Heroism

Shannon Wright, who shielded a sixth-grade pupil from gunfire and was fatally wounded as a result, was remembered Saturday as a hero as the final victims of Tuesday's shooting spree at Westside Middle School were laid to rest. The 32-year-old teacher, who leaves behind a husband and a 2-year-old son, was memorialized at a jammed church service just five miles from the scene of the bloody schoolyard ambush that claimed the lives of Wright and four young girls and injured 10 others.

A few hours after a massive tornado tore through the Oklahoma City area, ravaging neighborhoods and two elementary schools and killing at least 51 people, Edie Cordray sent an urgent message to members of her church in nearby Norman. "Please pray for my best friend," she wrote. The friend, Becky Jo Evans, teaches first grade at Plaza Towers Elementary School, which took a direct hit. Evans and her students were missing, Cordray wrote. PHOTOS: Tornadoes hit Oklahoma Cordray was at her church, where she works as a day-care teacher, when the tornado hit with 200-mph winds.

Firefighters from across America beat a steady path to Ponce, Puerto Rico's No. 2 city, which was named after Juan Ponce de Leon, the Spanish explorer who sought the Fountain of Youth. It was Ponce de Leon who gave the 110- by 35-mile island its name when he exclaimed Qu e puerto rico! (What a rich port!) on landing here Aug. 12, 1508. Ponce de Leon didn't discover Puerto Rico. Columbus did 15 years earlier on his second voyage to the New World. He called it San Juan Bautista.

When Marine Staff Sgt. Sky R. Mote called home from Afghanistan, he liked to couch his dangerous plans for the day in innocuous terms. A 9-year military veteran on this third combat deployment, the 27-year-old from El Dorado knew he might be crossing Taliban territory on an ammunition run, or heading off to blow up a bridge. "He'd always say, 'I'm going to go on a camping trip,' or 'I'm going to go on a hike,'" said Marcia Mote, an elementary school teacher, who had raised him with his father, Russell, since he was a young boy. "He didn't want to give us any reason to worry.

Actor Mark Harmon rescued two teenage boys Wednesday from a burning car that had crashed near his Brentwood home, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman said. "Mr. Harmon broke out the car windows and pulled the boys to safety," said Brian Humphrey, a Fire Department spokesman. "The youths owe their lives to the action of Mr. Harmon," he said. One youth suffered severe burns over 30% of his body and was taken to UCLA Medical Center, Humphrey said.

Sheriff's Deputy Steven Elmore, 22, was working an afternoon shift at the central jail in November when a new inmate climbed a fence to the fourth floor and threatened to jump to his death. Screaming that his marriage and his life were falling apart, the man would not let anyone talk to him except for Elmore, who was on a landing above the fence. After nearly two hours of counseling, the deputy coaxed the inmate to climb down.

Re "Greuel's vote on Home Depot seen as possible conflict," Feb. 18 To suggest that then-City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel's opposition in 2007 to a Home Depot opening in her district may have involved a conflict of interest because of her 50% ownership of a building supply store in North Hollywood is absurd. All the time I hear about neighborhood concerns getting swept under the rug so a big corporation can do whatever it wants and ignore the rules, and yet Greuel, now running for mayor, did her job and faces scrutiny.

Imagine if one of America's foremost writers had once been privy to a shadowy plot by Hitler's Germany to take control of the motion picture industry through its labor organizations and force writers to clear scripts with Nazi censors, and then he courageously stepped forward to blow the whistle on the whole operation. Wouldn't it be bizarre if, when this man died, instead of being celebrated for such heroism, he was criticized and even attacked by colleagues for revealing the identities of those who were behind the intrigue?

Heroism in the 'Forgotten Fire' Every five years we return to Wisconsin to attend our 1948 high school reunion, and once we decided to explore northern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. While visiting the Peshtigo museum mentioned in Jay Jones' story ["The 140-Year-Old Mystery of the 'Forgotten Fire,'" Oct. 9], I told the volunteer that my grandfather was a member of the train crew that rescued the townspeople while the rails under the train were warping from the heat.

Re "Another Ambush Hero Enjoys Smaller Spotlight," Nov. 2: Thanks for giving Pfc. Patrick Miller some press. But the fact that the most telegenic former POW, Pfc. Jessica Lynch, is reaping a bounty of fame and fortune rather than Miller highlights the superficiality of our society. Susan Campbell Los Angeles Pfc. Miller's heroism deserves the Medal of Honor. Mike Hatchimonji La Palma

Re "Greuel's vote on Home Depot seen as possible conflict," Feb. 18 To suggest that then-City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel's opposition in 2007 to a Home Depot opening in her district may have involved a conflict of interest because of her 50% ownership of a building supply store in North Hollywood is absurd. All the time I hear about neighborhood concerns getting swept under the rug so a big corporation can do whatever it wants and ignore the rules, and yet Greuel, now running for mayor, did her job and faces scrutiny.

For a long time, the story of the four chaplains was everywhere. In classrooms, posters showed the men of different faiths, arms linked in prayer, braced against the waves engulfing the deck of their torpedoed troop ship on Feb. 3, 1943. They had given their life preservers to frantic soldiers and urged troops paralyzed with fear to jump into the icy North Atlantic before they were sucked down by the sinking ship's whirlpool. A postage stamp in 1948 honored the two Protestant ministers, the Catholic priest and the rabbi.

Khaled Holmes earned a degree in classics, so USC's senior center is well versed in the tragedy and heroism found in ancient Greek and Roman literature. Ask him which character he most identifies with and the bearded, bespectacled Holmes pauses. "Most of them are pretty tragic," he says, laughing. "So I don't know if I identify with any of them. " When pressed, Holmes ponders Odysseus. He considers Achilles. Finally, he chooses Hercules. "With everything thrown at him," he says, "he found a way to just conquer it somehow.

As Hurricane Isaac battered parts of Louisiana on Wednesday, leaving some in southern parts of the state stranded and causing thousands to lose power , residents and observers took to social media to ask for help and to share updates and prayers. Posts on Twitter painted a portrait of devastation and urgency in Plaquemines Parish, a small region south of New Orleans with just over 26,000 residents, where a levee was topped. Some Twitter users turned to the site to call for rescues.

Journalist and first-time filmmaker Nicole Karsin spent more than three clearly committed years, from 2006 to 2009, in remote and perilous Colombian villages shooting the documentary "We Women Warriors. " The result is an impressive effort that tells the gripping, complex story of a country and a people under siege. Karsin follows three indigenous women - Doris, Ludis and Flor - whose various tribes are caught in the crossfire between Colombia's guerrillas, paramilitary groups and armed forces.

Thirteen Los Angeles Police Department officers were recognized for heroism during a recent ceremony in Hollywood. Police Chief Charlie Beck last week presented the officers and detectives with the department's highest honors, the Medal of Valor and the Purple Heart. This was the second year the Purple Heart was bestowed on officers who suffered grave injuries in the line of duty. The officers included men and women, some injured or put at risk while on patrol, on undercover assignments or headed home after work.

A Burbank woman who rescued a teen-ager who was being attacked by a group of youths more than two years ago was among 14 people recognized for heroism Thursday by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission. The commission honored Judith H. Jonas, 44, who forced her way into a group of youths beating and kicking a 16-year-old boy on April 19, 1989. She injured her back while stopping the attack. Each Carnegie hero, or their survivors, receives $2,500, a certificate and a medal.

Long before there were "real" housewives on television, actor-politicians and even potential celebrity politicians like Donald Trump, theme restaurants, virtual online vacations and Kim Kardashian, who makes her living by being Kim Kardashian, there was "The Image," historian Daniel Boorstin's prescient examination of a nation in transition, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of its publication this year. When "The Image" first appeared, one critic predicted that it would join William Whyte's "The Organization Man" and John Kenneth Galbraith's "The Affluent Society" as one of those seminal books that not only capture the zeitgeist but change the American mind-set.