I don't consider football players as being heroes, but then I may have a different set of values.
Hero? I'd say Chest Puller is in there, if you're looking for an recognizeable name and story.
Neil Armstrong is right up there too-- not for Apollo 11, but for his job flying Gemini 8. The man had the biggest balls and the coolest nerve of any man I've ever personally met. He was an prof at UC when I went there in the late 70's.
For pure testicular fortitude, I'd add Scott Crossfield. The man was sitting in the cockpit of an X-15 when it blew up while testing on the ground. Scott stayed in the cockpit, because he knew it was the safest place to be. He'd helped design the plane.
Doc Ball is in there. He's the father in law I never met. He was in the Bulge under Patton. He got a silver star for going back under withering fire and retrieving the company radio to call in an artillery strike that saved his company. He and Alvin York were kin. They and used to sit around KYHillChick's kitchen table and talk about the big things in life. He died 20 years before I met 'HillChick. You can throw Alvin in this list if you like, although neither Alvin or Doc thought of themselves that way.
There's Great Uncle Reinhart. He told Hitler to his face that he was a nutjob at a beer hall in Munich after the War.
An odd ball choice I'd not expect folks to understand is a nameless Hessian Jaeger at Saratoga. The Jaegers were all big plow jockies trained for long sorties and living off the land-- the 18th century equivalent of LURPs. There had been propaganda printed up by Ben Franklin and circulated among the German mercenaries that promised land, a cow, chickens and farm implements if they'd defect to the Patriot side. There were a bunch of Jaegers holding the middle redoubt at Saratoga. When Benedict Arnold assaulted there was a brutal Saxon CO that was walking up and down the line urging the Jaegers by hitting them in the back of the head with the flat of his saber. One Jaeger had enough of it and ran his bayonet through the CO's chest, and those manning the redoubt just folded and disappeared. That broke the line, and Saratoga was won. This was the battle on which the Revolution turned against the British, because it cause the French to enter. I don't know who he was, but there was a fellow by our surname that did not come back to Germany from that war, and he's not listed as dead. The family got land in Pennsylvania and then in the Great Swamp south of Toledo. Who knows? Whoever that Hessian plowboy was, he certainly has my vote for the German who won the Revolution!
Last edited by shaman; 09/18/20.
