should the blind ever be considered courageous?

Good examples of courageous acts, Bill. 

When you mentioned Major Bong, I remembered that event when it occurred. 

But we don't need to go to war heroes to define courage.  There was a story some years back about a blind man who raced into his neighbor's burning home before the fire trucks arrived, and pulled his disabled neighbor to safety, saving her life for certain.  He suffered severe burns but said he'd do it again in a heart beat.  Incidentally, heroes such as this man usually do not see themselves as heroes.  Just doing what needed doing. 

The man who gave his life by dashing into the path of the oncoming train and shoving a child to safety.  Courage or instinct?  Maybe it doesn't matter. 

I salute Paul Robeson as a man of great courage, standing tall in a time when just being Black meant taking your life in your hands if you didn't bow and shuffle. 

My dad displayed great courage when his boss shoved a petition under his nose demanding that he sign it or lose his job.  Dad refused to sign.  As it turned out, the boss was bluffing, but how do we know unless we hold to our convictions? 

I rode the bus each morning with a blind woman who worked at the Seattle Light House.  She wore large hearing aids and she was totally blind.  Each morning about a mile or two from her stop, she would begin asking if anyone was getting off at, "my stop?" 

She fussed and worried, driving all of us nuts.  Even though the driver always assured her that he would never miss her stop, she would continue.  She was afraid no one would be crossing the busy highway that she must cross to get to work. 

Then one day I was talking with a group of her fellow workers.  "What can we do to get Jenny to understand that she can cross that highway by herself?" I asked, thinking it would be a matter of good O&M training. 

"Well," one of the women said, "When Jenny lived in New York City she was married to a man who was in a wheel chair.  Each day they went to work.  Jenny would push him in his chair and he would call directions to her.  It was a rainy morning with so much traffic noise that Jenny could not clearly hear her husband's voice.  She thought he said to turn and she tipped him over the side of the curb into the path of a bus just leaving the stop.  He was killed.  Jenny has had a terrible fear of traffic ever since.  Some people think of her as cowardly, always worrying about that bus stop, but I see her as a woman with great courage." 

And after that, so did I. 

Who among us knows what real courage is? 

 

Carl Jarvis

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Bill Gallik

To: ACB List

Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2012 10:29 PM

Subject: Re: [acb-l] should the blind ever be considered courageous?

On the general matter of this thread and specifically addressing the
question, "Should anybody ever be considered courageous?"

Here in northern Wisconsin we have a museum dedicated to Major Richard Ira
Bong, a WWII fighter pilot and accomplished Ace having shot down over 40
enemy aircraft in the Pacific Theatre.  Major Bong is rightly considered a
courageous American hero who gave his "last measure of devotion" in the
cause of protecting America and her allies from despotic Fascism.  Major
Bong grew on a small dairy farm just outside of Superior and from childhood
dreamt of being a pilot; his dreams came true and he'll forever be held in
the highest esteem.

His childhood desire was to be a American pilot even though he never saw the
pending doom his dreams would eventually manifest.  He didn't die in combat,
but rather while test-piloting the first jet design for the United States.
Rather than eject to safety, he preferred to remain with the fated plane
until he was certain it wouldn't crash into a residential area and possibly
kill innocent civilian life.  His courage and sense of duty were in full
display that sad day.

I am certainly not suggesting that a blind person trying to live as "normal"
a life as possible takes the same courage, but for those who suggest that
because we are dealing with something we didn't choose it somehow mitigates
any sense of courage.  I'm sure, that although they were aware of the
potential, Major Bong, Sargent York, Audie Murphy, Eddie Rickenbacker and a
host of young, very courageous men and women who serve in our military had
never "chosen" to be in the dangerous predicaments in which they found
themselves.  Nonetheless, even though those circumstances were not "chosen,"
these folks are rightly considered courageous and rightly honorable.

Whoever said you had to choose the circumstance which manifests your
courage?
----------------
Holland