Courage?
What is courage?
I think for me the first image that comes to mind is that of the brave fire fighter running into the burning building; or perhaps the soldier, medic or policeman running into the fray to save a life or battle some unknown demon all in a day’s work.
When I was a kid one of my heros was one of my mother’s boyfriends. He had been a Green Beret and jumped out of airplanes in WWII and Korea. He had been taken prisoner by the Germans and the North Koreans both. He’d escaped numerous times, had his feet broken and the tar kicked out of him multiple times. Somehow he survived all of that. He told me once the key word was courage. Courage. I think he wrote it on a picture he gave me. A picture of him receiving the Silver Star.
I’ve thought about that off and on all my life. I never knew quite exactly what he meant. What was I supposed to be courageous about? I wasn’t being beaten or having limbs broken or trying to save mine and my friend’s asses as machine guns and mortars exploded around us.
My courageous friend was also a raging alcoholic and smoked about four packs of Marlboro Reds a day. His pretty young wife had divorced him and taken six kids with her. I was present one evening when he fought with her on the phone. One night he ripped the phone right off the wall.
It wasn’t long before he left. The Alaska Oil Pipeline was being built and skilled labor was in high demand. My friend was a welder; a pipefitter and paid very well for it. He’d often call my mother late at night from Alaska. Way up north. Prudhoe Bay. He’d tell stories of bar fights. Once he said he beat the hell out of four guys who tried to jump him coming out of the local bar on pay day.
I’d always look forward to his visits home. He never stayed long. Sometimes he brought gifts. A t-shirt, a pair of boots. Sometimes he’d arrive in the middle of the night. I’d know he had come from the smell of cigarettes and old spice wafting up the stairs.
I was too young to really question adult behavior. I just accepted things as they were. My friend was larger than life and probably everything a lot of boys would wish for in a hero. Yet I always wondered about the keyword being courage because somehow that phrase always seemed slightly empty. The keyword is courage. Half the story.
There was one time we were going to go to the movies. What a thrill. My great friend, the war hero who jumped out of airplanes and beat up muggers in Alaska was taking me to the movies.
We got to the theater and he took off. I watched the movie alone. When the movie was over I waited for my friend but he had gone. I called my Mother and she picked me up. I must have just happened to have a dime in my pocket.
My friend had gone to the local bar. He was a celebrity of sorts. The town war hero. The guys who didn’t admire him were afraid of him or perhaps both.
I didn’t understand what alcoholism was at that age. What I DID understand was that my friend needed that company every night. He needed those people. He needed that stimulation. He needed whatever it was that he got from the local bar every night; he needed it to survive.
In reality he was a broken man. In reality he could barely cope.
Somehow courage never quite sank in with me; Not as the ‘key’ word; And not the most important of virtues in life.
