In
my observation of human behavior, the study of the species-preservation
inclination has been the most fascinating. To observe its
operation continuously, at the most basic level, and reliably
in its full expression-where individuals choose to live personally
or else die for others-one needs to participate in a situation
where such choosing of life or death to save others is fairly
common.
The
battle for Iwo Jima was one of those horrifying situations.
It is often cited as the USMC's most costly battle. There,
the species-preserving versus self-preserving choices were
routine matters, daily, hourly, for hundreds, maybe thousands,
of men.
In
that cesspool of blood and vomit, as a replacement lieutenant
I took over a front-line rifle platoon where the record of
daily death is documented in these figures and similar official
statistics: My platoon, originally of forty men, by the sixth
day on the island when took over, was down to seven men, and
I was their sixth lieutenant. In four weeks the platoon suffered
almost 200% casualties; the entire regiment including rear
areas, almost 90"%. Similar figures were coming in from
all over the island. From my relatively safe, Beach Party
job (unloading boats), before I assumed command of a front-line
outfit, it was clear to me that I would unquestionably be
called forward soon. The original, rifle platoon leaders,,
lieutenants, were lasting only hours. Consequently, for three
days prior to my call, I crawled up into front-line units
hoping to learn the best ways to lead and also keep my men
alive.
It
was on the first such trip that I encountered Corporal Taylor,
mentioned earlier. In the absolute chaos of a deafening firefight,
one of our tanks had turned the wrong way and was firing into
our own men on the flank. When we saw the hill-shaking explosion
of a cannon round on those American positions, Taylor stood
up as ii it were not certain death, ran out thirty yards or
so, and grabbed a communication phone from the back of the
tank. I saw him trying to yell into the mouthpiece, holding
one hand over one ear, yelling hard, obviously having trouble
being heard. He pounded the phone on the back of the tank;
tried yelling into it again, and finally slammed it down in
disgust.
Feeling
weak over the anticipation of seeing him shot to pieces, I
flushed with hope as I saw him discard the phone. I crowded
over to the side of the shallow foxhole so that he could come
diving back in. Then the absurd happened. Taylor stopped hurrying.
Despite the earsplitting noise and the ongoing firefight,
he just calmly walked out in front of the tank, held up his
two hands while looking back over his shoulders so as not
to stumble, and started giving arm and hand signals to the
tank driver just as casually as if he were guiding a truck-driver,
back home, in some parking lot.
The
only way I can think that he did what he did, and lived, was
that the Japanese soldiers who were watching were just as
dumbfounded as I was. Some of them must have yelled to the
others, "Hey wait! Don't shoot! Look at this crazy guy!"
laughed at his audacity, and let him off. It had to be that
way. He was an easy target; and some of the Japanese Iwo Jima
fighters were like that. They had that type of respect for
unbelievable fearlessness or bravery. Despite the usual take-no-prisoners
viciousness on both sides, the starving Japanese in several
caves let one of our interpreters with a white flag walk into
their caves and offer them a chance to surrender rather than
be burned out with flame throwers. They refused, but they
let our Marine interpreter walk back out and live. (Incidentally,
one of our interpreters advised that the Japanese soldiers
did not choose to die in those caves in order to go the heaven
as is often reported. They said it was their way of sending
us Marines a message about how hard it would be for us to
take their homeland.)
The
point of the Taylor story is what he said when he came back.
I told him who I was-an observing lieutenant -and admonished
him, as a needed leader, for risking his life so recklessly.
He overruled me confidently before he crawled away to conduct
the firefight: "No lieutenant", he said, "you'll
see that that is not the way you keep score out here."
I
knew I had been told something profound that I did not understand.
The
next day the lesson was clarified. I crawled up into a platoon-sized
company that was pinned down behind a rock wall. Crawling
up, I had seen that the most dangerous fire was coming from
a cave above and to the right of those at which our men were
firing. When I called attention to the flanking fire, a bazooka
round was decided on for that cave. The isolated platoon had
only one bazooka round left. This posed the problem of making
sure that the one shot was a hit because time was of the essence.
The platoon was pinned down flat and taking casualties. Terrain
was a deadly problem. To get a decent shot into that cave,
someone had to go over the rock wall with the clumsy bazooka,
crawl out some fifteen feet only partly protected by a log
about eight inches high, lift his head enough to get off a
shot, then try to get back. And this was not Hollywood; it
was a suicide mission for someone, but necessary to protect
the rest of the platoon. No one was really dug in.
Immediately
there was a volunteer. He took the bazooka, crawled over to
a corporal beside me and asked privately and hurriedly about
how to fire the bazooka alone. In that tight little circle
of our three heads with our chins in the dirt, I saw an exchange
of glanced communications between the two boys. The volunteer
winced slightly in shame that he did not know the weapon.
The corporal gritted his teeth, shook his head minutely once,
and took the bazooka. This time I saw more clearly the way
the better men kept score out there: one takes his turn to
die if he is the one who can do the job to save others. Good
Lord! He was going, voluntarily, to pay the price of his life
for superior competence; whereas incompetence was saving the
other lad. I could hardly stand it.
As the corporal slipped across the low wall, the first Marine
who had volunteered but knew he could not perform, peeked
through the rocks with me for a second but then dropped his
face into his dusty, grimy hand, unable to watch.
"What's
his name?" I yelled. "McCorco," I
thought he answered.
I
watched the corporal inch out dredging the black sand in front
of him with his chest. I noticed the correct spelling of the
young unsung hero's name on his back: McCorkel. It seemed
important.
McCorkel
got the bazooka in place up on the half-buried log. He exposed
his head in hopeless danger to the crack Japanese snipers.
He took quick but careful aim, and fired.
Direct
hit! McCorkel glanced over at us and smiled and died without
moving again as the return fire from a sniper's bullet tore
through his head.
Above
from pages 161 - 164
Dr.
Robert L. Humphrey's
VALUES FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM
Click
on image to BUY BOOK
That
Species-Preserving Moral Value and Its Formula for Life
The
lesson that I learned on Iwo Jima is that human nature's formula
for life in human relations is not the survival of the fittest.
It is almost exactly the opposite and is of a highly moral/spiritual
nature. It is the sacrifice of the fittest to protect others
-- the family and other in-group members, that is, functionally,
the species.
Of
equal importance, once this principle is activated, it becomes
self-motivating.
Why
would that be?
In
explanation, remember, even long-distant runners get "hooked"
on that self-torturing, but pleasing, physical exercise. Similarly,
in healthy human beings, moral development, once felt, is
captivating because it is so satisfying. We all know about
that joy of giving (at least once a year).
It
seems that the greatest joy of all, once discovered, amounting
to a spiritual feeling of nobility, comes from risking that
greatest gift of all, one's life to save another. That definitely
was what I saw happening. I did not just see it once. I kept
seeing it, and seeing it , and seeing it. That constancy is
what was convincing.
This
unusual giving was "all around us." I first saw
it illustrated by one Sergeant Taylor, later killed and decorated.
One of our tanks (because of a stressed-out driver) was firing
into our own Marines over on one flank. Taylor ran out to
the tank and tried to yell instructions to the driver through
the phone on the back.
This
did not work and another hill-shaking cannon-round from the
tank tore over into our Marine positions. Taylor slammed the
phone down on the back of the tank and, then, slowly, as if
on a stroll in the garden, walked out to the tank's front.
This was despite the horror of raging combat. Unhurried, he
raised his hands and arms up in the air and proceeded to give
the tank-driver hand and arm signals to get him straightened
out. He was as nonchalant as if the tank were a beer truck
back home in some parking lot.
That
done, and finding himself still alive, then, he came fire-balling
back into the shell-hole beside me.
It
was my suspicion that the Japanese riflemen in the caves must
have been so amazed at what they were seeing that they decided
to let him off rather than kill him. The Japanese appreciated
that kind of out-of this-world fearlessness.
Here is the point of that account. As a new lieutenant at
the time on a front-line observation tour of my own, looking
for a kid brother reported killed, I identified myself to
him. Then I cautioned him, in an official tone, that he could
reasonably be a little more protective of his own life. As
he rose to leave, he responded respectfully: "No, Lt.,
that is not the way we keep score out here."
I
did not completely understand. I began to see the point later
when Jackson taught me his giant "save-us others, "lesson,
and then again when I saw one young Jack McCorkle smile just
after he had saved a pinned down group by taking-out a cave
with a bazooka but knowing he would be shot at once by snipers.
It
went on like that. But to understand what you were seeing,
you did have to see it again and again before finally, you
could understand what Taylor had meant. We human beings keep
score in life by a formula that puts species-preservation
first. But being a game of moral feelings, not intellect,
it cannot be understood intellectually without better emotional
measuring methods.
Concluding
point. That dual life-value is the theoretical foundation
beneath this new science of moral education. You can rely
on it at least in general, even if not specifically; so it
is still a science. It has worked under all sorts of conditions
while being implemented in the Cold War, in part, by countless
assistants all across the Middle East and Asia. And I am sure
we can now make it work in peace-time if the threats of division
and national decline are such that we can see and admit they
are there.
Above
from
Ten Values - Secrets for Building Institutional and Global
Harmony
http://www.lifevalues.com/ten_values_1.htm
