Good op ed from one of the editors at the Daily Caller:

THE COST OF MASCULINITY
(by Geoffrey Ingersoll, Editor at Large)

"So far authorities estimate more than 80 people perished in the July 4 floods that caused the Guadalupe River to swell dramatically in Texas. 

Camp Mystic, a summer camp for girls, was hit particularly hard. As of this morning, their official website still lists 27 girls and counselors as missing. The camp caters to kids aged 7 to 17, so you can only imagine the heartache some families are enduring right now.

As is typically the case with these things, keyboard warriors are firing off takes non-stop from the safety of their dry and air-conditioned homes. I’m not going to unpack these except to say they range from ugly to particularly ugly.

The political right is not immune to this habit. Several commentators are taking a victory lap for “toxic masculinity.” Even as the take is meant to compliment male heroism, it’s still off-putting to use a tragedy to score political points.

I’ve covered wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, mass shootings, riots and the like more times than I care to count over the last 25 years, and generally I have one rule in the initial wake of these things: Stay as positive as possible.

As such, I have four stories and a lesson.

First, the heroes.

Julian Ryan punched through glass as the waters were rapidly rising in his home and his family was struggling to find a way out. He helped them onto the roof before succumbing to the injuries he sustained from breaking the window.

His last act as a father was to save his family. RIP Julian Ryan.

According to reports, Richard Eastland, the elderly owner of Camp Mystic, was seen waist deep in the water fishing his campers out as they floated by him screaming for help. According to these same reports, he refused to flee and pulled about a half dozen girls out of the water before being washed away himself.

RIP Richard Eastland.

The counselors at a neighboring camp for young boys, Camp La Junta, are being credited with treading water in the tumult to get the youngest of the boys up into rafters and away from the flood. Unlike Mystic, as of today, none of the boys from La Junta are missing.

Some folks are crediting the “black eagles,” the highest ranking counselors at the camp, for acting quickly to get the children to higher ground.

Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer Third Class Scott Ruskan roped from a helicopter into a demolished Camp Mystic mid-storm so he could direct rescue efforts. The NYPost is crediting him with 165 rescues throughout the storm. Certainly the toll would be higher at Mystic if not for his heroism.

He shrugged it off. “I’m mostly just a dude,” he told the Post’s Jennie Taer, “I was just doing a job.”

Ruskan said what every hero in the service says. 

“This is what I signed up for, and I think that any single Coast Guard rescue swimmer or any single Coast Guard pilot, flight mechanic, whoever it may be, would have done the exact same thing in our situation,” he said.

Any one of our guys would have done the same.

I’ve heard it dozens of times. It’s cliche but it’s true. It should be true.

It wasn’t just guys either. I saw one story of a college-aged young woman saving the lives of 14 young girls. I salute you Emma Foltz.

If there’s any lesson we can take from this tragedy, it’s that heroism is still common. It’s also sadly that the cost of masculinity is still immune to all the galaxy-brained neo marxist nonsense coming out of academia.

When a tragedy starts to unfold at a rapid pace at scale, the bulk of the fighting to stem the tide will come from men. That’s how it’s been for 100,000 years. That’s how it is today.

While the nation mourns, it’s largely going to be men on the ground doing the clean up work too. The cost of masculinity isn’t just using the strength God gave you to protect women, children and the elderly. It’s cleaning up the lion’s share of the giant mess left behind.

It’s also demonstrating some level of bearing in the process. Masculinity doesn’t gloat over accomplishments while the bodies are still being found, just as it doesn’t snipe intellectual antagonists.

Could you imagine Ruskan saying, “yeah, I was pretty awesome saving all those lives and also my women’s studies professor in college can eat it.”

“If you want to support me, I started an OnlyFans!”

No.

Buried in the mud beside the 27 missing girls and 80 heartbroken families is a miracle that often goes missed. 

It’s that outside the casual, calorie-free thoughts posted to social media and broadcast on network media and thought up in academia, men (and even some boys!) still have a bone-deep sense of duty, honor and integrity.

It’s that the soul of humanity is intact and brighter than ever."