Courage

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Not too many people read Ernest Hemingway anymore. Oh maybe there’s some English teacher out there who still assigns “Old Man and The Sea.” But that’s about it. Hemingway’s obsession with personal courage seems quaintly out of date. He is often portrayed as a braggart who drank too much and who adored the killing of wild animals, and a bit of a sexist as well.

I recently returned to reading Hemingway, almost a bit reluctantly. I always had an interest in the Spanish Civil War in which Franco came to power. Many believe the loss of Spain to fascism served as a preview of World War II. And quite coincidentally I recently viewed HBO’s film “Hemingway and Gelhorn,” some of which depicted the author’s role as a journalist covering that war in Spain. Subsequently I came upon an excellent account of the war in a book called “Spain in Our Hearts,” which includes an account of Hemingway’s role as a spokesperson for the American volunteers who fought bravely, but ultimately failed to win the war. So it seemed to me the time was right to go back and read Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” which also dealt with the valiant effort to save Spain from fascism, a fight that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt turned his back on and later regretted.

All of this is to make you, dear reader, understand why this column came about. I found that Hemingway’s focus on personal bravery struck a chord in me. I found a truth I think is buried in all men, one that bewilders most women. Buried deep in our male psyches is the need to exhibit personal courage. It begins early in our lives when maybe we do handstands to impress some young female.

Most of us, are like myself, untested. And if we were candid we would admit that it bothers us deeply. The question of whether we are brave comes to us when we see a film or read a book or hear of a circumstance where someone else has acted with courage. Would we be able to do the same? Would we be able to storm the beaches of Normandy, knowing that the chances were good that we would not survive? Would we act bravely to protect our loved ones when to do so would risk our own lives? Would we be the ones to hide Anne Frank or give her up to the Nazis? These are questions that can haunt those of us who never had to answer that challenge.

For some of us, the question involves our relationship with our fathers. The relationship between father and son, is at best, complicated. For those of us who had a father who had the courage to act bravely, that relationship is even more complex. Could we ever be the man that our father was?

I have written frequently in this column about my father. As a cop on the beat, and then as a narcotics detective, he often faced situations where his courage was called to account. He was awarded 35 commendations for bravery. For me, that became 35 questions as to whether I would have been brave enough to do as he did.

Courage can be multi-sided. As brave as my father was, he was afraid to visit a dentist or a doctor. It was a fear that ultimately killed him. His cancer was detected too late. My father was also afraid of death, which seems paradoxical in a courageous man. After all, what did he do in earning those 35 commendations but risk death and win? Yet he feared going into a funeral parlor. When he was forced to attend a viewing of a family or friend that he couldn’t avoid, he would leave as quickly as possible and wait outside for my mother. He even feared sleeping in a certain position and being covered with a sheet because he associated it with death. Because of this, I admit I have a problem understanding the many different shades of courage because I am always brought back to my father.

I understand that not all courage is physical. Yet there is something in me, and I think every male, that feels that the lack of physical courage somehow disqualifies us for fitting the definition of what a man should be.

It is not as if being a trophy hunter of wild animals is something to which I would aspire. I believe Hemingway’s interest in hunting was more a manifestation of the need to face the wild animal bravely. I do not believe he would have respected some of the rich guys who pay to hunt defenseless animals like they were on a golf outing. I remember interviewing a former member of the Philadelphia Eagles who made money collecting wild animals so he could rent the killing rights to the affluent on some weekend lark. I detested that guy and was glad when he was cut. Hemingway was criticized for his love of the bullfights, but there, too, he believed that the bull became as glorified as the bullfighter by the ritual. He was not indifferent to the bull. I can’t pretend to understand a ritual tht ends with an animal’s death.

Perhaps in the ultimate irony, Hemingway committed suicide, as did his father. An act of bravery or cowardice? SPR