Category
Heroes
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Heroes
Wow – Above and Beyond
On a Thursday back in 2006, Private Channing Moss was manning the gun on his unit’s Humvee in Afghanistan when they were ambushed. In the midst of the battle, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired into the vehicle, striking Moss.
He should have died instantly, but he didn’t. The grenade didn’t go off. Instead it lodged in his body.
His commanding officer called for a medevac helicopter, leaving out the unfortunate fact that Moss could blow up and kill everyone around him at any time. The helicopter crew found out when they arrived; Army policy forbids carrying a wounded man with ordnance in his body.
They took him anyway.
There’s an Army protocol for surgery involving unexploded ordance; had the doctors at the aid station followed it, Moss would have bled to death. Instead of isolating him and operating on the other wounded soldiers first, they ordered all nonessential personnel out of the building and started in without delay.
You can guess the rest. They saved Moss, who was still gravely wounded but out of danger. After several months of recovery and rehabilitation he was able to walk to receive his Purple Heart.
Yeah, they did the same thing once on an episode of M*A*S*H, and later on Grey’s Anatomy, but I’m a sucker for stories like this. To save Private Moss, a lot of people risked their lives when they didn’t have to. But I guess that’s what they do.
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Australia, Heroes
Australians Are Awesome, Round 3
An Australian cameraman was in Haiti covering the devastating earthquake there when he missed getting footage of an 18-month-old girl being rescued. Rather stupid, wouldn’t you say, since that’s what he was there for?
Nope. He didn’t get the footage because he was the one doing the rescuing.
This, along with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta manning a makeshift hospital after the Belgian medical team left/was ordered out (accounts differ) is going to change a few minds about the media. And frankly, I’m surprised this kind of thing doesn’t happen more often. They’re people too, and many have clearly been moved by the tragic events.
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Heroes, News
Norman Borlaug Dies at 95
We’ve seen a lot of celebrities pass away this year, from Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett to Ted Kennedy and Patrick Swayze. Now the man who saved more lives than any person who ever lived has died, and the news has made barely a ripple.
As Gregg Easterbrook recounts, Norman Borlaug moved to rural Mexico in 1943 in order to concentrate on increasing crop yields developing countries. I won’t recount the whole article, but suffice to say that Borlaug was spectacularly successful, never more than in the 1960s when he brought his seeds and his techniques to India and Pakistan. These countries were prone to frequent famines. A few years after Borlaug began working there, they were both self-sufficient.
As I wrote a few years ago, Borlaug was one of those driven men who was on a quest to make the world a better place, and simply would not take no for an answer. Too bad that so many would rather have Jacko for a role model.
(Here’s an earlier article on Borlaug by Easterbrook.)
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Dave White, Heroes, War
9/11, Eight Years On
I don’t have much to add to what I’ve said in past years, except to remember those who ran into burning buildings to save who they could – and stand ready to do it again. And I want to encourage you to read the best story I have ever seen about 9/11, “Closure” by Dave White.
Dave has written more technically competent stories since then, and both his novels have been nominated for awards, but I’m not sure he’ll ever write another story as moving as that one.
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Heroes
Frankie Housley
With the successful splashdown of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, it’s worth remembering the story of Frankie Housley. Ms. Housley was only 24 years old and a flight attendant with National Air Lines when one afternoon in 1951 she was called upon to be a hero.
She was aboard a DC-4 when it skidded off an icy runway in Philadelphie, ending up aflame in a ditch. Frankie kept her calm and calmed those around her, escorting the passengers to the emergency door and seeing the safely to the ground. The last passengers to escape were Brenda Joyce and her two year old daughter. Joyce’s baby was still on board, and Housley went back into the smoke and flames to look for her.
And found her. When they pulled Housley’s body from the wreckage she held the infant cradled in her arms.
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