Sleeping Dogs
Balto and his musher Kaasen, who became heroes
through the serum run in 1925, originally belonged to a team along with 19
other teams that were destined to be unknown to anyone and eventually forgotten
completely. Rather, another team was planned to run the last course. Naturally,
if the last runner arrived at the town with the medicine they were treated as
heroes and covered by the media world-wide. Also, the statue in
When several days had passed since the serum run began the weather became worse. As the snowstorm became more severe, the temperature drastically dropped, and wind blew at the speed of 130 km per hour right before Balto¡¯s team received the medicine, mushers¡¯ hands froze and got frostbite even during the short time they had wrapped blankets around their dogs. And the incidents that dogs died took place here and there. Welch, the only doctor in the village who continued to monitor such a situation made a decision. To prevent any more accidents, it was better to take the serum run slow since arriving late was realistically better than losing everything. Right after this urgent message was sent to Solomon city and Port Safety city, all communication was cut off.
Olson¡¯s team that had left before he
received the message handed over the serum to Balto
and Kaasen risking his hands to be ruined because of
frostbite. According to the record of the time, ¡°Olson who had an accident of
his sled turned over because of wind and arrived at
Balto and Kaasen arrived the next day at
If the sleeping Rohm and his team had been up in full preparation, it is obvious that they would have been handed over the serum from Balto¡¯s team and run the last course to deliver the medicine and thus saved many lives as well as become heroes. However, they lost the chance to become heroes forever since they left everything behind and fell asleep depending on the message. At the time, Kaasen may have arrived and left quietly but the dogs should have known. It is concluded that Rohm slept like a log. If he couldn¡¯t wake up while dogs were barking noisily to one another he must have been a musher who was not faithful to his duty, and if his dogs didn¡¯t bark to other dogs that went back and forth, that¡¯s also a problem itself. No matter how hard and cold they were, when other dogs invade their territory, they must bark to wake up their owner and to fight among themselves to take their territory.
There¡¯s an American saying, ¡°Hindsight is always 20/20.¡± What if Rohm¡¯s team had been ready¡¦Another famous saying is ¡°water under the bridge.¡± The fact that you missed the golden opportunity that would never come back seems so obvious in retrospect. As a matter of fact, what kind of fool would want to pull a sled for others in a cold and dangerous situation? Then when he got the message ¡°to stop the serum run¡± he fell asleep in gladness, though there were people who were waiting desperately for the medicine.
Let¡¯s think about our lives. Suppose that they were a little less careful because it was to save others, how would we have handled it if the medicine had been for my own wife, my son and my daughter? Even though you received the message to stop, you would request that ¡°You would run the dangerous road to deliver the medicine to the end.¡±
Taking a step forward, if my life was hanging on it, would I really be able to sleep? I must have waited fully awake. So many families around me and even I are dying. Though it may not be visible, many are dying spiritually. When we have the medicine to prevent death, aren¡¯t we falling into sleep in gladness because it¡¯s somewhat cold and dangerous, and because we received a message to stop the delivery of the medicine through secular TV, radio, newspaper and culture? Actually, it is comfortable to live as I
please, and why should it be me? There are pastors and ministers¡¦it doesn¡¯t have to be me or it will be ok to take a nap and then do it¡¦