Why Did World War II Make Risk Feel Small to Raymond Plank?

David Senra says Raymond Plank's World War II service, as a young man in his early 20s, made the business risks he took later seem small by comparison. Part of Plank's almost overactive zest for life came from seeing friends die and not return from combat.

Plank was a fighter pilot when World War II began. At age 22 he flew a four engine bomber, responsible for the well-being of a crew of 10, helping kill the Japanese who sought to kill them. Of the 40 missions he flew, the squadron was shot up on 19. Courage is not the absence of fear; it only counts if you are actually afraid.

Biographies of Rockefeller show the same pattern Senra sees in Plank: low-key, very rarely showing emotion, and relentless, attacking a problem or seizing an opportunity until it happened. Bank presidents in Cleveland kept turning Rockefeller down in the early days of his oil company. A refused loan was nothing and made no difference. It simply meant he must look elsewhere until he got what he wanted. Plank was hardcore and relentless in his professional life, and the same drive showed up in dating. He met Elizabeth McCabe, they exchanged no information, and he decided he needed to date her. He checked every McCabe in the Minneapolis phone directory and called two dozen before he found her house. The relationship did not last long because he was shipped off to fight.