英语美文：It's worth it

Horror gripped the heart of the World War I soldier as he saw his lifelong friend fall in battle. Caught in a trench¹（沟渠，战壕） with continuous gunfire whizzing over his head, the soldier asked his lieutenant²（中尉，副官） if he might go out into the "No Man’s Land" between the trenches³ to bring his fallen comrade back.

"You can go," said the Lieutenant, "but I don’t think it will be worth it. Your friend is probably dead and you may throw your own life away." The Lieutenant’s words didn’t matter, and the soldier went anyway.

Miraculously⁴ he managed to reach his friend, hoisted（升起，举起） him onto his shoulder, and brought him back to their company’s trench. As the two of them tumbled in together to the bottom of the trench, the officer checked the wounded soldier, then looked kindly⁵ at his friend. "I told you it wouldn’t be worth it," he said. "Your friend is dead, and you are mortally（致命地，非常） wounded."

"It was worth it, though, sir," the soldier said.

"How do you mean ‘worth it’?" responded the Lieutenant. "Your friend is dead!"

"Yes sir," the private answered. "But it was worth it because when I got to him, he was still alive, and I had the satisfaction of hearing him say, ‘Jim, I knew you’d come.’"

Many a time（许多次） in life, whether a thing is worth doing or not really depends on how you look at it.

Take up all your courage and do something your heart tells you to do so that you may not regret not doing it later in life.