Amazing description of an incredible battle...

that was fought for nearly seven hours last April, on an Afghan mountainside. 12-man Special Forces team and some Afghan commandos killed an estimated 150 to 200 insurgents. Read it here.

Tags: Special Forces Green Berets Afghanistan

Solzhenitsyn and courage...

An excerpt from a brilliant article by Harvey Mansfield in The Weekly Standard:

Courage in the raw, physical sense is the noble ability to control one's fear and terror of bodily pains. When Aristotle said that the noblest courage is to confront death in battle, he implied that society depends on this individual virtue. Courage as a virtue practiced for its own sake is not undertaken to defend society, but society needs it and must cultivate and reward it. Now, modern materialism is an attempt to avoid depending on virtue generally and, especially, on courage.

Modern materialism rests on self-preservation or the right to life, in which survival is paramount. But one can never be courageous with such an attitude, for courage requires willingness to sacrifice one's life for something higher, for a noble life. That is why modern democracies have such difficulty defending themselves. They require a virtue that is not explained or justified in their principle. The Declaration of Independence begins by setting forth rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and stating that all men are created equal. But it ends with a vow in which the signers mutually pledge their sacred honor to one another.

Read it all.

Tags: Solzhenitsyn man of courage western civilization

Oh!... that the world would have more like Irena Sendlerowa...and Hallelujah for our youngsters...

Irena Sendlerowa’s story is poignantly moving, and there are many versions in print now that she has finally gone to meet her Creator. What struck me about her story, is how forgotten it was by the world at large, including her native country.

And here is where I discover the power of good that young people can generate just because they found an inspiring story and became determined to undo an injustice! If it had not been for these American High School students, Irena Sendlerowa’s story might have stayed in the dusty annals of history.

Irena Sendlerowa is now in the company of all those tortured parents who know that it was thanks to this Polish citizen that their children, grand-children and great-grandchildren could go forth and multiply.

And from Andrew Bostom:

A remarkably brave and noble woman, Irena Sendlerowa left us yesterday, at the age of 98. Although recognized by Yad Vashem in 1965, Sendlerowa’s heroic story only became widely known when re-told and popularized 9-years ago by Kansas schoolgirls. Unlike proud Antisemites such as the murderous pederast Yasser Arafat, and or his increasingly grotesque supporter Jimmy Carter, Sendlerowa was actually quite deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize, for which she was nominated last year, but did not receive.

Megan Felt, one of the Kansan authors of the play, recounted the unparalleled exploits of Sendlerowa (“Sendler”), this so-called female Oskar Schindler....

Read it all here.

Tags: Irena Sendler Irena Sendlerowa Holocaust Jewish Ghetto Poland

Meet Lance Corporal Croucher , a Royal Marine and a hero:

[He] and his troop were on patrol last month near their base in Sangin, Helmand province, [Afghanistan] when he stepped into a tripwire that pulled the pin from a boobytrap grenade.

He said: “I thought, I’ve set this bloody thing off and I’m going to do whatever it takes to protect the others. I’m very tight with the three other guys. There have been a few times when they have saved my bacon.

“I knew a grenade like this has a killing circumference of about five metres. So I got down with my back to the grenade and used my body as a shield. It was a case of either having four of us as fatalities or badly wounded, or one.”

Are men born heroes or made heroes?

Thanks to Samizdata.

Tags: Lance Corporal Croucher Royal Marine hero