When boys are men
“Crying doesn’t make me any less of a man. To not show emotion, you’re an idiot, or you’re living a pipe dream. If someone were to tell me not to show emotion, I’d hit them in the lip.”
LT. COL. MORRIS GOINS, reflecting on soldiers’ reactions to losing comrades in Iraq.
I was speaking to a friend yesterday about the ability to pull the trigger. I said I know I couldn’t kill someone. He was telling me about a dinner he went to with a bunch of his men friends – one was talking about shooting a mama duck who was walking in front of her little ducklings and THANKFULLY the other men responded with some degree of horror. Then he said one of the guys who always goes on with bravado about how if anyone were to ever break in his house, he’d kill them dead – well, turns out someone did break in and he held him at gunpoint for 20 minutes up against the back fence but NOPD took so long to arrive on the scene, he ended up letting the guy go. My friend’s point was that you never know what you’ll do when you’re up against reality – and while I agree – all I thought next was about our poor service men having to make these decisions every day – my heart goes out to our men and women in Iraq – fighting a dumbass stupid war that no one wants to fight.
My take away later when I reflected back on our conversation though was a heartening feeling that these men, my friend’s friends, were men I would want to know (except for mama duck shooter) – I like a man who talks big, who will protect, but when it comes down to the crucial real moment – the one that separates the boys from the men – I want the man whose heart prevails – not his testosterone.