The code is designed to protect the victor, as well as the vanquished, French says. It’s shaped cultures as diverse as the Vikings, the Samurai, the Romans and Native Americans, says Shannon E. It’s called the warrior’s code, say soldiers and military scholars. What is this bond that surfaces between enemies during and after battle? One renowned American general traveled back to Vietnam to meet the man who almost wiped out his battalion, and the two men hugged and prayed together. British and German troops gathered for post-war reunions some even vacationed together after World War II.

Union and Confederate troops risked their lives to aid one another during the Civil War.

Their story is extraordinary, but it’s not unique. “When they found each other, they found peace.” “The war left them in turmoil,” says Adam Makos, who wrote the book with Larry Alexander. His encounter with the German fighter pilot is beautifully told in a New York Times best-selling book, “A Higher Call.” The book explains how that aerial encounter reverberated in both men’s lives for more than 50 years. Those are the kinds of questions Brown’s story raises. But there is another side of war that’s seldom explored: Why do some soldiers risk their lives to save their enemies and, in some cases, develop a deep bond with them that outlives war?Īnd are such acts of chivalry obsolete in an age of drone strikes and terrorism?Ĭharles Brown was on his first combat mission during World War II when he met an enemy unlike any other. People love to hear war stories about great generals or crack troops such as Seal Team 6, the Navy unit that killed Osama bin Laden. Years later, Brown would track down his would-be executioner for a reunion that reduced both men to tears. What happened next was one of the most remarkable acts of chivalry recorded during World War II. Half his crew was wounded, and the tail gunner was dead, his blood frozen in icicles over the machine guns.īut when Brown and his co-pilot, Spencer “Pinky” Luke, looked at the fighter pilot again, something odd happened. His bomber had been shot to pieces by swarming fighters, and his plane was alone in the skies above Germany. The B-17 pilot, Charles Brown, was a 21-year-old West Virginia farm boy on his first combat mission.

A higher call