Sunday, October 3, 2010

Falling on a grenade

I've been reading on american war heroes throwing themselves on top of live grenades, sacrificing themselves, "take one for the team", in order to protect their fellow comrades.
Of course, many of them were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by the president of america. (If you didn't know, it's like the military Nobel prize, nothing higher)
The youngest marine in history was a 17-year-old . How many 17-year-olds out there dare to even stand up for your criticized friends in school? Yet this 17 year old Jacklyn H. Lucas, threw himself on a live grenade, AND catch another one and put it under him, just his shirts being the only thing between him and the 2 grenades. It exploded and lucky for him, he didn't die. He just need to go on living with more than 200 pieces of shrapnels in his body for another 63 yrs until he was 80.

So i start wondering, how many of us are willing to take one for the team, to fall on a grenade, knowing we will be awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously?

6 comments:

andrew wong said...

will you?i don't know about myself. it's a hard question...

Addison said...

yea it's a tough question.
John 15:13

andrew wong said...

was about to quote that. but this post somehow makes me realise that im not one good guy that will sacrifice myself for anybody, and everybody. im a bloody selfish guy.

pearlie said...

If we were living in a war zone, our mindset will be completely different and I would think that we would have done the same :) throwing ourselves on top of live grenades for a cause. And I don't think the thought of an award will ever cross our minds.

My two-sen :)

Anonymous said...

My senior in the Leadership Programme I took would usually yell at me if I tried to make excuses for not getting something done:

"If this was a war situation, and your buddies' lives were depending on you, would you be saying that?!"

War really puts some things into perspective

- Chee Seng

Addison said...

i guess they really do, from all the wat movies i've watched, even though i've never been in one.