GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN...

FROM ANTI-IDOTARIANROTTWEILER
by Emperor Misha I
Another Monday, another installment in LC 0311 Crunchie, Imperial Military Historian’s excellent series. I do believe that this one is going to make the room you sit in feel like it suddenly got full of dust, because that’s certainly what it did for me.
Take it away, Crunchie:
“Greater Love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”.
St. John 15:3
I often think of these words, spoken about our Lord Jesus Christ, when I read of our warriors’ heroics and contemplate what motivates them to do the deeds they do. Is it really possible for a man to so love his comrades that he willingly sacrifices his life for them? And I do not mean in an abstract way by losing his life while serving his country, but in the visceral, immediate, and deliberate choice to willingly lay down his own life so that others may live.
Diving on a grenade to save your buddies may seem an overused cliché from jingoistic war movies of days gone by, but it has in fact happened so often as to give you pause and make you say “My God, they really did that”.
Twenty-two Medals of Honor were awarded to Marines and Navy Corpsman (and one Navy LCI commander) during the three week long battle of Iwo Jima in 1945, nearly a quarter of all the Medals of Honor awarded to Marines during WWII. Of those, an amazing eight of them were for Marines who willingly dove on grenades to save their comrades. Think of that for a second. You are in a fighting position, or a shell crater, huddled with your brothers in arms when a sizzling instrument of death lands amongst you. Could you, in a half a heartbeat, make the decision to smother it with your own body to save the others? What could possibly motivate those that do? That instant of self sacrifice can not be a thought out decision, but an immediate indicator of the true nature of ones character.
I believe that it is not hate that motivates the American warrior to do what he does, but love. Love of his fellow Marine or soldier. Love of his nation and the ideals it strives towards. And love of us. Each and every one of us, the American citizen peacefully enjoying the freedom they pay for.
READ IT ALL AND BE PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN