Grim's Hall

Bravery:

What's the bravest thing you've ever seen?

I've seen, and done, a lot of reckless things, the kind of stuff Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics condemned as a vice that consisted in an excess of bravery. I've been witness to a fair amount of real bravery. At length, though, I think this is it:

My father was a Captain of our county's Volunteer Fire Department. I remember once when one of their men fell through a floor into a basement and had his leg pinned. They tried to get him out, tried hard, but he burned alive. His radio worked until the end, so they all got to hear it. Then, on top of that, the state didn't pay his pension--he was a professional firefighter in another county, but since he was acting there as a volunteer, his kids and wife got nothing. All those firefighters saw all that. They heard the radio, they saw the State saving money on the backs of his kids.

The next fire, they were back on the line. That, I think, is the bravest thing I've ever seen or known.