Beyond Belief

The stories of the men and women is this book are the true accounts of everyday Americans who, by the cookie cutter standard of characterizing a hero are most unlikely. Some were short, others were exceptionally tall. Some were small boned and slight, others were at the least a little overweight, a few even fat. They were young and inexperienced in life, others were old and beyond the days of their youthful strength and vigor. Many had health issues that would have made them unlikely heroes; several could never have passed a military physical or an ASVAB in today's Army. None fit the recent mantra for soldiers of possessing the "highest male standards."

These men and women hailed from small towns across America. Or from some of our biggest cities. Some were distinguished college graduates, high school valedictorian/salutatorians; others had little more education than a few years of grammar school. Some came from wealthy families of prominence, others grew up in unstable families and poverty, some even growing up an America's troubled barrios.

Some were Boy Scouts, even Eagle Scouts. Others were troubled youth, petty criminals, even gangbangers. A few, whose life patterns tended to show that they would never amount to anything good, found themselves in a courtroom where a judge gave them the option of enlisting in the military or going to jail. In choosing the latter, in the most dire of combat actions, they found themselves and rose to challenges to disprove the disdain of those who knew them in their early life.
Not to be overlooked are the women, who are not unlikely heroes because of their gender, but because of barriers placed in their path to military service by a male-dominated and often misogynistic segment of American society. Once they broke that glass ceiling and were afforded the opportunity to serve, they proved themselves, even in combat, equal to their male counterparts and perhaps in some instances, superior to them.

All of these profiled heroes have one thing in common: when the excrement hit the oscillating blades, they found within themselves the courage and strength to rise to the challenge and do the unthinkable. It is my sincere hope that every person who reads this book, finds within its pages someone with whom they can personally identify, and be inspired by their story. Heroism isn't about being brave, someone poignantly noted that "Courage is when you are the only person in the room who knows that you are scared." Most of us will never face the kind of deadly, volent situations the heroes in this book faced, but should you ever find yourself in a critical situation, I believe inspired by the real life heroes of our past, you will be inspired yourself to rise to the occasion and achieve the unthinkable.