What pilot has not been in positions where he was in danger and where perfect judgment would have advised against going? But when a man is caught in such a position he is judged only by his error and seldom given credit for the times he has extricated himself from worse situations. The readiness to blame a dead pilot for an accident is nauseating, but it has been the tendency ever since I can remember. You live in the midst of it but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance. In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia. If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes. I have seen the science I worshiped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve. We hold his examples of atrocity screamingly to the heavens while we cover up our own and condone them as just retribution for his acts. It is our lack of respect for even the admirable characteristics of our enemy. How could any reward in national progress even faintly justify the establishment and operation of such a place? It is not the willingness to kill on the part of our soldiers which most concerns me. Here was a place where men and life and death had reached the lowest form of degradation. We are at war all over the world, and we are unprepared for it from either a spiritual or a material standpoint. Now, all that I feared would happen has happened. Quotes Our ideals, laws and customs should be based on the proposition that each generation, in turn, becomes the custodian rather than the absolute owner of our resources and each generation has the obligation to pass this inheritance on to the future.
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