Location, Location, Location

A 97-year-old man in Grand Haven, Michigan, lost his balance and fell off a pier six feet into the water into Lake Michigan.

This was a life threatening emergency.

Luckily enough, he happened to do it at exactly the right location:

The Coast Guard Festival 

ABC13: Coast Guard member treads water for 20+ minutes to rescue man, 97

He was quickly rescued by a Coast Guardsman who, without hesitation, leapt into the water and saved him, treading water and keeping him safe for 20 minutes until they both could be retrieved from the water.

These Coast Guardsmen save lives before their craft even leave the pier.  Very well done.

A Hero Seen At The Firearms Law Seminar

I had the honor to run into this gentleman at the firearms law seminar:

The gentleman in the red hat is Dick Heller.

Yes, The Dick Heller of District of Columbia v Heller fame.

It was an honor to meet and chat with him. A very nice guy indeed, and in the firearms community we all owe a lot to his stepping up as plaintiff in that vital case.

Meeting The Only Pilot Who Successfully Stopped A Hijacking In-Flight

Last night I attended a presentation featuring Uri Bar-Lev.

Who is Uri Bar-Lev You ask?

Well, as the title of this post would suggest, he's the only pilot who has so far prevented a hijacking in flight.

Now 87 years old, Bar-Lev gave a great recounting of the events on September 6, 1970.

Sharing the stage with him was a passenger (left) who was a teenager on that flight, who gave a recounting of his experiences during the attempted hijacking.

Bar-Lev fought as a 16-year-old in the War of Independence and then in 1950 learned to fly, with the PT-17 Stearman as his first aircraft. After a stint in the Israeli Air Force, he went on to fly with El Al, Israel's Airline.

The 70's were quite a time for aircraft related terrorism. Bar-Lev noted that during his flying career with El Al, his planes had been the subject of 5 attempted bombings, and one attempted RPG attack, all in addition to the September 6 hijacking attempt.

The IATA's policy on hijackings in those days were the crew were to hold their passenger's safety as paramount and not resist the terrorists. This policy only changed some 30 years later.

On September 9, 1970 while preparing to leave from Amsterdam to New York, Bar-Lev and the crew of Flight 219, a Boeing 707, were alerted to two discrepancies - four passengers had shown up with tickets to be picked up. Two had passports from Senegal- that were in sequential order, but were to be seated separately and had acted as if they did not know each other. They were not allowed to board, and went on to successfully hijack Pan Am Flight 93.

The other two, a man and a woman on Honduran passports were "searched" by the Amsterdam police who did a rather cursory and insufficient job of it. Leila Khaled and Patrick Argüello had easily smuggled a handgun and two grenades on board. Khaled was a member of the PFLP and Argüello was a Sandinista. Terrorism had a very international and leftist flavor in those days.

As the pane reached 28,000 feet, the terrorists announced the hijacking, advanced on the locked cockpit door and pointed a gun at one of the cabin crew, demanding entry to the cockpit.

Uri Bar-Lev decided he wasn't going to let them hijack his plane. He had a sky-marshal in the cockpit with him, and told him to hang on.

Bar-Lev then put the plane into a diving maneuver, immediately dropping rapidly from 28,000 to 10,000 feet.

The maneuver caused Khaled to fall and pass out and she was apprehended by the second sky marshal on board, and the dive also disoriented Argüello who was immediately engaged by the sky marshal who left the cockpit as soon as Bar-Lev pulled out of the dive. Argüello before being killed managed to hit one of the cabin crew multiple times, seriously wounding him. Captain Bar-Lev decided to immediately land in London to get medical treatment for the crew member.

While these days Bar-Lev and his crew and sky marshals would receive a heroes' welcome for such a feat, in those days they feared being arrested by the British for shooting the terrorists. This was not an unfounded fear.

Just a short while before, in 1969 an Israeli air marshal named Mordechai Rachamim had engaged a group of terrorists attacking an El Al plane and killing the first officer in Zurich. After he jumped out of the airplane door under fire, he apprehended three of the terrorists and killed the fourth, he was arrested and the Swiss authorities put him on trial for manslaughter. Yes, really.

So Bar-Lev decided he didn't want his sky marshals arrested and speaking on the El Al internal frequency, had an EL Al plane aout to leave London hold on the tarmac. The sky marshals exited his plane by the rear maintenance door and boarded the other plane in the confusion, and were given tickets showing they were proper passengers. With no other evidence to the contrary, the British had to let them go. Bar-Lev and the other crew were questioned by the Brits, especially as all other planes that day had been successfully hijacked, but then they were released and returned to Israel.

As for Leila Khaled, she is still alive and a member of the PFLP and feted to this day by the left as a celebrated terrorist, including being a guest of honor in Japan invited by Japanese leftists commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Lod Airport massacre by the Japanese Red Army Faction.

Yep, leftist international idiots still abound today.

Bar-Lev has retired from El Al and lives with his family in Israel today.

Since Captain Bar-Lev's quick thinking and heroic actions, and the lessons learned from them, not a single El Al aircraft has been hijacked since.

It was a great experience, hearing from a rather humble hero first-hand, and a great honor to meet him in person.

74 Years Ago, The 4 Chaplains Sailed Into History

On the night of February 2, 1943, the USAT Dorchester with 902 men aboard was sailing towards Greenland on the way to Europe with her cargo of American troops for the war effort. On board amongst the soldiers and sailors were four Army Chaplains. Those chaplains were Lt. George L. Fox, Methodist; Lt. Alexander D. Goode, Jewish; Lt. John P. Washington, Roman Catholic; and Lt. Clark V. Poling, Dutch Reformed.

The Dorchester would never make it to Europe.

Torpedoed by U-223 at 12:55 am, she began to sink in the icy Atlantic.

After the torpedoing of the ship, many men were without life jackets or clothing. The Chaplains kept the men calm and distributed life jackets, and when the supply of life jackets ran out, they gave their own to the next 4 men in line.

The Chaplains remained on the deck of the ship with linked arms and voices offering prayers for the men of the Dorchester. Of the 902 on board, there were 230 survivors. 672 died, including the 4 Chaplains. Their acts of selflessness and heroism would go down in history.

Each of the chaplains was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and Purple Heart posthumously and in 1961 Congress and the President authorized The Four Chaplains medal, an award equivalent to the Medal of Honor, and only awarded this one time, was awarded to the four posthumously to commemorate their heroism.

Better Late Than Never

It often takes quite some time for a bureaucracy to do the right by those who served it above and beyond the call.

In this case it took 97 years.

The Detroit News: Black, Jewish WWI heroes finally getting Medal of Honor

Sgt. Shemin was featured on this blog last December when there was news that he might finally get his Medal of Honor.  Now, six months later it is finally awarded.

Private Johnson similarly has finally received official recognition for his heroism that was overdue for these many years.

Medal of Honor Delayed For 96 Years May Be Awarded During Hannukah

Recognition of a great act of heroism long delayed may happen shortly.

From Fox News: A century after heroism, Jewish soldier may soon get posthumous Medal of Honor

Nearly a century ago, Sgt. William Shemin raced across a World War I battlefield three times to pull wounded comrades to safety. With all the senior leaders of the platoon wounded or killed, the 19-year-old survived a bullet to the head and led his unit to safety.

The heroism should have earned Shemin the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest service medal. But it didn't, perhaps because discrimination was rampant in the military — and he was Jewish.

Thanks to the efforts of his now 85-year-old daughter, Shemin is on the cusp of finally being honored with a medal, 41 years after his death.

The Senate on Friday passed the $585 billion defense bill. A small provision allows President Barack Obama to bestow the Medal of Honor to Shemin. The last hurdle is Obama's signature on the defense bill.

Should the bill be signed, it would certainly be fitting for the ceremony to take place during the celebration of Hanukkah, a holiday that commemorates an ancient Jewish military victory and the valor of the Jewish warrior.

70 Years Ago Today: They Stormed The Beaches At Normandy

The order of the day for June 6, 1944:

At 00:15 hours seventy years ago, pathfinders began dropping to mark the landing zones, and a minute later, the British Airborne landed gliders to take Pegasus bridge.


By 06:30, troops began an amphibious landing on five beaches - Omaha, Utah, Sword, Gold and Juno. By the day's end, 160,000 men would land on the beaches, but the first .

It was start of the greatest air and amphibious invasion the world has ever seen, nor will its like be seen again.


Saving Private Ryan, has an opening that gives one a view to what happened that day. Combine the opening of the film with some Sabaton and you have quite the tribute to the opening moments of the landings on the Sixth of June:




The invasion involved over 9,000 ships from Battleships participating in the bombardment to LCVPs transporting the assaulting infantry, 12,000 aircraft, and 160,000 men.

By the end of the day, one Canadian, three American, and three British infantry divisions, and three airborne divisions were established in Normandy, and it was the beginning of the end for the 1,000 year Reich in Western Europe.

4 Medals of Honor were awarded for actions on D-Day, including one to Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr.


One Victoria Cross was awarded for action that day - to Company Sgt Major Stan Hollis.


We shall not see the like of these men, nor a day like D Day again.

Remembering The Ritchie Boys

The Ritchie Boys was a US military intelligence unit were Jews that had fled Germany and Austria from the Nazis to America and joined the US Army.

Trained at Camp Ritchie in Maryland they were trained in intelligence, counter-intelligence, interrogation, investigation and psychological warfare. Speaking fluent German and understanding German culture, they were very valuable in providing timely intelligence to the Allies.

Detroit Free Press: 70 years after D-Day: West Bloomfield man remembers how he fled Nazis, then helped defeat them

Stern was one of what came to be known as the Ritchie Boys — German Jews who had fled the Nazis to America and returned to Europe with the U.S. military. Their fluency in German and understanding of cultures and customs helped them provide intelligence to U.S. commanders.

At Camp Ritchie, he spent two months of grueling training, learning close combat, aerial maps, interrogation techniques, Morse code, terrain intelligence and other skills.

Mr. Stern, the Ritchie Boy featured in the article had the job of interrogating German POWs to gain actionable intelligence and did his job very well indeed.

After the war, he sadly learned that his parents and siblings, who had not be able to flee Germany, were killed by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland.

The Ritchie Boys made an important and little-known contribution to the Allied victory in World War 2.

 An interesting documentary movie about these men, The Ritchie Boys and it is well worth watching.

Some Brits Still Got It.

If you don't know, considering the media isn't covering it now that it's Obama's Good (and Forgotten) War, we're still fighting over there in Afghanistan, as are our allies the Brits.

A British medic was recently awarded the Military Cross for working to save lives under fire on two separate occasions in Afghanistan, and saving an Afghan soldier.

Even better in that Islam-dominated conflict, the medic is female:

The Telegraph: Female medic awarded Military Cross for bravery

The Daily Mail: 'Oh, Kylie! What did you do? Next time, please don’t...': What mother told Military Cross hero daughter who twice braved hails of bullets to tend war wounded

Both stories are worth reading and both give slightly different coverage of the events that led to L.Cpl. Kylie Watson being awarded the Military Cross for both saving lives and engaging the enemy while doing so.

Both stories clearly show that she deserves the award.

Nicely done indeed.

Farewell To A Truly Great American Hero

Murphy's Law was privileged to attend the funeral of Ed Rasimus today. I had only exchanged some blog comments with Mr. Rasimus, but was an avid reader of his books and his blog. 

Not a lot of people have earned both a featured exhibit and a resting place for their hat at the National Museum of The United States Air Force. Ed Rasimus is one of those few, and deservedly so.

The museum has an exhibit to the men and planes that flew the missions over North Vietnam, and Ed Rasimus, with over 250 missions flown, figures prominently among those who were there, did it  for real, and came home to tell the tale. 

God bless and Godspeed Mr. Rasimus.

I expect the Angels' formations are now flying a little tighter and sharper as a result of Ed joining their heavenly squadron.