Op/Ed
19
www.jcunews.com
The Carroll News
Sept. 15, 2016
The Gebhardt Collection:
The Op/Ed Top Ten:
Ask, ask and ask again
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Here’s the Thing: Honoring sacrifice
John Desrosiers Assistant Editorial & Op/Ed Editor
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” John, Chapter 15 Verse 13. Catholic or not, I think this line is pretty universally recognized. I would be so bold as to say that most people in this world would sacrifice themselves to save their family and friends, some of whom would not even hesitate to do so. This is beyond admirable and is an incredible display of love, but I would like to take time to explore those who take this devotion even further: to lay down their lives for complete strangers. They truly take Jesus’ words to heart: “Love thy neighbor,” for what else is a friend than someone whom we love? These people sacrificed a great deal of themselves for others, mostly people that they didn’t even know, and I think in some way f o r a l l o f th e m it w as done out of a love for something. I would like to take the time to talk about honoring those who sacrifice as their careers and what honoring them means. Most people don’t make these sacrifices for a reward. People who sacrifice out of love seldom do. Just think, of all that your parents have sacrificed for you; seldom do they try and cash in on their devotion and milk you dry for an unpayable debt. On a side note, we can thus conclude that schools do not provide us education out of love. But I digress. My point is that these people really don’t care about how little money they make; like teachers or priests, they’re in it for the vocation, not so they can buy pricey vacation homes on Lake Champlain. Frankly, they don’t even care if their work is appreciated or not, whether you stand during
—Compiled by the Op/Ed and Editorial Staff
the anthem or sit, think this country is the greatest country in the world or a terrible one. They don’t care who you vote for or what your religion is, or what your race is or who you find attractive. Here’s the thing: when it comes down to the wire and you’re in a burning building, or have a medical emergency, or in a desperate situation where your life is threatened, who are you going to call? I’ll give you a hint, it ain’t either Ghostbusters group. No, you’re going to pick up the phone and call the same number we’ve been taught from childhood: 911. If you need the boys in blue, the fire brigade or the paramedics, they’re going to come and help you out. Whether you’re thankful or not isn’t really their concern, nor do they really care much about who you are. They only care about your safety when they respond to the call. Yeah it’s cliché, but to me, that’s true heroism and true love. I was struck by something on a recent trip I made to the USS Cod, an old WWII submarine. An old serviceman was giving us the tour and he said he was proud and honored to work aboard the Cod because we owe her and her crew so much. He said that every day he arrives he greets the ship, patting her hull in thanks. After that he goes below deck and says, “Good morning, Andrew,” in greeting to the sailor who was lost at sea in 1945. It struck me then that that’s really what honoring sacrifice was all about. If these people make their sacrifices out of love, why not respond in kind? If you’re going to honor uniformed personnel, I don’t think it has to be a grandiose gesture like paying for something. Nor do I think it should be a stale “thank you for your service” that has pretty much lost its meaning. Show them you’re appreciative in a truly heartfelt and loving, yet simple way. Say “good morning” to a police officer and smile at them. Shake the hand of a firefighter or an EMS and tell them to “keep up the good work.” Tell a veteran “welcome home.” Above all, offer all of these things for those in their profession you can’t honor personally, who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Contact John Desroisiers at jdesroisiers17@jcu.edu
Ben Gebhardt Editorial & Op/Ed Editor I have long known that it is good to ask for help when in trouble. I have never had a problem with it. But in Gotera, El Salvador, I learned the lesson that not only should somebody ask for help in times of trouble– one sometimes must do it persistently. It was the penultimate stretch of an otherwise perfect weekend. The other American volunteers at the Shoulder to Shoulder bilingual school and I had decided to hit the beach in La Libertad, El Salvador. The weekend had been great– we hung out on a rocky beach on the Pacific coast. We also enjoyed the eclectic nightlife of El Tunco, a hotspot for surfers the world over. Well-rested and prepared to get back to Camasca, Honduras, the tortuous journey of bus rides began. To get back to Honduras, we had to bus from La Libertad to San Salvador, San Salvador to San Miguel, San Miguel to Gotera, Gotera to Colomoncagua and then Colomoncagua to Camasca, and it somehow had gone smoothly so far. We had reached Gotera by five o’clock without a hitch, and were ready to make the final stretch back home.
We walked to the bus stop but were dismayed to find that there wasn’t the standard crowd waiting for the bus. The security guard of the adjacent cafe, reading our nervousness, told us that the bus to Honduras does not run that day. “What do you mean it doesn’t run?” I asked him. He shrugged, saying that it runs every other day of the week, but not on Sunday evenings. We asked him if there were any safe hotels in the town, and he told us that no, none were particularly safe. He then shortly told us that we had to leave the cafe, as it was closing time. We tried to ask him if we could stay in the cafe (and thus within a wifi hotspot that we needed to use our cell phones) for just a little while, so that we could contact our friends from the Honduran villages across the border, but he refused to let us. With a polite nudge he pushed us from the door, locked it and went home. We had a problem. At five o’clock in the afternoon on a Sunday, as Gotera’s shops were closing, we were faced with the uncomfortable prospect of being stranded in a dangerous town unfamiliar to us– we needed the help of the locals to find a way home. No locals or passersby, though, seemed to want to help in the least– something that I had never really encountered before. When we asked them how one might get back to Honduras, we were given a litany of cold shrugs or told “wait for the bus tomorrow.” We asked, and asked, and asked, but nobody that we encountered was willing
or knew, really, any alternative route for getting to Honduras. Dejected, we walked into a neighboring, run down little eatery and sat around a table and tried to brainstorm solutions, but there was nothing good coming to mind. We didn’t know what to do, with no wifi and no friends in this part of Central America. We had seen a sketchy looking hotel in the town on our ride in, and we were just about ready to take a risk and wait out the night, seeing as reaching out to others had failed. But before we did, we took our chance and asked one more set of people– a man and his family– if they knew any way that we might get back to Honduras before nightfall. And he, the (seemingly) thousandth person that we asked, was exactly the man that we were looking for. When we asked him if he knew a way to get back to the Honduran villages, he responded helpfully, went about the town and found a friend to drive us across the border for a small charge. It was, though, quite a nerve racking hour or two that we spent asking nearly everyone that we saw if they could help us. For all of us, it was a great lesson– never accept that there is nobody willing to help you if you are in a particularly desperate situation. Somewhere, there is always somebody to willing to help. Contact Ben Gebhardt at bgebhardt18@jcu.edu
Hey, Faculty! Do you have an opinion, idea or viewpoint to share with the student body? If so, The Carroll News wants you! We are currently seeking faculty and staff members to write commentary for this section. If you are interested or have questions, comments or concerns, please contact Op/Ed Editor Ben Gebhardt at bgebhardt18@jcu.edu or Editor-in-Chief Mary Frances McGowan at mmgowan17@jcu.edu
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