Faster than a speeding bullet...

When you hear the word "hero", what immediately springs to mind? A figure in a military uniform, standing strong against the enemy? A man in a cape and tights, ready to take on the world with super-human powers? Well, today's post has both of those with a healthy dash of the world's most un-disgruntled postman thrown in there. Although "Un-Disgruntled Postman" sounds more like a band name then a member of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen...

CBS News told the story of a group of heroes recently reunited after a stint in Iraq. However, this isn't your usual Army buddy story. National Guardsman Chris Duke befriended three Afghan mutts during his last tour of duty. But the dogs did a whole lot more than help him fend off homesickness. Serena, Rufus and Target set off a ruckus and attacked a suicide bomber when he tried to break into the barracks one night last February. Serena had to be be put down after suffering severe injuries, but Rufus and Target were nursed back to health and received tickets state-side to be reunited with Duke.

Asylum reported on the real-life rescue of a family by Superman. Well, a Superman comic, anyway. After the bank foreclosed on an anonymous family, it began to pack up its belongings for the move. Buried in the basement was an original Action Comics #1 issue - the first appearance of the Man of Steel. Expected to fetch $250,000 at auction, the family will now be able to keep the home which they have had since the 1950s.

And finally, the postal service has had its share of poor press with bankruptcy looming and unhappy employees - the latter of which inspired the phrase "going postal." But Keith McVey, a postal worker in Akron, Ohio, is both a model employee and human being. Over the last 20 years, McVey has saved three lives while on his route and each time, he has simply continued on with his day afterwards and delivered the mail. According to MSNBC, the most recent example of his derring-do was last week when he performed CPR on a man who wasn't breathing and didn't have a pulse. Improbably, the man came to before the ambulance arrived.

(Photo courtesy of Asylum.com)

A home for the holidays...

Today I returned my foster cat Salem to the MSPCA. He lived with me for a month, recuperating from conjunctivitis and limited use of his back legs as well as a possible sore front leg. Yeah, I didn't know cats could get pink eye either...

Personally I think my wily little former stray concocted all those maladies just to get a vacation from the shelter. Once home, he was our little dustbuster, zooming around the room, exposing me for the pathetic housekeeper I am. I adored having the little guy, and I was a little sad giving him back.

So you'll have to indulge me for today's spate of stories on adopted animals. ABC News ran several connected stories on dogs found in Iraq and turned into soldiers' pets as well as working military dogs who've retired to the good life. They tugged at my already soft heart.

In the first story, Major Brian Dennis socialized a former alpha from a pack of desert dogs during daily missions out and about looking for insurgents. After a few months of coddling and reaching out, Dennis' unit was moved away from the area. Nubs, earning the moniker for his cropped ears, wandered 70 miles in below-freezing conditions to find his way to Dennis' new area of operations. That journey spurred the 36 year-old Marine to contact friends and family to raise the money needed to send Nubs to the States. His family stepped up, and once Dennis finishes his current tour, he will return home to his best friend.

The 101st Airborne, 159th Aviation Brigade found a newborn puppy in the midst of an Afghan battlefield, and despite military rules, brought her home to the base with them. Ally did physical training and stood in formation with them. Army Cpl. Michael Lemmons emailed his mom, who brought her home to the US two weeks before Lemmons and his comrades came home.

ABC News' story about retired bomb-sniffing dogs caught my attention because my uncle, a retired state trooper, adopted a former police dog after the dog retired. I hadn't realized the military used dogs in the same way police officers do. Compared to Navy SEALs, "war dogs" sniff for bombs and tackle militants in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are the first line of attack when clearing out houses suspected of harboring terrorists. These are high stress jobs, even for animals, and in the past, war dogs were euthanized after retiring. Now, a new program helps adopt out the dogs which have been tested to be able to fit into civilian life.

Examining the soul of a warrior...

Dressed in fatigues or full combat gear, armed with anything from a sidearm to a sniper rifle and participating in activities ranging from daily patrols to black ops, members of US Armed Services can present a tough and even scary image to civilians. That image makes it hard for those not serving to remember those who do (nearly always) have a softer, human side to them.

Working in behavioral health, I've become much more aware of the psychological issues that face soldiers who return home damaged in ways surgeons cannot fix. So I was really pleased to find the following story on www.dvidshub.net about Operation Proper Exit. The story focuses on Ret. 1st Lt. Edwin Salau, who lost part of his left leg in a rocket propelled grenade attack in 2004. He returned to Iraq on Oct. 13 as part of Operation Proper Exit and met with some of the soldiers stationed at Forward Operating Base Falcon. Founded by Laurel, Md.-based Troops First, the program is designed to bring wounded service members back to Iraq in hopes of gaining some psychological closure. Salau embodies the program's hopes best: "The North Carolina National Guard is like a big family, and I hated that I was not able to return to Iraq with my brothers this time. I also hated that I left them in Iraq in 2004. So, I felt a very selfish need to show them that I could walk off the battlefield on my terms. This time when I left them, the enemy did not have a vote."

This past Tuesday, Oct. 13, the USS New York set sail for its namesake city from its Northrop Grumman shipyard in Louisiana. Although the ship was already on the drawing board before the Sept. 11 attacks that sparked the war which changed Ret. 1st Lt. Salau's life, the US Defense Department decided to honor the city and its citizens with the ship's name in September 2002. In addition, the DoD decreed 7.5 tons of steel from the World Trade Center should compose the bow of the USS New York. The ship, which cost $1 billion, is 684 feet long and can carry up to 800 Marines. Its flight deck can handle helicopters and the MV-22 Osprey.

The helicopters and Ospreys on the deck of the USS New York are leaps and bounds ahead of the aircraft featured in today's story from the Daily Mail. Joy Lofthouse, 86, and Yvonne MacDonald, 88, the only two sisters to fly Spitfires in World War II, reunited this past Tuesday at a memorial air show. Part of the Air Transport Auxiliary, the two women were an intregal part of the Battle of Britain - flying 18 different types of aircraft to the front lines. Often the Attagirls, as that unit became known, had only a half hour to read a manual before flying off in an unfamiliar plane. Lofthouse and MacDonald joined the ATA in 1943 after reading an advertisement in a magazine; they were two of only 164 women allowed in the unit.

Tuesday potluck...

Yesterday I took a day off work (and this blog) as it was Massachusetts' second-favorite holiday - Marathon Monday. Nowhere else I know has a sanctioned state holiday so its citizens can go out and get drunk in public under the watchful eye of the police while people in very good shape run past them. 

I don't live that far from part of the marathon route, so when I left my house on Monday I could hear the roars of the crowd before I could see the runners. This event always makes me tear up at least once - whether it's a parent pushing a child in a wheelchair down the course, someone who jumps into the race to run with a friend who needs a boost, or just strangers calling out the names written on the runners' shirts to cheer them on. The woman in the photo on the left is standing at a spot about three miles before the finish line. 

So I had a lot of stories to sift through when I returned to the blog this morning. Each of the links below touched a nerve in some way - whether by impressing me with generosity or the notion that there is a fine line between most opposites. 

Smh.com.au did a piece on an Australian woman who connected with a man over the internet in need of a healthy kidney. She donated and inspired a group to promote living organ donors. The man she donated to is now leading a healthy life and watching his grandchildren grow.

USAToday.com did a follow-up on the viral internet phenomenon that is Susan Boyle. It explores all the reasons Boyle's performance touched us. 

Every so often I find stories on modern-day Good Samaritans. You do hear horror stories about Craigslist, but that site (along with other social networks) can facilitate good things too. A Pittsburgh man who refused to be revealed borrowed from "Pay It Forward" earlier this month when he solicited things people needed help with then drove 1200 miles to Chicago to do them without recognition or payment (windycitizen.com).

This last story is the one that really made me stop and consider exactly how big two millimeters really is. BBC Online reported on the "luckiest soldier in the British army" who was shot through the helmet during a firefight by the Taliban...and then got back to his machine gun an hour after his near-miss. Not only is that luck but, I think, bravery.