Russian draft dodgers, page-138

interesting subject, cowardice and bravery

I doubt if the vast majority of people know what they are. I doubt if the majority know about every situation. From what I see, many, and, I suspect most are a mixture of both.

I've seen many people who have done acts that others consider brave, but, the person involved says, there was no bravery at all, it was instinctive. I fall into that category myself.
But, also, there are times when one weighs up a situation and wisely avoids it.

As far as fighting for country goes, I don't know. I've never really ever felt 'home' aside from the planet. As far as places 'worth' fighting for, - well, I often looked at Oz and thought - why would you bother. I felt the same in Croatia, I thought, anyone would be crazy to fight for this. France, that is totally different. Boundless beauty, and, in several places in the war sites, you see young soldiers who came from somewhere else, including several Australians, who say, I can see why this is worth fighting for.

to me, there are so many situations and most of them are complex, I mean situations where you have time to think and logic, not act on instinct and auto reaction.

Eg. if I were a Nazi soldier, put in as a guard in an extermination camp, I've no idea what I would do. I'd be either looking for some way to stop the process, which, I think would be literally impossible, or I'd be looking to get the hell out of it. One could rebel, but, all that would happen would be that they would shoot you. Not a good option if you wanted to do something to help stop the whole thing.
Whereas in a situation like Marcel Marceau found himself, then, to me, his actions were a given. I could very easily see myself playing a role like that. I might not be smart enough to survive, but, I'd sure give it a bloody good try.
Why? Because it's crystal clear to see the value of what you are doing and worth the risk of your life.

So much depends on the complexity of each situation.

The yanks got some kind of lesson in Vietnam where a lot of them thought that they were there fighting for the people. Yet many of their military, in the end, thought, we're actually fighting for the wrong side, - life gets complicated