A QUESTION OF HONOR

Allan Sherman

"We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

So ends the Declaration of Independence. The men who founded the United States had many differences, but they agreed on one thing: Honor. Two hundred years later we seem to have lost it.

We seldom learn about Honor in school, because it isn't easy to teach its importance. It can't be measured in inches or counted like money. Today honor has become a virtue for fools: if Abraham Lincoln were to walk ten miles to return a library book today, he'd be laughed at and labeled an idiot. Honor is for the old fashioned and the stupid—a fairy tale ideal left over from the stories of King Arthur and his knights. But is it?

Consider these few true stories.

THE BATHTUB NAVY

On May 26, 1940, as Hitler's armies overran France, British and French troops retreated by the tens of thousands into the little French port of Dunkirk. From Dunkirk there was no place left to go but into the English Channel.

The mighty British navy had few ships small enough to dart in and bring out the men. (2) Thus the Free World could do nothing but sit by the radio in helplessness and sorrow, waiting for news that these vast armies of brave men had been wiped out.

Then, in the early hours of May 27, a miracle began to unfold From everywhere in the British Isles they came to southeast England-fishermen with fishing boats, noblemen with yachts, sportsmen with motor launches. The first of this tublike navy, captained by men with neither guns nor uniforms, set sail from Sheerness. By moonlight they putt-putted across the water, braving the dangers of mines and U-boats. As the morning sun lighted the beaches of Dunkirk, the first of the hundreds of small boats pulled onto the shore. The cheers of the trapped soldiers were drowned out by the roar overhead. German planes were bombing the beach as British planes tried to fight them off.

The miracle of Dunkirk continued for nine days and nights. All together, 338, 226 British and French lives were saved.

On June 18, Winston Churchill said, "If the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: This was their finest hour."

For the men of His Majesty's Bathtub Navy, the finest hour of all-the hour of greatest honor—took place on the beaches at Dunkirk.

AN OPEN HEART

My Aunt Edith was a widow of 50, working as a secretary, when doctors discovered what was then thought to be a very serious heart disease.

Aunt Edith doesn't accept defeat easily. She began studying medical reports in the library and found an article in a magazine about a well-known heart surgeon, Dr. Michael DeBakey, of Houston, Texas. He had saved the life of someone with the same disease. The article said Dr. DeBakey's fees were very high; Aunt Edith couldn't possibly pay them. But could he tell her of someone whose fee she could pay?

So Aunt Edith wrote to him. She simply listed her reasons for wanting to live: her three children, who would be on their own in three or four more years; her little-girl dream of traveling and seeing the world. There wasn't a word of self-pity—only warmth and humor and the joy of living. She mailed the letter, not really expecting an answer.

A few days later, my doorbell rang. Aunt Edith didn't wait to come in; she stood in the hall and read aloud:

Your beautiful letter moved me very deeply. If you can come to Houston, there will be no charge for either the hospital or the operation.

Signed: Michael DeBakey

That was seven years ago. Since then, Aunt Edith has been around the world. Her three children are happily married. For her age, she is one of the youngest, most alive people I know—all because of an open-heart surgeon who knew how to honor his profession, and how to open his own heart.

THE STUBBORN SEAMSTRESS

On December 1, 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks boarded a bus in downtown Montgomery, Alabama, paid her fare and took a seat in the front of the Negro section at the back end. It felt good to sit down after a long day's work. At the next stop, however, the driver told the Negroes to move back to make room for new white passengers.

All but one of the blacks gave up their places obediently. Rosa Parks hesitated. The bus was now full: if she got up, she would have to stand all the way home. A white man waiting for her seat glared impatiently.

At that moment, something in Rosa Parks snapped. Maybe her soul had had enough of humiliation; maybe it was just that her feet weretired. Anyway, the 42-year-old seamstress refused to give up her seat.

Black and white passengers alike stared at the troublemaker. The bus driver hailed a policeman. Mrs. Parks was arrested.

Montgomery's 17,000 Negroes were enraged. Some wanted violence—"Burn the buses, tip them over." Others kept their cool. With the help of a 27-year-old preacher who had been inspired by the non-violent ways of Mahatma Gandhi, they organized a boycott of the bus line.

The boycott lasted 380 days, and cost the bus line millions of dollars. Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that segregation on the buses was unconstitutional. Rosa Parks could now sit anywhere on a bus. Although most of us have forgotten her, the revolution she started changed America.

For the unknown preacher, however, there was no way back to obscurity. Martin Luther King, Jr., had a dream. And the world—at least in part because of Rosa Parks—was finally ready to honor that dream, and to listen.

 ...  Acts of honor, all of them ...  Acts of sacrifice, integrity, love. And no one is laughing. Perhaps we have not lost our sacred Honor after all.