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Doc: That's mostly what makes physical heroism - opportunity. It's a reflex. I think that seventy-five out of a hundred young males have that reflex. You take any one of them. Say even Frank Thurlowe Pulver, here. Put him into a B-29 over Japan, and you know what you'd have?
Lt. j.g. Douglas A. Roberts: No I don't, Doctor.
Doc: You'd have Pulver, the Congressional Medal of Honor winner. Pulver, who single-handed shot down twenty-three attacking Zeros. Pulver who, with his bare hands, held together the severed wing struts of his plane, and with his bare feet successfully landed his mortally wounded plane on his home field. Reflex. It's like the knee jerk. Strike the patella tendon in any human being, you produce the knee jerk. Look.
[Doc hits Pulver in the knee and nothing happens]
Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver: What's the matter, Doc?
Doc: Nothing, but stay out of B-29s, Frank, my boy.
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Lt. j.g. Douglas A. Roberts: Captain, you told me...
The Captain: Never mind what I told you. *I'm telling you!*
Extended Reading
