In this task, you're given an article and an answer. Your task is to generate the fill-in-the-blank question for this answer based on the given article. The blanks are always at the end of the question, and can be filled with more than one word or phrase.

Article: Compassion is a desire within us to help others. With effort, we can translate compassion into action. An experience last weekend showed me this is true. I work part-time in a supermarket across from a building for the elderly. These old people are our main customers, and it's not hard to lose patience over their slowness. But last Sunday, one aged gentleman appeared to teach me a valuable lesson. This untidy man walked up to my register with a box of biscuits. He said he was out of cash , had just moved into his room, and had nothing in his cupboards. He asked if we could let him have the food on trust. He promised to repay me the next day. Icouldn't help staring at him. I wondered what kind of person he had been ten or twenty years before, and what he would be like if luck had gone his way. I had a hurt in my heart for this kind of human soul, all alone in the world. I told him that I was sorry, but store rules didn't allow me to do so. I felt stupid and unkind saying this, but I valued my job. Just then, another man, standing behind the first, spoke up. If anything, he looked more pitiable. "Charge it to me," was all he said. What I had been feeling was pity. Pity is soft and safe and easy. Compassion, on the other hand, is caring in action. I thanked the second man but told him that was not allowed either. Then I reached into my pocket and paid for the biscuits myself. I reached into my pocket because these two men had reached into my heart and taught me compassion.
Answer: could not afford anything more expensive
The aged gentleman who wanted to buy the biscuits _ .

Article: The story happened during the Second World War. An old man lived in a small town of Germany. He had three sons and they all worked in the same factory where he had worked. After the war had begun, his sons were all made to join the army one after another and they all died in the fights. The old man was very sad. He didn't have enough food and was often hungry. And nobody helped him and he didn't know how to go on living. It was a very cold winter night. The old man couldn't go to sleep. He had been hungry for two days and it was so cold in his room that ice could be seen. He had to get up and began to run in the room until he lay down on the floor. The next morning he had to beg from door to door. He had been to a lot of cities and knew a lot. Once he came to a village, but the villagers were all poor and couldn't give him anything. He was too hungry to go to another village. He thought hard and found a way. He came to a police station and called out, "Hitler is a foolish pig!" Out came an old policeman at once. He took the old man into a room, gave him some bread and a cup of tea. Then he said, "Don't say so in our village, sir!" "I'm sorry, sir," said the old man. "I don't know it's Hitler's hometown." "No, no, sir," the policeman said in a hurry. "It's pigs' hometown!"
Answer: they had to do so
The old man's sons joined the army because _ .

Article: The long, lonely voyage of the Japanese ghost ship is over. A US Coast Guard cutter poured cannon fire into an abandoned Japanese ghost ship that had been drifting since last year's tsunami , sinking the vessel into waters more than 305 meters deep in the Gulf of Alaska and removing the danger it posed to shipping and the coastline on Thursday. The cutter's guns tore holes in the 164-foot Ryou-Un Maru, and then it began to take on water and lean to one side. In about four hours, the ship disappeared into the sea, said Chief Petty Officer Kip Wadlow. The ship had no lights or communications system, and its tank was able to carry more than 7,570 liters of diesel fuel. Officials, however, didn't know exactly how much fuel was aboard. "It's less risky than it would be running into shore or running into other ships," coast guard spokesman Paul Webb said. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency studied the problem and decided it is safer to sink the ship than let the fuel evaporate and pollute the sea environment. Ryou-Un Maru was probably among the first wave of the 1.5 million tons of garbage of refrigerators, washing machines, televisions, roofs and fishing nets heading toward North America since last March when a magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck Japan. As the coast guard was ready to fire on the vessel, a Canadian fishing vessel, the 19-meter Bernice C, claimed the rights to save the ghost ship in international waters. Plans to sink it were paused so the Canadian crew could have a chance to take the stricken ship. A Canadian official with knowledge of the situation told the Associated Press that the Bernice C was unable to drag it. Then the Canadian boat left, and once it was about 10 kilometers from the Japanese vessel, the Coast Guard began to fire, first with 25 mm shells, then a few hours later with ammunition twice that size. State officials have been working to test the danger of garbage including materials affected by a damaged nuclear power plant, to see if Alaska residents, seafood or wild animals could be affected.
Answer: a Canadian fishing boat wanted to save the ghost ship
The plan to fire on the Japanese ghost ship was paused because _ .