Category: Personal Heroes

Here are people who deserve some positive recognition. With all the negativity these days, it’s about time we acknowledge that the vast majority of people are good, and some are even extraordinarily selfless or helpful.

Home › Archive for Personal Heroes

Austin PD Horse Patrol Sergeant Adam Johnson hit a rifle-armed rampage shooter with his iron-sighted pistol, at 104 yards, at night–while holding two frightened horses. This article was originally published as “Repeating the Feat: Hold Your Horses” in the October 2025 issue of Dillon’s eBlue Press. It was the second installment in a series where we set up range drills replicating actual historical shooting challenges, in honor of those who accomplished them.

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This article I wrote about a heroic sky marshal was initially published as “Repeating the Feat: The Zurich Drill” in the April 2025 electronic edition of Dillon Precision’s Blue Press. This Heloderm.com version contains more photos than they have room for in Dillon’s “Stealth Catalog.”

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This article is partly autobiographical, and partly about the incredible men & women I grew up around, combat pilots and test pilots, navigators and other aircrews, and the women who made their planes, raised their brats, and sent them off to war. The last part of this is about one navigator I knew briefly, Norm “Bicky” Whalen, and the incredible true story of Operation TIDAL WAVE. Appendices detail the final destruction of Ploesti’s oil refining capability in WWII, and little remembered info about the fate of our Vietnam POW / MIAs.

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Angela McQueen wrestled a gun out of a wannabe killer’s hands in her high school cafeteria, most likely saving many lives. On 04 Nov 2022, I had the honor and privilege of interviewing Ms. McQueen where the incident took place, at Mattoon High School in Mattoon, IL.

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This tribute to my Olympic Arena coach details lessons learned during three 6-month seasons of daily force on force competition, and beyond. It also explains some lesser understood aspects of nuclear deterrence and security, particularly during the second half of the 1980s, the climax of the Cold War.

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John Fox was ALL IN. He gave what little he had, and everything he was ever going to have, to save the lives of his fellow American GIs, and to liberate not only his own people, but all of Europe and the entire world, from the yoke of Nazi fascism.

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Second only to the USAAF crews who climbed into lumbering, bomb- and fuel-laden B-17s and B-24s and flew to places like Schweinfurt and Ploesti, the Tunnel Rats of Vietnam may have been some of the most courageous warriors who ever lived.

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