Context: I’m a ‘Nam vet who, at 20 years of age, during Tet flew around close to the ground in a helicopter hoping to find the enemy by drawing his fire.
That being said, what would YOU call what I did, and what would you call the millions of WWI soldiers who obeyed orders to line up in trenches, in the mud and barbed wire, to go “over the top” to make a frontal assault on an entrenched enemy who had artillery and Maxim machine guns?
The word I’d use sure ain’t SMART.
AMEN!!!
Like we say...why jump out of a perfectly good Airplane or sink a metal tube full of Sailors, or swim 20 miles with a full pack?
Because we can(or COULD)
I used to point out that the psych tests we had to take to perform the above were to see if we were sane.
I have amended that to say
The test we took were to see if we were CRAZY enough to do it without panicking (too much).
I don't know - you can look at the question in other ways, also. Is it smart or stupid, to value freedom, or loyalty? How about the rule of law, or family? Is it smart to donate a kidney, or worship God? I think it might better be examined, in terms of values and priorities.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but throughout human history, in just about every culture, the person who values himself above everything else has rarely been considered 'smart'. In so far as that view has been adopted in modern America, our society is an aberration...
I’m a little confused by your words here; I guess it depends on what one means by ‘smart’....