Legacy of Courage

I was reading about the two thousand stripling warriors today in Alma 56, and one of the most impressive things about them is the courage they had to never back down from a fight. Before gunpowder entered warfare, most deaths occurred after one side broke and started to flee. That's partly why none of Helaman's army died because they never ran from a fight. And why was that? Look at their parents. Their fathers had the courage not to run from battle, even when they took up no arms to defend themselves, nor armor to protect themselves. If their fathers had the courage to face the enemy unarmed and unarmored and refuse to run away, then the stripling warriors could at least stand their ground with their weapons and armor. They did not run because before them their fathers did not run. Their mothers had the courage to bury their husbands and then move into the heart of their former enemies, into a strange new culture, and raise their sons all on their own. Their mothers did not run away from a terrifying reality and neither would they. The stripling warriors carried on a legacy of courage that they witnessed firsthand from their parents. Every generation has to face their own terrors but we can look to the legacy of courage of our parents and grandparents and draw strength from the fact if they could survive their world wars and great depressions and mutually assured destructions, then maybe we can also survive our pandemics and social upheavals as well.