Matters only to yourself

On pages 82-84 in the chapter "The Dentist", Curt Lemon is a soldier who when the dentist comes to check the teeth of the soldiers. However, he explains his fear of dentists and how he's always been so scared of them. Becuase of this, when he goes in to get his teeth checked, he faints right before the dentist even touches him. Because he was a guy and all guys do this, he got extremely embarrassed and he just kept to himself. However, I doubt anyone else in the group even cared at all that he fainted. Lemon also probably didn't care what the others thought of him, he was just embarrassed for himself, ashamed of himself. So when he went that night to get a perfectly good tooth removed, he didn't go brag to the others of what he had done. He did it and was then happy about it so he would no longer be ashamed of himself. This is what O' Brien recognized as true courage I think. As in the moral of "On a Rainy River", to be courageous is to do what you believe you should do, not what others try to make you do through embarrassment, no matter what they think you should do.