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Happy New Year. Oddly enough, I awoke on this beautiful morning and, within 15 minutes, was thinking about this question. Having read the responses in this string and the last, there has been a lot to chew on. I don't know what seperates bravery from foolhardiness. I mentioned pilots who I believed had taken foolhardy actions. Did they? To me, sitting safely at home, they did. Put into a broader context of time, comradship, duty, etc., perhaps it wasn't foolhardy at all. What struck me this morning, though, was another bit of motivation. I was thinking about Rickenbacker. Here was a kid whose background might cause some to question his patriotism. My God, he had a German name. How do you prove your a patriot? We know how he did it. I then thought about the most decorated unit in the ETO in WWII. They were Japenese-Americans. Their families sitting in interment camps might have also provided some motivation.
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