I'm actually in the process of interviewing my dad about that! He's an engineer and used to be sent to war zones to assess local military airport infrastructures. He was sometimes dropped there with a military unit just for a few days. There were time when they didn't all make it back.
I always thought there was a certain coldness to the way he was making decisions, but it all makes much more sense now that I know more about those past experiences. He seems to think it's the result of the working conditions. I have tons of notes and audio recordings which I want to clean up and publish at some point.
Author of the article here. I did not know that – thank you for sharing. This makes the poem even better but definitely not the best choice for the article!
I live in London but I went back to Paris where I'm from for Christmas. Here in Paris it was the norm: everyone got tested before driving to their families for Christmas. The days before Christmas there were white tents every couple of blocks where you could get tested without an appointment. You're probably right that's what lots of people in London did as well.
I always thought there was a certain coldness to the way he was making decisions, but it all makes much more sense now that I know more about those past experiences. He seems to think it's the result of the working conditions. I have tons of notes and audio recordings which I want to clean up and publish at some point.