“Samantha hurry, just your clothes, the boats are leaving”! She really couldn’t hear me, my voice couldn’t pierce the screams of cannon and missile fire hitting west Warsaw. We were some of the last citizens to make it to the boats as we came up from the man holes almost 2 hours after the attack started. We had always prepared for this moment, but even as it was happening before us, the brain couldn’t take in the chaos. “Alright I got all my stuff Darvine” my wife said running with 2 bags in each hand and a couple around her neck. “Doll, you’re going to wind up tipping the boat, two bags, and two bags only” I said truly feeling horrible from the bottom of my heart. She gave me a big puppy dog eye, but even she knew the luggage was to much and she threw them off the edge of the ramp to get on the boat.
If I thought about what I would do in this situation, I would be scrambling to be the first on the boat, I would be that survivor who saved his wife and lived on to tell the story of his bravery to his grandchildren. But I was here laughing and giggling shuffling slowly onto a boat with gunfire only a few feet away. It made me question bravery, did we really throw ourselves into battle, did we really comprehend what we were getting into, or did we throw ourselves against the current and through desperation to live barely keep our head above water to float to shore. Bravery is not being fearless, no soldier here, German or polish here was brave, they fought like our lives were theirs, just holding on.