Men on Mission

New York, NY - Over the weekend, I saw Frank Sinatra in one of his serious films. In “Von Ryan’s Express” he plays an American colonel whose plane was downed over Italy in the days of World War II. The Italians cooperating with the occupying force, the Germans, captured him. As the highest ranking officer in the prisoner-of-war camp, Sinatra’s character, Von Ryan, led the prisoners to escape by hijacking the very train that was meant to deliver them to their next captivity. It was a moving film.

This same weekend, I saw Harrison Ford in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”. I was not so moved by Ford’s character, Jones, or his plight. There are so many things that make a modern viewer jaded in this latest installment of the Indiana Jones franchise. Not least of which is Hollywood’s interpretation of what makes a hero. In today’s movies, slapstick and lightness are all.

What struck me about both films were the reasons why both characters got into the fight. Von Ryan volunteered to fight for an idea of a liberated Europe free of Nazism and fascism. Jones was forced to fight to rescue loved ones---he conveniently manages to solve one of archeology’s biggest mysteries while doing so. For the reasons above, both men would risk their lives. Should their mission fail, does death make their efforts nobler?

I think of the leadership and charisma of men and the victories and defeats that comes in their wake. Men with personal power carried by an equally powerful sense of mission are riveting. It is their hold on the mind and hearts of others that lead others into the trenches with them. The mission imperative is tricky one. I wonder how many fights and wars have started because one man felt it was his mission to right a wrong. What if this man were to rally others into his cause? What if he had power to persuade a nation? There have been misguided leaders along with noble ones.

In real life, men and women die because they trusted their leaders to the end. I hope that all leaders find missions that are greater than themselves---that they take into account the liberation of not only themselves, but of the many others who laid their trusts in them.