bravery come from?
American history is replete with acts of heroism. George Washington did not hang from a tree because he was not caught. He spent frigid days in winter holding together a part-time army together while his well-to-do lifestyle was on hold.
Hundreds of thousands died to keep the union together and free the slaves. Abraham Lincoln, the commander in chief was shot dead after he had ended the terrible conflict.
John Kennedy survived the destruction of his PT boat and saved his crew. A future president survived. His brother, Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., who John and the Kennedy family believed was the best hope to be a future president of the United States, was lost on a mission. His body was never recovered.
Human sacrifice for the greater good is a part of human DNA and arrives sometimes at unexpected places and conditions. On Memorial Day, we honor bravery and sacrifice in defense of our country. They aren’t the same, but they go together, and we honor those whose lives were stopped short of all their hopes and remember that freedom for the three hundred ten million Americans living today was bought by the bravery and sacrifice of those we don’t know, yet honor.
God bless America.
