"I would become miserable if now, honored with glory and decorations, I became a pensioner of my own dignity in order to preserve my precious life for the nation while every poor fellow in the trenches endures his duty exactly as I did mine."
"As the winter deepens, air traffic slows down. There is much rain and snow. Even on dry days the heavy clouds drift so low that no takeoffs are ordered. We sit around in our rooms. I am quartered in the country house of a lace manufacturer."
We are almost to the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution, but first we have to wait for November. The revolution was not exactly mis-named; one of the revolution's reforms was to join the Western world in using the Gregorian calendar instead of the Julian calendar, which meant skipping about two calendar weeks. But they didn't do that till 1918, so the revolution date of November 7, 1917 still counted at the time as being in October.
Any exotic animal might have a longer expected life span than aviators, who were pioneering every new idea aircraft designers could think of and rush into production for the war. Anyone who would go two miles up in a crate with wings would probably not be overly intimidated by playing with a lion. It might seem like pretty much the same activity.
