Saving married officers from death: guilty or not guilty?

“ Not Guilty” Story assignment ENG3U1 Teacher: Ms Lopes Period: 3 Date: 20th September, 2012 North Albion C. I. By: Sehab Shaikh Guilty or not guilty? A person who sacrificed lives of fifteen officers including him and saved five lives, should he be condemned? Lieutenant-Commander Oram and his crew of nineteen soldiers are under threat of losing their lives as there submarine has got a blast and they have air only enough for two days in submarine. As an in charge officer it is Oram’s call what to do. He decides to save five married officers over other fifteen unmarried ones. Is it a well justified act? Is saving those five men only worth? Statistically fifteen people are dying is better than twenty people are dying all together. But morally it was different for Lieutenant Oram. He had to make a call to save as many lives as possible. He had to hold his nerves to make a right call. There was no chance he could save all of them. “ We have enough air for two days. (Bruce & Pg#83)”-Because of lack of air supply he had to make decision faster. He did make decision to let married men live. He sacrificed lives of other fifteen officers including him and showed his bravery which was very well justified decision according to the situation. One would think why Lieutenant Oram only chose to poison unmarried officers? Why didn’t they have right to live? As Oram gets the track of the situation he asks Lieutenant Paull, “ Send the five married man to me”. The reason why he preferred to go to choose to save lives of married officers was because in those war time women were completely dependent on their husbands for almost every important tasks like earning money, feeding the family, etc. So, if there husband would die his family would be completely broken. Let’s say every five soldier having family of at least four (husband-wife & children) so it is five times four equals to twenty. He preferred to save those twenty lives over those fifteen which apparently wasn’t an easy decision for him. Therefore, one shouldn’t say that he killed fifteen officers. He saved twenty precious lives. He is not guilty because he didn’t have any bad intensions behind this. If one has to kill life of people who are already going to die to save few precious lives, it shouldn’t be considered as an act of guilt.