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I don't even know what "bigger balls" has to do with all of this.
...Still can't believe the soccer coach would take the whole team to such a place!? What on earth was he thinking!?
He probably wasn't aware how dangerous it would be if it flooded. Or that it was likely to flood. They walked in, they didnt swim. I crawled through all kinds of caves with my Girl Scout troop at that age. It was adventurous, we never really considered not getting back out.
The coach could be viewed as goat or hero. He led them into the situation, but he kept them alive in that situation....No matter how this turns out I am sure that people will want to blame someone, and it will probably be the coach, either alive or posthumously. There is already some speculation about filling charges against him, see the news item below; but I imagine that parents had to give their permission for the excursion and (as @Skittl1321 said) no one expected the flooding. I would think that the cave would have been closed off and restricted if the authorities had felt it was dangerous.
The Coach has probably already suffered quite a lot, both physically and psychologically - like all of these lost boys - and it is likely that there will be more pain to come; so I am just going to try and focus on the rescue and hope for the best for everyone involved.
"...Mae Sai Police have confirmed with Khaosod English that they are looking into whether to charge the 25-year-old coach who has also been stuck in the cave with malpractice for putting the lives of the boys in danger. Col. Komsan Saard-an, chief of Mae Sai Police Station, declined to confirm or rule out charges of negligence against coach Ekapol “Aek” Chanthawong..."
The coach could be viewed as goat or hero. He led them into the situation, but he kept them alive in that situation....
I don't think the Norwegian recovery is really comparable to this situation. First, it was a recovery, not a rescue, as others have pointed out, and whether it's brave or stupid is an open question. (Although to be fair, testosterone-fueled stupidity may be opposed to gonad size, I suppose.)
Second, the local authorities had specifically requested a particular approach (presumably, assess and if safe recover the bodies) and then blocked further attempts when experts deemed it unsafe. Such experts might have been willing to do this with the approval of the authorities, or at home in their own country, or if it were their friends. It's just different when you know the victim: I'll do more for my kids, less from my friends, and least for a stranger. Not that I won't help with a rescue of a stranger, but I'm not going to endanger my own life to do it.
In the Thai case, authorities are very supportive of the rescue attempt.
I'm going to suggest that there was probably a lot of survivor's guilt involved with the Norwegian rescue as well. So in a sense, not only were they recovering their friends' bodies, they were also paving the road for their own recoveries.