War is hell, but sometimes in the midst of that hell men do things that heaven itself must be proud of. A hand grenade is hurled into a group of men. One of the men throws himself on top of it, making his body a living shield. In the burst of wild fire he dies, and the others live. Heroism is only a word, often a phony one. This is an action for which there is no good word because we can hardly even imagine it, let alone give it its proper name. Very literally, one man takes death into his bowels, takes fire into his own sweet flesh, so that the other men can take life, some of them men he hardly knows.
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About Frederick Buechner
Frederick Buechner was a 20th-century American religious writer. Carl Frederick Buechner was an American author, Presbyterian minister, preacher, and theologian. The author of thirty-nine published books, his career spanned more than six decades and encompassed many different genres. Read more on Wikipedia →