On 03 Jul 2003 16:29:02 GMT, nt (Gordon) wrote:

I wouldn't put "Lt. Jones" in the coward category - given enough opportunities
facing mortal danger, men develop cracks. Day 1 of SERE training, the
instructors explain "John Wayne is dead", i.e., there is no such thing as an
unbreakable soul. I am glad that the experiences you had did not break you,
but given the ferocity of the conflict, it should be a point of compassion to
understand that other men may have had lower breaking points - it doesn't
relegate all such men to the ranks of the craven cowards. There are levels of
course. LMF (coward) for those pilots and crews that intentionally bombed the
Channel or took some other easy way out; the "twitch" for those men
progressively losing their SA and flying skills while endangering the other
airmen in their units by making poor choices as a result of too many missions
in combat. Is that better than raising your hand to say "I got the shakes real
bad today, Doc", and missing a single mission?

Art, I had a similar situation - not combat, but one where I was flying in a
very unsafe environment, to the point we had fatal accidents within our
aircraft type with sickening regularity. After one particularly nasty crash
killed some of our more popular squadronmates, a ******* that was overseas
decided to "un-volunteer" for night flying - he was immediately grounded and
never flew again. We ostrasized him completely and his actions directly
screwed me up, personally, for the following year. I -hated- that guy. Deep
in what's left of my soul, still do. I mean, how can you just QUIT when folks
are expecting you to perform?

Several years later, I was out of the military and scouting for a new career,
which included ride-alongs with ambulances and paramedic/firefighters. I
thought it was a perfect fit, until two of our first three calls included dead
kids. I don't think of myself as a coward, but I knew at that moment that I
wasn't psychologically strong enough to continue. I guess some of the guys on
that rig would have reason to think of me as a coward, whether right or wrong.

Not at all. As an EMT, I recognize (as do almost all others in the
field) that emergency medicine is a very emotion-filled field. Some
people simply cannot stand the strain, while others (my self included)
compensate in various "self destructive" manners. Being a volunteer,
there have been many times that we have been paged out to what sounds
like an especially nasty call, and as I headed for the rescue truck my
thoughts have been along the lines of "why not stay home, why face
this? I think that the thing that keeps me going is the fact that we
have more successes than failures. Getting calls like you did is not
terribly uncommon, but on a first ride they would be quite unusual.
Just a case of bad timing. If you had seed the successful
resuscitation of a child, or a successful vehicle extrication you
might have stayed in the field.

As one who has been there and done that, I would never question your
courage.


I have to accept that the man I continue to hate for quitting was at the same
place I reached, looking down at a kid's scattered remains. Tolerating the
weaknesses of those around you is a human quality every bit as important as
bravery - most people do not spend 75+ years demonstrating continuous acts of
bravery, but all of us have to deal with the limitations of those around us,
every day.

All of that said, Lt. Jones probably did benefit from your boot in his ass that
day. I'd hate to think that friends couldn't support each other like that in
moments of weakness, without permanently earning the title of coward.

v/r
Gordon

We have what are called "critical incident stress debriefing teams"
now, and in all probability one would have counseled your crew after
the incident with the child. They can, and do, help greatly.

Al Minyard