Heroism

People in this town know the man with the stooped, halting walk and the burning eyes. They point out his house, and they talk about "what he did" and about how they admire "what he did" and wonder if they too would have the strength to do "what he did."

More than a quarter-century after his death and 56 years after he single-handedly took out three enemy machine-gun nests in the Korean War, Army Master Sgt. Woodrow Wilson Keeble was awarded the Medal of Honor on Monday -- the first Sioux to receive the nation's top decoration for bravery in battle.

The Marines from the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion had been warned about the great danger of their assignment in Iraq: to eliminate insurgent strongholds in the desert stretches of the Euphrates River Valley. On the hot, dry early morning of Aug. 2, 2007, they saw why. While patrolling south of the town of Rawah, one platoon was ambushed by a suicide car bomb, machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades. In the first burst, one Marine was killed and another critically wounded.

Tears glistening on his face, President Bush posthumously presented the Medal of Honor on Tuesday to a Navy SEAL from Garden Grove who saved the lives of American snipers in Iraq by throwing his body on top of an insurgent's grenade. Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor, 25, died during a firefight on Sept. 29, 2006, in an Al Qaeda-controlled section of Ramadi.

Folks in this wide spot on the road to Yosemite National Park don't shy from saying they're a town with a foot in the 19th century. So when flames began roaring through the Mariposa County backcountry, they responded with pioneer gumption. One family penned its beloved donkey in a mine shaft so he could escape the Telegraph fire. Neighbors helped save a rancher's prized Arabians by arriving with a cavalry charge of horse trailers.

Gilberto Bosques Saldivar has never been the subject of a major motion picture by Steven Spielberg. American history books seldom, if ever, mention his name, and he does not have his own Wikipedia page, in Spanish or English. But the former Mexican diplomat, stationed in France during World War II, helped save as many as 40,000 Jews and other refugees from Nazi persecution.

They had known each other only a few minutes, but they will be linked forever in what Marine brass say is one of the most extraordinary acts of courage and sacrifice in the Iraq war. Cpl. Jonathan Yale, 21, grew up poor in rural Virginia. He had joined the Marine Corps to put structure in his life and to help support his mother and sister. He was within a few days of heading home. Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, 19, was from a comfortably middle-class suburb on Long Island.

A man's daring rescue of a film student who fell onto the subway tracks earned him the title "the hero of Harlem" on Thursday, plus $10,000 from Donald Trump and a trip to Disney World. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg bestowed the title upon Wesley Autrey as he presented the 50-year-old construction worker with the city's highest award for civic achievement and called him "a great man -- a man who makes us all proud to be New Yorkers." Past recipients of the Bronze Medallion have included Gen.

President Bush awarded the Medal of Honor on Thursday to Marine Cpl. Jason L. Dunham, who on a dusty road in western Iraq in 2004 threw his Kevlar helmet and his body on an insurgent's grenade, saving the lives of two Marines while sacrificing his own. Established by a joint resolution of Congress during the Civil War and presented 3,462 times, the Medal of Honor is awarded for gallantry in the face of enemy attack that is beyond the call of duty.

It was an act of bravery on an unusual scale: Thirteen Los Angeles police officers repeatedly entered a fire-engulfed retirement home, kicking down locked doors and navigating smoke-choked hallways to rescue 80 senior citizens. But somehow, due to a bureaucratic mix-up, the 1996 incident never received official recognition from the LAPD. Now, more than a decade later, Police Chief William J.