What is courage,
when there is no choice?
When the consequence
of inaction
is the loss of everything
and everyone
you’ve ever loved?
Is there a place for fear?
When the ramp drops
on some foreign shore
and bullets snap by your head,
and the very sea at your feet
tries to claim you?
When your friends fall
and you keep moving,
not knowing
if the next second
will be the one you die in?
When you reach the beach
and run to find
some small swell
in the Earth
to cover you?
Is it courage,
when you
and twenty of your mates
rise amongst the hail
of certain death
to charge the lines
of entrenched enemies
and finally begin
to shoot back.
Is it courage,
to keep going?
Is it courage,
to not stop?
Is it courage
to not be able
to give up
the lives
of those you love
to the darkness?
Is it courage,
or are you
the embodiment
of some strange
will of the universe?
The Divine Hand?
The future writ large?
Does it matter?
For those who die
on that foreign beach,
for those who survive
to fight on,
or for those
who come,
decades later
to wonder
at what courage
these men had?
HG – 2021
Author’s Note: This piece was adopted from a series of replies which I wrote to a tweet by Jocko Willink (@jockowillink) on his Twitter account on Sunday, June 6th, 2021, the 77th anniversary of D-Day.
