Posted on 08/28/2015 10:58:57 AM PDT by hemogoblin
At one point in Laura Hillenbrand’s World War II book Unbroken, the top turret gunner of a B-24 bomber over the Pacific stays doggedly at his post and keeps on firing, trying to ward off an attacking Japanese fighter plane. Eventually he succeeds.
Staying focused on saving the lives of one’s comrades under such terrifying conditions is admirable enough. Stanley Pillsbury did it after one of his feet had been practically blown off by a cannon shell from the enemy aircraft. When they got his boot off after the engagement, his foot was shredded. His big toe stayed inside the boot.
Yet he kept fighting, to save his comrades as well as himself. Imagine doing that while you are bleeding and in indescribable pain — or perhaps mercifully numb with terror — thousands of feet over a shark-filled Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from anything familiar, in a metal machine that could fly into thousands of pieces at any moment. The book goes on to describe the men’s capture and two years of misery as prisoners of the Japanese empire.
It is a well-told story, only one of thousands of such tales arising from the Second World War, other wars, times of brutal hardship and deprivation, feats of sacrifice, endurance and brilliance — times when human courage enabled others to survive death and seemingly do the impossible.
Courage. Such a vital word. Yet like other words — gay, hero, tolerance, marriage, hate, even he and she — its meaning is falling victim to the tyranny of current media culture.
Amen!!!!!!!
Courage is not simply one of the virtues,
but the form of every virtue at the testing point.
C. S. Lewis
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