{"id":1935,"date":"2022-09-01T09:43:29","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T13:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1935"},"modified":"2022-09-01T09:43:29","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T13:43:29","slug":"real-men-ask-for-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/01\/real-men-ask-for-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Men Ask for Help"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Real men don\u2019t use parachutes.\u00a0
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That, at least, was the official position of America\u2019s military commanders during World War One.\u00a0
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The \u201cGreat War\u201d (1914-1918) was the first time that airplanes were used in combat, or that anyone even imagined they had strategic military value.
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When Captain Eddie Rickenbacker \u2013 America\u2019s \u201cace of aces\u201d with 26 confirmed aerial victories \u2013 first squeezed into the cockpit of his SPAD XIII (see the photo above), heavier-than-air flight had been possible for only about a decade and a half.\u00a0 Needless to say, almost everything about these planes was primitive and experimental.
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It\u2019s impossible to overstate how dangerous it was to fly one \u2013 let alone face the machine guns of enemy German aircraft.
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The pilots called them chicken coops.\u00a0 They were like motorized kites, an assemblage of wooden strips and wires.
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Fire is what scared the pilots the most.\u00a0 In John R. Ross\u2019 biography of Rickenbacker, Enduring Courage, <\/em>he writes: \u201cIt\u2019s hard to imagine a more combustible creation than the World War One airplane: a virtual flying pyre, made of cotton fabric or linen, stretched over wooden frames, and doped with highly flammable finish to stiffen the whole assembly.\u00a0
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\u201cNot enemy tracers alone but a spark from one\u2019s own engine might instantly turn a smooth, routine flight into mortal agony.\u00a0 Fanned by the stiff breeze of flight, flames could consume a machine in moments, leaving the pilot himself wrapped in fire far above the ground.\u201d
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That\u2019s when hard choices had to be made.\u00a0 A pilot had only seconds to decide whether to face the flames or jump to his death from two miles up.\u00a0\u00a0 Some, seeking a third option, always kept a pistol at hand.
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One out of nine American pilots in the First World War did not survive training.\u00a0 <\/em>The average life expectancy of those who graduated to combat was a mere 60 days.\u00a0
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What about parachutes?\u00a0 Even though rudimentary chutes existed, they were never cleared by the U.S. military bureaucracy.\u00a0
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Ross provides the incredible explanation: \u201cHeadquarters believed that a pilot would be far more inclined to leave his airplane at the first hint of trouble if he could bail out, thus unacceptably wasting equipment.\u201d
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Swivel chair commanders, most of whom had never been near the peril of a dogfight, suggested that it was unmanly <\/em>for pilots to seek a way to survive catastrophe.\u00a0 All of this contributed to the notion of the \u201cromance of the skies,\u201d in which heroic young men were willing to risk everything \u2013 literally flying without a net or a chute.
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Unrealistic expectations about male behavior persist to this day:
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Real men go it alone.\u00a0 Tough guys never cry.\u00a0 Self-made men don\u2019t ask for help, and never put themselves in a position where they have to depend on the performance or kindness of others.
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This isn\u2019t heroic behavior.\u00a0 Let\u2019s call it what it is: utter foolishness<\/em>.\u00a0
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After declaring everything God had made to be \u201cvery good,\u201d what\u2019s the first thing in the Bible that God says is \u201cnot good\u201d?\u00a0 \u201cIt is not good that the man should be alone\u201d (Genesis 2:18).\u00a0
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It was not good then.\u00a0 It is not good today.\u00a0 Even though studies consistently reveal that the number and quality of personal relationships are directly related to emotional and physical health, 60% of adult American males cannot name a best friend.
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One hundred years ago, Eddie Rickenbacker\u2019s enduring courage helped inspire others to be strong.
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Our call today is to inspire others to be strong enough, and wise enough, to choose partnership over solo flights.
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Great friendships, after all, can be life-saving parachutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Real men don\u2019t use parachutes.\u00a0\u00a0That, at least, was the official position of America\u2019s military commanders during World War One.\u00a0\u00a0The \u201cGreat War\u201d (1914-1918) was the first time that airplanes were used in combat, or that anyone even imagined they had strategic military value.\u00a0When Captain Eddie Rickenbacker \u2013 America\u2019s \u201cace of aces\u201d with 26 confirmed aerial victories \u2013 first squeezed into the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[156],"class_list":["post-1935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-friendship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1937,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions\/1937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}