Heroism

A teen-ager injured with her mother and brother during a knife attack at their Imperial Valley home played dead and then crawled to a telephone to call authorities, who arrested a neighbor, police officials said. The 15-year-old girl's phone call to 911 emergency dispatchers may have saved the lives of the family, whose names were not released, and helped officers make the arrest in the case, said J. Leonard Speer, Calipatria's police chief. Arrested in the attack was Victor Perez Marquez Jr.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

Day-to-day life would be immeasurably harder and perhaps even unendurable if we weren't able to take for granted a lot of things, among them that the crews of the airliners we fly know their business. The safe end of an air journey seldom brings even a passing thought of appreciation for the skills of those who flew the plane.

Sheriff Sherman Block presented Medals of Valor to 22 members of his department for acts of heroism performed in the line of duty. The medals--the highest honor bestowed by the Sheriff's Department--were awarded Friday during a yearly ceremony at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel that was attended by more than 300 people. "Our community is indeed fortunate that these fine people chose a career in law enforcement," said Block.

War films have always been a staple of cinema -- providing the inspiration for some of the greatest and most honored films ever. During the silent era there were D.W. Griffith's controversial "The Birth of a Nation" (1915), King Vidor's "The Big Parade" (1925) and William Wellman's "Wings" (1927), which won the first best film Oscar. The 1930 antiwar film "All Quiet on the Western Front" was the first sound film to earn the best picture Oscar. The academy also gave its highest honor to 1970's "Patton," about World War II Gen. George Patton, 1978's "The Deer Hunter," one of the first films on the Vietnam War, and 2009's "The Hurt Locker," set during the Iraq war. On Veterans Day on Friday, the U.S. pays homage to the military men and women who have served our country in past and current conflicts.

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.

Our television screens are filled this month with the breathtaking exploits of young men in short pants and tattoos, and for their dramatic efforts we call them heroes, and, really, we have no idea. You want March Madness? How about an old man saving the life of a little girl by throwing himself in front of a frightened horse? You want one shining moment? It happened a couple of weeks ago, when longtime Santa Anita paddock guard John Shear, 90, tossed a 6-year-old girl out of the path of a runaway horse just in time to be trampled.

Who are the "Fukushima 50" -- the workers trying to take regain control of Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant? Twitter messages and blog posts by the workers' families offer an inkling of the "Fukushima 50," so nicknamed because the 180 employees at the site work in 50-person shifts. One of the workers is a veteran power plant worker, a 59-year-old who volunteered to take on the assignment, according to Jiji Press, a Japanese news wire service, quoting a woman who claimed to be his daughter on Twitter.

Much has been made, and rightfully so, of President Obama's Medal of Honor presentation last month to Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, the first living recipient of the nation's highest military decoration since the Vietnam War. But the award also raises questions. One is why so few Medals of Honor have been awarded to those who have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, compared with the numbers issued during previous conflicts. Another is how it is decided whether a warrior's risk and sacrifice in battle merit such decorations.

Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, who rushed into enemy fire and pulled three wounded soldiers to safety in Afghanistan in 2007, on Tuesday became the first living soldier to be awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery in a conflict since the Vietnam War. At a White House ceremony, President Obama noted that nearly 40 years had passed since a recipient of the nation's highest award for valor in an ongoing conflict had received the award in person....

During a secret mission in Laos 42 years ago, Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Richard L. Etchberger repeatedly braved hostile fire as he helped three wounded airmen onto a helicopter after their radar station was surrounded by North Vietnamese soldiers. Etchberger was the last to climb into the helicopter, but he was killed by ground fire as it took off. Etchberger's heroic acts were kept secret until details about the Vietnam-era secret mission were released more than two decades later.

In his July 22 Times Op-Ed article, " Every soldier a hero? Hardly ," retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. William J. Astore lists all the technical, logical and semantic reasons why our fighting men and women should not collectively be called "heroes." I am one of those misguided people who, when writing about our military men and women slugging it out in Iraq and Afghanistan — engaged in combat, just trying not to get killed or maimed by an improvised explosive device or just driving a truck with supplies across the desert — instinctively and invariably refers to them as heroes.