[Bradley Olson]

Very well put, Stephen.

You’re right to focus on the Ukrainian people, everyday folks for the most part, who are rising up against overwhelming odds. It does illustrate the “accidental” nature of heroism, which I think is rising up and facing existential threats squarely. It is, as I mentioned earlier, an artifact of the will to survive. But there is a catch here, too. I think that one’s own physical survival is less important than the survival of one’s dignity, honesty, one’s sense of justice, one’s sense of the humane. How we live is more important than that we live. At least that’s how I see it. Dignity, compassion, humility, and all those qualities of a noble life may well be the only aspects of a human life which are eternal. The refusal to have those elements of life stripped away is as good a reason as one can have for which to die; these qualities and their safeguarding are what give birth to true heroism.