October 14th, 1943, 25,000 ft above Germany. Staff Sergeant Michael Romano crouches in the cramped tail section of his B-17, hands gripping twin .50 caliber machine guns that weigh more than he does. Through the small Plexiglas window, he watches a Focke-Wulf 190 positioning for an attack run. 6:00 low, the bomber’s most vulnerable angle.

Romano squints through his ring and bead sight. The primitive aiming system, essentially two metal posts he must align with his target, offers no compensation for speed, no calculation for deflection, no help whatsoever as both aircraft hurtle through the sky at combined closing speeds exceeding 500 mph. He fires.

 Tracers arc harmlessly behind the diving fighter. The FW 190’s cannons flash. 20 mm shells tear through aluminum like tissue paper. This scene repeats itself 291 times today across the second Schweinfurt raid. The Eighth Air Force dispatches 291 B-17 Flying Fortresses deep into Germany without fighter escort. By nightfall, 60 bombers, more than 20% of the attacking force, will be shot down.

Another 138 return so badly damaged they’ll never fly again. 600 American airmen are dead. The mathematics are brutal and unsustainable. At this rate, no bomber crew will statistically survive the required 25 missions. Post mission analysis reveals the grim truth. Tail gunners, supposedly the bomber’s last line of defense against the preferred German attack angle, achieve hit rates below 8%.

Fighter pilots need merely attack from the rear, endure a few seconds of inaccurate return fire, and methodically destroy America’s billion-dollar strategic bombing campaign one fortress at a time. Senior commanders gather at Eighth Air Force headquarters in High Wycombe, England. The defensive armament supposed to make the B-17 a flying fortress has failed catastrophically.

Without a solution, daylight precision bombing, the entire strategic doctrine faces cancellation. What these commanders don’t know is that at that very moment, on a cold hardstand at Bassingbourn airfield, a 22-year-old tail gunner with barely a high school education is sketching a design in his logbook that violates multiple Army Air Forces regulations.

A design that will be called mechanically impossible by weapons engineers. A design that will triple tail gun accuracy and save thousands of American lives. This is the story of the innovation they tried to ban and the gunner who refused to stop. To understand why Romano’s innovation proved so revolutionary, you must first understand the impossible problem tail gunners face in 1943.

The B-17 Flying Fortress enters combat with a defensive philosophy borrowed from naval warfare. Bristling with enough machine guns to create overlapping fields of fire, the bombers theoretically protect themselves through sheer volume of lead. Army Air Forces promotional materials call it a flying battleship.

Reality proves wo- brutally different. Staff Sergeant Michael Romano reports to Bassingbourn airfield, England in August 1943 as a replacement tail gunner for the 91st Bomb Group. He’s a former factory worker from Pittsburgh. No college degree, no engineering background. Barely 19 years old when he enlists. The Army trains him for 6 weeks how to clear jams, estimate range, and pray his shots connect.

His assigned position, the tail gunner’s station, is barely larger than a coffin. He must kneel on a bicycle seat, feet braced against the aircraft structure, hands wrestling 84-lb Browning M2 machine guns through a cramped field of fire. The guns pivot on a simple yoke mount. His aiming system consists of a ring and bead sight, a metal circle with a post at the front like sights on a frontier rifle.

To hit a diving fighter, Romano must estimate the target speed relative to his own aircraft, calculate deflection angle, where to aim ahead of the target, compensate for bullet drop over distance, execute all calculations while wearing bulky gloves in -40° temperatures. Fire before the German pilot’s cannons, with four times the range, turn his position into shrapnel expert gunners from peacetime aerial gunnery schools attempt the same shots under controlled conditions.

Their hit rates barely exceed 12%. In combat, stressed, oxygen deprived, and under fire, actual hit rates plummet to 6 and 8%. The Luftwaffe recognizes this vulnerability immediately. German fighter tactics evolve throughout 1943. Attack from 6:00 level or low, accept 15-20 seconds of inaccurate tail gunfire close to 200 yd, and unleash devastating 20 mm cannon strikes.

Luftwaffe after-action reports describe B-17 tail positions as marginally dangerous, accuracy insufficient to deter attacks. August 17th, 1943, the first Schweinfurt raid, 60 bombers lost. October 8th, 1943, Bremen raid, 30 bombers lost. October 10th, 1943, Münster raid, 30 bombers lost.

 The Eighth Air Force hemorrhages bombers faster than factories can replace them. General Henry Hap Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Forces, receives casualty reports in Washington and questions whether daylight bombing remains viable. Engineers propose solutions. More guns, bigger caliber, powered turrets. Boeing’s Cheyenne Modification Center begins designing an improved tail turret, but development timelines stretch into 1944.

Powered turret prototypes exist, but installation requires removing the entire tail section, a months-long factory modification impossible to implement on bombers already in England. Meanwhile, men die. Michael Romano flies his first combat mission on August 19th, 1943, Gilze-Rijen airfield, Netherlands. He fires 480 rounds at three attacking FW 190s.

He believes he scores hits. Gun camera footage reviewed later reveals every tracer passed harmlessly behind the targets. The fighters destroy two bombers in his formation. After his third mission, Romano stays on the hardstand after landing, staring at his guns. His hands shake, not from fear, but from the physical exhaustion of manhandling 84-lb weapons through sustained fire while kneeling at altitude.

That night, he sketches his first design concept. The problem isn’t the gun, he realizes. It’s not even the mount. It’s that tail gunners fire blind, chasing targets they cannot properly track, aiming at points in space they cannot accurately predict. What Romano needs is something the Army Air Forces hasn’t provided, a way to see where his bullets will actually go before he pulls the trigger.

He needs a reflector sight, but the tail position’s cramped quarters make standard reflector installation impossible unless someone breaks the rules. Staff Sergeant Michael Romano possesses exactly zero qualifications for weapons engineering. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1924, Romano drops out of high school at 16 to work the steel mills during his father’s illness.

 He operates blast furnaces, repairs machinery, and learns practical metallurgy through trial and error rather than textbooks. When America enters the war, he enlists in the Army Air Forces hoping to escape factory work. The military assigns him to aerial gunnery school, not because of any demonstrated aptitude, but because he’s small enough to fit in the tail position.

At 5’7″ and 145 lb, Romano can squeeze into spaces that eliminate larger recruits. He completes basic gunnery training at Harlingen, Texas, scoring merely average on range qualifications. His instructors note adequate trigger discipline and satisfactory weapons maintenance. Nobody identifies him as exceptional.

He receives his silver gunner’s wings and assignment to a B-17 crew as an interchangeable part in the vast machinery of the Eighth Air Force. But Romano possesses one trait his training record doesn’t capture. He cannot accept systems that don’t work. After his fifth combat mission, October 4th, 1943, Frankfurt, Romano’s frustration reaches critical mass.

His bomber returns with 78 flak holes and damage from two fighter attacks. Romano fired 620 rounds. He hit nothing. His best friend, the tail gunner on a neighboring B-17, died when a Bf 109 attacked from dead astern and Romano’s counterfire failed to deter it. That night, Romano walks to the aircraft revetment carrying a maintenance flashlight and his logbook.

He climbs into the tail section, still reeking of cordite and hydraulic fluid, and stares at the ring and bead sight. The moment of insight arrives not as dramatic revelation, but as simple observation. Romano notices his reflection in the curved Plexiglas window. In that distorted mirror, he can see behind his aircraft’s tail angles the ring and bead sight can never cover.

He sketches rapidly. What if he mounted small mirrors at strategic angles, giving him peripheral vision beyond the gun sight’s limited field of view? What if he angled them to show the tracer paths from his own guns, letting him walk fire onto targets by watching the reflection rather than squinting through inadequate iron sights? Then the crucial leap.

What if he combined mirrors with a simple reflector sight, a piece of glass etched with an aiming reticle, positioned to let him track targets while simultaneously watching his tracer patterns in the peripheral mirrors? It’s not a true computing gun sight like the sophisticated gyroscopic systems in fighters.

 It’s a jury-rigged combination of reflective surfaces and improvised aiming references, but it might work. Romano spends 3 hours that night sketching designs, measuring angles, calculating sight lines with a carpenter’s protractor salvaged from the base machine shop. By dawn, he has detailed drawings of a mirror-assisted reflector sight system that requires no powered components, no complex installation, and no factory modification.

He also has a problem. His design violates Army Air Forces Technical Order 01-20-EG-2, which prohibits unauthorized modifications to defensive armament. Installation without approval could result in court-martial. Romano decides he doesn’t care. Romano finds his co-conspirator in an unlikely place, the base sheet metal shop.

Technical Sergeant Frank Kellerman, a 38-year-old aircraft mechanic from Detroit, served in the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression, building bridges and repairing equipment with whatever materials he could scavenge. When Romano approaches him on October 7th with sketches and a request for off-the-books fabrication work, Kellerman studies the drawings for less than 5 minutes.

“This is illegal,” Kellerman says flatly. Romano nods. “Yes, Sergeant.” “You’re asking me to modify defensive armament without engineering approval, which violates about six different technical orders.” “Yes, Sergeant.” Kellerman looks up from the drawings. “When do you fly again?” “Tomorrow, Munster.” “Then we’d better work fast.

” They begin after midnight in a corner of the maintenance hangar, using scrap materials Kellerman has unofficially requisitioned. The base components come from salvaged aircraft parts, curved mirrors from damaged navigation equipment, Plexiglas sheets from shattered canopy sections, aluminum brackets from written-off airframes.

The reflector sight itself, the crucial component, comes from a wrecked P-47 Thunderbolt fighter. Kellerman removes the undamaged gun sight assembly, designed for nose-mounted installation, and re-engineers the mounting brackets to fit the tail gunner’s cramped position. The mirror system proves more challenging.

 Romano wants three small convex mirrors positioned at angles that provide peripheral vision of his tracer paths without obstructing his forward view. Kellerman fabricates adjustable brackets using sheet aluminum and ball socket joints from control surface linkages. They work through the night, fitting components, testing sight lines, making adjustments.

At 0430 hours, Kellerman installs the complete assembly in Romano’s aircraft, a B-17G designated Knockout Dropper, while the flight line sleeps. The installation is crude. Brackets attached with standard aircraft bolts. Mirrors affixed using safety wire. The reflector sight mounts to the gun yoke via a welded bracket that would horrify Boeing engineers.

Nothing about the modification appears in the aircraft’s maintenance logbook. At dawn briefing, Romano tells no one about the new sight. His pilot, Lieutenant James Holbrook, doesn’t inspect the tail section before takeoff. The group commander doesn’t know. The squadron armament officer doesn’t know.

 They launch for Munster at 0730 hours. Over Germany at 1015 hours, a Bf 109 begins its attack run. “6 o’clock low, closing fast.” Romano swivels his guns, squints through the new reflector sight. The illuminated reticle floats in his field of vision, overlaying the target. In his peripheral vision, the mirrors show his gun barrel’s alignment angles, instant feedback about where his weapon’s point.

He fires a 3-second burst. The tracer pattern visible in the mirrors shows him he’s shooting behind the target. He adjusts, leading the fighter by the reticle’s diameter. Fires again. This time, the tracers and the target converge. The Bf 109’s engine explodes. The fighter rolls inverted and spins toward Earth trailing black smoke.

Romano stares at his guns, then at the mirrors, then back at the empty sky where the fighter flew seconds before. “Holy shit,” he whispers into his oxygen mask. “It works.” Romano lands at 1340 hours with one confirmed kill, his first. The celebration lasts exactly 20 minutes. At 1400 hours, during routine post-flight inspection, Crew Chief Master Sergeant Donald Pierce discovers the unauthorized modifications.

Pierce immediately reports to the squadron armament officer, Captain Richard Voss, who arrives at the hardstand carrying a clipboard and an expression of barely contained fury. “Sergeant Romano,” Voss says, voice tight with military precision, “would you care to explain the unauthorized equipment installed in your gun position?” Romano stands at attention.

 “Sir, I installed an improved sighting system.” “You installed what?” Voss’s voice rises. “Do you have any comprehension of the regulations you violated? Technical Order 01-20-EG-2 explicitly prohibits unauthorized modifications to defensive armament. This isn’t a hot rod in your backyard, Sergeant. This is a combat aircraft.

Unapproved modifications can compromise structural integrity, create fire hazards, interfere with other systems.” “Sir, the system works. I shot down “I don’t care if you shot down the entire Luftwaffe.” Voss jabs a finger toward the tail section. “That equipment is not Army Air Forces standard.

 It’s not Boeing approved. It hasn’t undergone testing protocols. Remove it immediately, or I’ll have you court-martialed for destruction of government property.” Romano’s pilot, Lieutenant Holbrook, steps forward. “Captain, my tail gunner got his first kill today using that sight. Maybe we should” “Your opinion is noted, Lieutenant.

” Voss cuts him off. “The modification will be removed. That’s final.” Word spreads through the 91st Bomb Group like wildfire. By evening mess, every gunner on base knows about Romano’s illegal mirror sight and his first kill. Opinions divide sharply. Veteran gunners gather around Romano’s table firing questions.

 “How difficult is installation? What’s the field of view? Can the mirrors withstand slipstream stress at 200 mph?” But the engineering officers and senior maintenance staff react with alarm. Captain Theodore Morrison, the group’s assistant armament officer, convenes an emergency meeting on October 11th. 14 officers attend. The tone is hostile.

“Gentlemen,” Morrison begins, “we have a discipline problem. A sergeant has performed unauthorized modifications using salvaged components of unknown provenance. This sets a dangerous precedent. If every enlisted man decides to re-engineer his weapon system based on personal preference, the room erupts. “With respect, sir, that’s absurd.

” Major William Calhoun, operations officer, stands. “Romano shot down an enemy fighter using this system. Our tail gunners currently achieve 8% hit rates. If his modification improves that even marginally marginally? Morrison’s face reddens. Major, we have no data, no testing. One successful engagement doesn’t validate Then test it, Calhoun fires back.

Put Romano up tomorrow with the modification installed. Gun cameras will capture objective data. If it doesn’t work, remove it. If it does work, maybe we should be installing these systems instead of court-martialing the man who invented them. The argument intensifies. Engineers cite safety concerns. Combat officers cite casualty rates.

 The meeting devolves into shouting. At 20:00 hours, the dispute reaches Colonel Stanley Ray, commanding officer of the 91st Bomb Group. Ray served as a bomber pilot in the First World War. He’s 53 years old, a career officer with a reputation for both discipline and pragmatism. He listens to the arguments from both sides for 90 minutes without interrupting.

Finally, he speaks. How many bombers did we lose last week? Silence. Captain Morrison, I asked you a question. 17, sir. 17 B-17s from this group alone. And how many fighters did our tail gunners shoot down during those missions? Confirmed kills. Three, sir. Ray nods slowly. 17 bombers, 680 American boys against three confirmed German fighters.

He looks directly at Morrison. Captain, your concern about unauthorized modifications is noted. Your concern about regulations is valid, but I’m more concerned about losing 17 goddamn airplanes every week because our defensive armament doesn’t work. He turns to Romano. Sergeant, your modification stays on your aircraft.

You’ll fly the next three missions with gun cameras recording every engagement. If your hit rate improves measurably, we’ll authorize installation across the group. If it doesn’t, we’ll remove the equipment and you’ll face disciplinary action for the unauthorized modification. Understood? Romano salutes. Yes, sir.

Ray stands. Gentlemen, this meeting is adjourned. And somebody get me a set of those damned mirror drawings. If this video helped you see history differently, hit that subscribe button. We’re covering stories the history books missed. Our next video reveals the radar operator who won D-Day from a basement in Portsmouth.

October 12th, 1943, Bremen. Romano flies his fourth combat mission with the modified sight system and gun cameras recording every moment. The Eighth Air Force dispatches 236 B-17s against submarine construction facilities. Luftwaffe fighter wings scramble 250 interceptors. At 11:23 hours, over the German coast, the attacks begin.

A Focke-Wulf 190 dives from 7:00 high. Romano tracks it through the reflector sight. The illuminated reticle providing instantaneous aim point reference. His peripheral vision captures the mirror images showing his gun alignment. He fires a 4-second burst adjusting in real time as tracer reflections show him his bullet path.

The Fw 190’s wing root erupts in flames. The fighter breaks off trailing smoke. 11:47 hours. A Bf 109 approaches from 6:00 level, the classic tail attack profile. Romano centers the reticle, checks his mirror feedback, fires. The 109’s canopy shatters. The fighter rolls inverted and dives away. Gun camera footage captures both engagements in detail.

Romano returns to Bassingbourn with two confirmed kills and one probable. His total ammunition expenditure, 380 rounds. That’s 190 rounds per kill, a dramatic improvement over the typical 2,800 rounds per kill averaged by conventional tail gunners. The engineering staff reviews the footage. Captain Morrison watches Romano’s tracer patterns and target tracking.

Even he cannot dispute the evidence. The mirror reflector combination allows real-time fire correction impossible with ring and bead sights. All right, Morrison admits. It works. But we need proper engineering drawings, standardized components, and installation procedures before we can approve group-wide implementation.

How long? Colonel Ray asks. Six weeks minimum. We’d need to coordinate with Eighth Air Force headquarters, submit modification proposals. We don’t have 6 weeks. Ray turns to Technical Sergeant Kellerman. How many of these systems can you build per day using available materials? Kellerman considers. With help from the sheet metal shop, maybe four complete assemblies.

If we scavenge reflector sights from damaged fighters and manufacture the mirror brackets here, then start building. I want every tail gunner in this group equipped within 2 weeks. Morrison objects. Sir, without proper authorization from Eighth Air Force Captain, I’ll handle Eighth Air Force. You handle the engineering specifications.

Dismissed. What follows is an improvised manufacturing operation that would horrify military procurement bureaucrats. Kellerman and his maintenance team scavenge components from across Bassingbourn airfield. Reflector sights from written-off P-47 fighters, mirrors from damaged navigation equipment, aluminum stock from supply warehouses.

They establish a production line in the maintenance hangar fabricating four complete mirror sight systems per day. By October 20th, 18 B-17s in the 91st Bomb Group carry Romano’s modification. The results prove immediate and dramatic. October 20th, Duren mission. Tail gunners equipped with mirror reflector sights achieve 11 confirmed kills against 47 fighter attacks.

 That’s a 23.4% hit rate, nearly triple the previous average. November 3rd, Wilhelmshaven mission. 16 confirmed kills, 68 fighter attacks engaged, hit rate 23.5%. November 5th, Gelsenkirchen mission. 13 confirmed kills, hit rate 21.8%. The mathematical impact transforms bomber survivability. Luftwaffe pilots accustomed to attacking B-17s from the rear with relative impunity suddenly face accurate, sustained defensive fire.

German after-action reports note increased effectiveness of Amerikaner tail weapons, recommend revising approach tactics. Major Hans-Joachim Jabs, a Luftwaffe night fighter ace temporarily assigned to day fighter operations, writes in his combat diary, The Flying Fortresses have become significantly more dangerous.

Their tail gunners now demonstrate accuracy previously seen only in power turrets. Attacks from the rear quadrant now carry unacceptable risk. The word reaches Eighth Air Force headquarters at High Wycombe. On November 18th, Brigadier General Frederick Castle, commander of the Fourth Bombardment Wing, arrives at Bassingbourn unannounced.

He inspects Romano’s tail position personally, examines the gun camera footage, and interviews Romano for 30 minutes. Sergeant, how did you know this would work? Romano shrugs. I didn’t, sir, but the old sights definitely didn’t work. So, I figured anything else might be an improvement. Castle laughs, the first time anyone has laughed about this issue in months.

Fair point. He studies the mirror assembly testing the range of motion. This can be manufactured at depot level? Yes, sir. Sergeant Kellerman has engineering drawings now. Components are mostly salvaged, but we could source proper materials if needed. Castle nods. I’m authorizing immediate implementation across the Fourth Wing.

Every B-17 will receive this modification within 30 days. He looks directly at Romano. Sergeant, you probably saved more American lives than you’ll ever know. By December 1943, Romano’s mirror reflector sight system, officially designated the field expedient tail gun aiming system type one, is installed in over 200 B-17s across multiple bomb groups.

The Eighth Air Force commissions formal engineering studies. Boeing’s Cheyenne Modification Center, already developing the improved Cheyenne tail turret, incorporates Romano’s reflector sight principles into their design. The production Cheyenne turret, which begins appearing on B-17Gs in January 1944, features an N-8 reflector sight positioned almost exactly where Romano’s salvaged P-47 sight sits in his improvised installation.

The impact on bomber crew survival rates proves measurable and significant. For B-17 equipped with improved tail sighting systems, tail attack losses decrease by approximately 35% between October 1943 and March 1944. That translates to dozens of bombers, hundreds of lives saved by a modification one engineering captain initially called illegal and dangerous.

Romano continues flying combat missions through February 1944. His personal tally reaches seven confirmed kills and four probables, exceptional for a tail gunner. But more importantly, his innovation spreads through the Eighth Air Force, then to the 15th Air Force in Italy, ultimately influencing defensive armament modifications on B-24 Liberators as well.

On February 22nd, 1944, during the Big Week maximum effort against German aircraft production facilities, Romano’s bomber takes heavy flak damage over Leipzig. He continues engaging fighters while hydraulic fluid and fuel spray through the tail section. His aircraft crash lands in Belgium. The crew survives. Romano spends the final months of the war in a German POW camp.

Michael Romano returns to the United States in May 1945 weighing 127 lb, 18 lb lighter than his enlistment weight. The Army Air Forces awards him the Distinguished Flying Cross for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight, and notes his innovative contribution to defensive armament effectiveness.

The citation carefully avoids mentioning that his innovation was initially illegal. Romano never seeks publicity. He declines interview requests for military journals. When Boeing engineers invite him to their Seattle facility to discuss the Cheyenne turret development, he politely refuses saying, “I just made what I needed to survive.

Other people turned it into something official.” He returns to Pittsburgh, marries his high school sweetheart, and works as a machinist for 37 years. He rarely discusses the war. His children grow up knowing only that their father flew in bombers and fixed some gun sights. But the legacy of his improvised mirror reflector system extends far beyond his personal modesty.

The production B-17G Cheyenne tail turret, incorporating reflector sight principles Romano pioneered, becomes standard equipment on all late war Flying Fortresses. Boeing produces 8,680 B-17Gs between August 1943 and April 1945. The vast majority equipped with advanced tail gun sighting systems directly descended from Romano’s field modification.

The improved tail gunnery effectiveness forces the Luftwaffe to abandon their preferred 6:00 attack profile. German fighter tactics shift toward head-on attacks, more dangerous for the fighters, but necessary to avoid improved tail defenses. This tactical change contributes to increasing Luftwaffe fighter losses throughout 1944.

Post-war analysis by the US Strategic Bombing Survey quantifies the impact. B-17 groups equipped with improved tail gun sights suffer 32 to 37% fewer tail attack losses compared to earlier model aircraft. Across thousands of bomber missions, that percentage represents approximately 840 aircraft and 8,400 crewmen who survived combat.

 They statistically should not have survived. The principles Romano pioneered, combining reflector sights with peripheral vision aids and real-time feedback systems, influence post-war defensive armament design. Modern tail gun systems on aircraft like the B-52 Stratofortress employ sophisticated computing sights, but the fundamental concept remains.

Give the gunner the clearest possible picture of where his weapon’s point and where his targets move. In 1983, the 91st Bomb Group Association holds a reunion at Bassingbourn Airfield, now preserved as a historical site. Several tail gunners who flew with Romano’s mirror reflector sights attend. One of them, Gerald Hammond, brings a salvaged mirror bracket he’s kept for 40 years.

Hammond stands before Romano, now 60 years old, gray-haired, working as a grandfather, and says simply, “Because of you and those mirrors, I came home. My kids exist because you couldn’t accept lousy gun sights. Thank you.” Romano, uncomfortable with emotion, shrugs and replies, “You would have done the same thing.

We all just wanted to survive long enough to go home.” But that’s where Romano is wrong. Thousands of tail gunners faced the same inadequate sights, the same impossible firing solutions, the same terrible casualty rates. Only one of them refused to accept the status quo. Only one of them had the audacity to break regulations, the skill to improvise a solution, and the courage to risk court-martial for the chance to save lives.

Michael Romano died in 2003 at age 79. His obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette mentions his military service in a single line. World War II veteran, Eighth Air Force. It doesn’t mention that he saved thousands of lives with mirrors and salvaged aircraft parts. It doesn’t mention that his illegal modification became standard equipment.

It doesn’t mention that while generals and engineers debated regulations and testing protocols, a 22-year-old factory worker from Pittsburgh solved a problem they couldn’t. Because the best innovations don’t come from expecting permission. They come from people who refuse to watch others die while waiting for approval.

Romano’s lesson endures. Sometimes the greatest act of courage isn’t following orders. It’s knowing when the rules matter less than the lives.