At 10:18 AM 5/26/01 -0700 Christopher Gwyn wrote:
> however _very few_ of them went to were intent upon 'giving their
>lives'. understanding that an activity has a high likelihood of death
>and undertaking it anyway does not mean that a person is 'giving' his
>or her life and using such rhetoric both sets up an artificially and
>unobtainably high standard for heroism and disconcertedly implies
>that they preferred death over returning to their loved ones.
I disagree.
These soldier knew that these goals would require a great many of them to
die. Although each of them would have greatly preferred to not be chosen
to die, each and everyone of them was prepared to do so when called.
Like this:
This goal will require 40% of you to die today.
Simply placing themselves in that position was a tremendous sacrifice.
This sacrifice places them above and beyond the ordinary citizen.
For each soldier that was lucky enough to survive, they were simply happy
to have their lives back.
Becoming a soldier is like putting your life in a box and handing it to
someone else, not knowing if you'll get it back.
JDG
__________________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
"The point of living in a Republic after all, is that we do not live by
majority rule. We live by laws and a variety of institutions designed
to check each other." -Andrew Sullivan 01/29/01
