Subject: Cowardice in Battle
From: nt (Gordon)
Date: 7/3/03 9:29 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

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.

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


He wasn't a coward,He only had a moment of fear that was about to destroy him.
And fear in a unit spreads like wildfire. Had he refused to fly he would have
instanatly lost every friend in the unit he ever had. He would have been an
obrect of contempt and derision. What I did was not just for him, it was for
all of us as well. And had you been in my place, you would have done exactly as
I did. I only put the story under cowardice because that has been an ongoing
subject around here for some time now. I wonder how he thinks about himself
now when he thinks back 60 years? I would love to know. Remember he wouldn't
talk to me or face me after that incident. So I wonder if he thinks I did him
a favor or not. By the way, I repeated this incident to no one in the goup. I
didn't even mention it to my pilot and copilot even though we were very close.
I mention it here and on my website because I think it part of war and worth
mentioning. And human values are a good beak from the endless techy numbers
and statistics that grow rather quickly tiresome.

Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer