FROM MY PERSPECTIVE

ON LIFE IN HARMS' WAY.

by Mid January, 1998.

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1. Physical and Emotional Accidents.

I start off by noting that I began to ski in 1928 and continued to ski every chance I got until I stopped when I was 68. Leaving out the war years, therefore, I skied for some 60 years or so!

My brother Alan was one of the original training cadre of the 10th Mountain Division. They were as you may know a ski Division which the Germans did not believe we had! For a rather terrible print of my brother Alan in ski regalia with the 10th Mountain Division see ALAN.

Alan never had a ski accident and neither did I.

I sailed for more than 40 years and never had an accident while sailing although my wife and I were caught in our boat by "Hurricane Bob". We rode it out without any trouble at all.

I started to drive in combat around November, 1944 and have been driving ever since and have never had an automobile accident.

This article is not about physical accidents but about staying out of harms way IN LIFE.

Too many people that are injured and get into accidents (I define accidents as anything that happens to an individual that they did not foresee and that comes as an unpleasent surprise) do so because they put themselves in harms way.An individual without responsibilities of any kind and without obligations is entitled to do anything they want with their life BUT an individual who has voluntarily accepted responsibilities has no such rights! In fact, just the opposite! I am chicken when it comes to personal dangers for some very good reasons:

1. I have nothing to prove to anyone. I proved myself in combat and that lasts a lifetime.
2. When you first get married you assume an enormous baggage of responsibilities and later on when the children come multiply it by 10 or more!
3. If you get killed or badly injured at a young age (MENTALLY OR PHYSICALLY) then the odds are that you leave behind you a wife who gets battered by life and children who share the battering.
4. Your life is not your own. Your life belongs to your parents, sisters and brothers ,wife, children and society.
5. As my dear Mother in law used to say "this is not a rehearsal". You get one life and one life only.There are no second chances. This is it.
6. There is a social contract between yourself and society. Society created what civilization that exists and all the wonderful "toys" we Americans have been blessed with year in and year out. If you find that ridiculous or whatever then ask yourself why do you vote or why do you pay taxes? And in years gone by the reason for the draft was that there was and is a social contract between the individual and society.Each and every individual has both rights and obligations with and to the society as a whole.
7. No man is an island! No man can live alone.
8. Once you VOLUNTARILY accept a plethora of responsibilities you have a moral obligation to make sure that nothing prevents you from fulfilling those responsibilities!
9. More important you have a moral responsibility to make sure that you do not leave in the lurch all those you have espoused to go with you in the journey through life, BE IT A SHORT OR LONG JOURNEY.

I, therefore, define "In Harms Way" any activity, be it passive or active, that threatens the life and well being not only of the participant but the survivors as well!

2. Crazy Daring. There are 2 kinds of crazy daring: the first is physical and the second is emotional.

Each and every sport is, by definition, dangerous. Some are, of course, more dangerous than others. In my lifetime I have done most everything in the way of sports except the ones I consider outside the parameters of intelligent.

Some sports are insane for the amateur.They include sky diving, scuba diving to extreme depths, motor cycles at extreme speeds, sking late in the day or at extreme speeds.

BUT SOME OF THE ACTIONS PEOPLE TAKE IN REGARD TO LIFE ARE EVEN MORE DANGEROUS THAN FOOLISH "SPORTS".