Quiet Heroes

Download or read book Quiet Hero written by Rita Cosby and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-18 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a father reveals his haunting past, a daughter takes an incredible journey of self-discovery . . . Emmy® award–winning journalist, TV host, and New York Times bestselling author Rita Cosby has always asked the tough questions in her interviews with the world’s top newsmakers. Now, in a compelling and powerful memoir, she reveals how she uncovered an amazing personal story of heroism and courage, the untold secrets of a man she has known all her life: her father. Years after her mother’s tragic death, Rita finally nerved herself to sort through her mother’s stored belongings, never dreaming what a dramatic story was waiting for her. Opening a battered tan suitcase, she discovered it belonged to her father—the enigmatic man who had divorced her mother and left when Rita was still a teenager. Rita knew little of her father’s past: just that he had left Poland after World War II, and that his many scars, visible and not, bore mute witness to some past tragedy. He had always refused to answer questions. Now, however, she held in her hand stark mementos from the youth of the man she knew only as Richard Cosby, proud American: a worn Polish Resistance armband; rusted tags bearing a prisoner number and the words Stalag IVB; and an identity card for an ex-POW bearing the name Ryszard Kossobudzki. Gazing at these profoundly telling relics, the well-known journalist realized that her father’s story was one she could not allow him to keep secret any longer. When she finally did persuade him to break his silence, she heard of a harrowing past that filled her with immense pride . . . and chilled her to the bone. At the age of thirteen, barely even adolescent, her father had seen his hometown decimated by bombs. By the time he was fifteen, he was covertly distributing anti-Nazi propaganda a few blocks from the Warsaw Ghetto. Before the Warsaw Uprising, he lied about his age to join the Resistance and actively fight the enemy to the last bullet. After being nearly fatally wounded, he was taken into captivity and sent to a German POW camp near Dresden, finally escaping in a daring plan and ultimately rescued by American forces. All this before he had left his teens. This is Richard Cosby’s story, but it is also Rita’s. It is the story of a daughter coming to understand a father whose past was too painful to share with those he loved the most, too terrible to share with a child . . . but one that he eventually revealed to the journalist. In turn, Rita convinced her father to join her in a dramatic return to his battered homeland for the first time in sixty-five years. As Rita drew these stories from her father and uncovered secrets and emotions long kept hidden, father and daughter forged a new and precious bond, deeper than either could have ever imagined.

Download or read book Quiet Heroes written by Frances Omori and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Navy nurses serving in the Korean War 50 years ago were called, saved lives, and came home quietly.

Download or read book The Quiet Heroes written by Bernard Edwards and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2010-08-19 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The men of Britain's Merchant Navy, although unarmed civilians going about their lawful business were the first to be involved with the enemy in the Second World War. Less than nine hours after the declaration of war on 3 September 1939, the Donaldson liner Athenia was sunk without warning by a German U-boat off the west coast of Ireland. From that moment onwards, British merchant seamen were constantly in the front line in all quarters of the globe. For almost six years they faced, without flinching, their own private hell of torpedoes, bombs, shells and mines, all the while fending off their old arch-enemy, the sea. Sorely pressed, and often tired near to death, they kept open Britain's tenuous lifelines, bringing millions of tons of raw materials, food, oil, arms and ammunition, without which the country could not have survived. As always, their spirit was indomitable, their professionalism unchallenged. The price they paid for their bravery and dedication was horrendous: 2,246 ships lost, 29,180 men killed, and countless hundreds maimed and wounded. This book tells the story of just a few of these quiet heroes.

Download or read book Quiet Hero written by S. D. Nelson and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian who was one of the six soldiers to raise the United States flag on Iwo Jima during World War II, an event immortalized by Joe Rosenthal's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph.

Download or read book Quiet Heroes written by André Stein and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seven interviews with Dutch Christians (some of whom are now living in Ontario) who rescued Jews during World War II. Presented in semi-fictional form, with the names of most of the rescuers changed to protect their privacy. Describes their actions, motives, dangers incurred, and their postwar relations with the Jews whom they had rescued.

Download or read book Two Quiet Heroes and One Grateful Son written by Norman G. Sigrist and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2010-10-26 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book of biographies evolved as I was growing up quite carefree as a young boy in a world that was engaged in World War II. I had two unsung heroes to guide me through my formative years. My grandfather Joseph Wiest (Jojo) was a colorful survivor of the Spanish-American War. As a youngster, Jojo told me about his military adventures, holding me absolutely spellbound. I was so impressed that I remember these stores to this day word for word that I heard seventy years ago. My father (Norman J.) was a quiet man, but he too was my idol. Jojo and Dad both blessed me with a solid foundation of principles and values to live by. I also saw them many times bless unknown individuals with their random acts of kindness. I wrote this book with fond and humorous memories from what seemed like only yesterday. Yet, today I’m a seventy eight years young country boy from Western New York.

Download or read book The Quiet Hero written by Nelson Price and published by Indiana Historical Society. This book was released on 2015-03-06 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1985 the eyes of the world turned to the Hoosier State and the attempt by a thirteen-year-old Kokomo, Indiana, teenager to do what seemed to be a simple task—join his fellow classmates at Western Middle School in Russiaville, the school to which his Kokomo neighborhood was assigned. The teenager, Ryan White, however, had been diagnosed with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome from contaminated blood-based products used to treat his hemophilia. “It was my decision,” White said, “to live a normal life, go to school, be with friends, and enjoying day to day activities. It was not going to be easy.” White's words were an understatement, to say the least. His wish to return to school was met with panic by parents and some school officials. The controversy about White and the quiet courage he and his mother, Jeanne, displayed in their battle to have him join his classmates is explored in the eleventh volume in the Indiana Historical Society Press’s Youth Biography Series. The Quiet Hero is written by Nelson Price, who wrote about White’s odyssey during his days as a reporter and columnist for the Indianapolis News. Price goes behind the scenes and brings to light stories and individuals who might have been lost in the media spotlight. After a nine-month court battle, White won the right to return to school, but with concessions. These were not enough for parents of twenty children, who responded by starting their own school. At school, White became the target of slurs and lies, and his locker was vandalized. Although the White family received support from citizens and celebrities around the world, particularly rock singer Elton John, the situation grew so controversial in Kokomo that they moved to Cicero, Indiana—a community that greeted them much differently. In Price’s book, White, who succumbed to his disease in 1990, comes across as a normal teenager who met an impossible situation with uncommon grace, courage, and wisdom. “It was difficult at times, to handle; but I tried to ignore the injustice, because I knew the people were wrong,” White said. “My family and I held no hatred for those people because we realized they were victims of their own ignorance.”