What Makes a Hero?
The first thing that comes to mind is a person of extraordinary abilities and larger-than-life personality. But in reality, most heroes are ordinary people acting in the best interest of others, usually in disregard for their own safety. And most of them don’t even consider themselves heroes. They usually say that they are just doing what needed to be done.
This page is devoted to telling the stories of heroism, and to keeping alive the memory of those who have sacrificed to help others.
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The Heroic Chaplain
September 4, 1967, Hill 63, near Chu Lai, South Vietnam Although he never signed up for combat, Father Vincent Capodanno boarded the chopper with the last group of Marines of Mike Company, headed to the Operation Swift battlefield in the Que Son Valley. Priests did...
Riley Howell
On the final day of classes at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, a classroom of 60 students were gathered for final presentations in their liberal studies class. Their professor, Adam Johnson, described what happened as the first group began. "We get...
Black Vietnam veteran Col. Paris Davis to receive Medal of Honor after nearly 60-year wait
18 June 1965 Captain Paris Davis and three of his Special Forces team led the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) 883rd Regional Forces Company in an attack on a Viet Cong (VC) base. "We had just finished a successful raid on a Viet Cong Regimental Headquarters,...
Michael Trotobas
September 7, 1941. SOE agent Michael Trotobas and 5 other agents parachuted into central France. Trotobas was a perfect candidate for the SOE. He was an excellent athlete, a small arms instructor, had led a platoon at Dunkirk, and he spoke French. For the next 6 weeks...
Garrett Morgan
July 24, 1916, 9:16 PM Workers are digging a tunnel beneath Lake Erie to bring fresh water to the city of Cleveland, Ohio. They are over 4 miles in when they hit a pocket of natural gas. The gas explodes, leaving a mass of twisted pipes and railroad tracks bathed in a...
Ida B. Wells
Her newspaper office was destroyed by a mob; she was repeatedly threated, often in the news media. But Ida Wells remained undaunted in her efforts to publicize the truth about racial discrimination, particularly lynchings of innocent Black men. Born a slave in 1862,...