Category Archives: Unsung Heroes

Deborah Sampson: A Patriot By Any Other Name

Sampson_2By Rick Hutchins

Freedom and independence were matters of conviction for the soldiers of the Continental Army who fought and won the American Revolution. For Deborah Sampson, that conviction ran deeper than most and her war was fought on two fronts. Her victories speak across the centuries and have no less meaning in the modern world.

Despite being descended from both William Bradford and Myles Standish, Deborah endured a childhood of poverty and deprivation. When her father vanished at sea, she was sold into indentured servitude, which remained her lot until she turned eighteen. Subsequently, her mother arranged for her marriage to a wealthy man, but Deborah had other ideas.

At this time, the War of Independence was in full swing and Deborah wanted to do her part for her country. Since women were not allowed to serve in the military, she disguised herself as a man and adopted the name of her dead brother to enlist. She was attached to the 4th Massachusetts Regiment as Robert Shurtleff.

As Robert, Deborah saw active combat on a number of occasions and suffered several injuries, including serious wounds to her head and leg. While her head injury was treated by medics, she was too fearful of having her identity as a woman exposed to allow them to Sampson_1tend to her leg. She saw to this herself, removing one musket ball; unfortunately, she was not able to remove a second musket ball, which remained embedded in her leg, causing her difficulties for the rest of her life. Following these injuries, Deborah was promoted and assigned as the aide de camp of General John Patterson.

Toward the end of the war, Deborah returned to combat duty for mop-up operations and was stricken with fever. Unconscious, she was treated by Doctor Barnabas Binney, who quickly discovered her true sex. However, he did not betray her; in fact, he took her to his home, where he cared for her with the help of his family.

When the time came for her to be discharged, Doctor Binney gave her a letter to be delivered to General Patterson, which disclosed her circumstances. The general accepted this revelation with composure and, based upon his testimonial, as well as the testimonials of the other officers under whom she served, Deborah was given an honorable discharge from the Continental Army by General Henry Knox and Commander-In-Chief George Washington.

Her life as a veteran of the Revolution was equally remarkable. In the years following the war, she supported her family by becoming the first female lecturer in American history, 9780396073437billing herself as The American Heroine. Like most other veterans, she had to petition the government for her back pay and pension. The Massachusetts legislature and Governor John Hancock approved her back pay, with interest. With the advocacy of her friend Paul Revere (who also supported her with loans in times of trouble), she was awarded a full military pension and land by the Congress of the United States. Upon her death, her husband was granted a widow’s pension.

Deborah Sampson is the official heroine of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. No truer patriot ever lived. She not only participated in the birth of her nation, on peril of her life, but she embodied principles of equality that modern patriots still strive to achieve.

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Rick Hutchins was born in Boston, MA, and has been an avid admirer of heroism since the groovy 60s. In his quest to live up to the heroic ideal of helping people, he has worked in the health care field for the past twenty-five years, in various capacities. He is also the author of Large In Time, a collection of poetry, The RH Factor, a collection of short stories, and is the creator of Trunkards. Links to galleries of his art, photography and animation can be found on http://www.RJDiogenes.com.

This is Hutchins’ tenth guest blog post here.  His first two, on astronaut and scientist Mae Jemison and the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards, can be found in our book Heroic Leadership.

Survivors of Trauma: Heroes Emerging From the Darkness

By Lisa Compton

As I trauma therapist, I have the privileged experience of working with people I consider true heroes — those who have been through painful traumatic events and find the courage to continue living a productive life.  Trauma survivors are some of the bravest people I know.  Counseling those that have experienced trauma is both rewarding and challenging for the therapist.

As I sit with client after client that has survived various types of trauma, I am in awe of the depth of our experiences as trauma counselors.  The most severely wounded and hurting are entrusted into our care.  Their painful memories and broken spirits seek out our “expertise” often as a last hope to make sense of the chaos that surrounds the human existence.

The clients that become fixated in our own minds and trigger our countertransference are the ones who have suffered the most extreme of what this earth has to offer.  Our curiosity is often peaked by their remarkably horrifying stories and our minds sent into a whirlwind of pondering, “Could this ever happen to me?”

Treatment starts with a cry within our own spirits — what do I have to offer this client that will ease the pain, and is easing the pain even possible? We rely on our past successes with wounded clients to combat the helplessness we feel as we sit passively witnessing their trauma narratives.  We are not able to help all of them. The threat of suicides lingers in the therapeutic air as the ultimate failure of treatment.

However, there are those who are heroically able to overcome the odds.  There is a hope for even the most extreme cases that the human soul can thrive after experiencing the deepest wounds.  It is based on this hope that we ask the client to rip off the scab that has provided a barrier of protection and share with us the cuts that run to their core.  An intimacy of trust develops between them and us.  Our small office with a chair and sofa transforms into sacred ground where the evil that was meant to destroy them becomes overtaken by the power of healing and survival.

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Lisa Compton is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified Trauma Specialist.  She was once a student of Scott Allison’s at the University of Richmond.

Chiune Sugihara: The Hero Who Didn’t Walk Away

By Jesse Schultz

There is a surprisingly profound line towards the end of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  It is uttered by Professor Dumbledore, who says “It takes great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends”. This idea is particularly true in warfare where actions by enemy troops are vilified, while actions by friends and allies are often excused or ignored. We see this phenomenon play out even today as the United States struggles with whether “enhanced interrogation” techniques are legal and ethical, and with the legitimacy of killing civilians during drone strikes.

This was a situation facing a man named Chiune Sugihara in the waning years of Imperial Japan when he bore witness to the beginning of one of the most abhorrent acts of evil ever committed.  Born in Yaotsu, Japan on January 1, 1900, Chiune Sugihara was raised in a middle-class rural family. His physician father had wished him to follow in his footsteps but Chiune purposely failed the required exams and instead majored in the English language and passed the Foreign Ministry Scholarship exam. He was soon recruited by the Japanese Foreign Ministry and sent to China.

It was in China that hints of his future acts of heroism would come to light. During this time Japan had invaded China and the mistreatment of the locals was commonplace. In protest of the way the Chinese were being treated, Chiune resigned his post as Deputy Foreign Minister in Manchuria.

In 1939 Chiune was then sent to the Japanese Consulate in Lithuania. On September 1st of that year Nazi Germany invaded Poland and the persecution of Jews began almost immediately. By 1940 Jewish refugees from Poland and from within Lithuania itself began to seek ways to flee the country. This required visas and many countries were refusing to issue them. Japan itself had stringent requirements that the refugees did not meet. Chiune inquired to his superiors three times requesting instructions, but in all cases requests to issue the visas were declined.

It might have been easier to simply walk away and do nothing but instead, in July of 1940, against orders, Sugihara started issuing visas and even directly negotiated with officials of the Soviet Union to allow the refugees to pass through Russia on their way to Japan. He continued to write visas, reportedly spending 18-20 hours a day until September 4th when the Consulate was closed. During the night prior to the closing, Chiune and his wife Yukiko spent the entire night writing visas, and Chiune was reportedly even preparing them en route to the train station where he threw them out the window of the train to waiting refugees as it left the station. In a final act of desperation he resorted to throwing blank pages with the Consulate seal and his signature, which could be filled out later.

The exact number of Jews saved by Chiune Sugihara is not known but estimates put the number around 6,000. By comparison Oskar Schildler saved around 1,100 to 1,200 lives.  Chiune’s actions seemed to have given him few accolades immediately after the war. The Japanese foreign office asked him to resign due to downsizing —  though some have suspected it might have stemmed from his activities in Lithuania. To make a living he began selling light bulbs door-to-door and later he found work in an export company.

Finally in 1968 he was located by one of his beneficiaries and later visited Israel. In 1985 he was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations award by the Israeli government. In June of the next year Chiune Sugihara passed away in Kamakura, Japan.  Today he has streets in Lithuania named after him, an asteroid (25893 Sugihara), a synagogue in Massachusetts, a memorial at his birthplace and in Lithuania, and a memorial in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. It seems inaccurate to refer to Chiune Sugihara as an “unsung hero” due to his many honors but many more should hear his story.

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The author, Jesse Schultz, has contributed several other essays on heroism here, including Love Thy Enemy: Opposing Heroes and Night Witches: the Forgotten AviatrixesTwo of his previous blog posts on Merlin and The Makers of Fire will appear in our new book Heroic Leadership: An Influence Taxonomy of 100 Exceptional Individuals.

 

The Invisible Heroes Among Us

dc_firefighter.jpgBy Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

Over the past year, we’ve blogged about many important heroes.  We described the globally transforming impact of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  We shared the remarkably inspiring stories of Pat Tillman, Thomas Jefferson, and Mother Teresa.  And we discussed heroes who displayed unusual courage in doing the right thing, people such as Oprah Winfrey, Muhammad Ali, and John F. Kennedy.  Most of these individuals are household names whose faces we recognize and whose heroism is known to much of the world.

Yet, having said all this, they may not be our most important heroes.

Recently, we conducted a study in which participants were asked to estimate the prevalence of six different types of heroes in our society.  The participants were given a sheet of paper listing the six categories of heroes, along with a brief definition of each.  teacher-writing-on-a-9540.jpgTransforming heroes were defined as people who transform the society in which they live. Traditional heroes were described as individuals who show exceptional talent or who perform a single great moral action. Transparent heroes were defined as individuals who do their heroic work behind the scenes, outside the public spotlight. Transitional heroes were described as people whose heroism is unique to a particular developmental stage in our lives. Trending heroes were defined as individuals who are on a trajectory toward becoming heroes.  And transitory heroes were described as people who perform a single nonmoral action that bring them great momentary fame.

The results of our study revealed that people clearly view one of these types of heroes as far more abundant in our society compared to the others.  Which hero is it?  The transparent hero.  Participants estimated that 65% of all heroes are transparent — the invisible individuals among us whose heroic work we often take for granted, yet they perform their heroism quietly and bravely while others bask in the limelight.  No other category of heroes came close to matching this percentage.  Participants judged traditional heroes to comprise 13% of the heroes among us; transitional heroes scored 10%, transforming heroes 7%, trending heroes 3%, and transitory heroes 2%.

Who are these transparent heroes that dominate the heroic landscape?  We’ve found that people have no trouble at all thinking of many examples of these invisible heroes.  They are our parents who made great sacrifices for us.  They soldier.jpgare the teachers who molded our minds, the coaches who taught us discipline and hard work, and healthcare workers, emergency first responders, and military personnel who protect us and save us from calamity.  These heroic individuals are everywhere, quietly going about the business of nurturing us and keeping us safe. They are quite possibly the most under-appreciated members of our society.

And so if you see parents who are raising a child under challenging circumstances, we urge you to show your appreciation to them.  We encourage you to thank your teachers, both past and present.  Take a moment to express gratitude to your former and current coaches and mentors.  The next time you encounter a law enforcement officer, paramedic worker, hospital employee, or firefighter, be sure to let them know how heroic, extraordinary, and appreciated they are.  And most importantly, be sure to shake the hand of the next military serviceman or woman you see.  Their heroism may be unseen to most of society, but their sacrifice makes every good thing in our lives possible.

These invisible heroes may never make it into our school textbooks, garner their own Wikipedia entries, or have their own youtube video that goes viral.  But they are all indispensable members of our society.  These hidden heroes are also our most essential heroes.

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Do you have a hero that you would like us to profile?  Please send your suggestions to Scott T. Allison (sallison@richmond.edu) or to George R. Goethals (ggoethal@richmond.edu).

Sidney Poitier: Quiet Revolutionary

© 2013 Rick Hutchins

The word revolution suggests noise. People will do a lot to draw attention to their cause; yelling and shouting is usually the least of it. But some revolutions happen quietly, peacefully, inevitably. All Sidney Poitier had to do to change the world was to be Sidney Poitier.

His humble beginnings did not in any way suggest greatness. A premature baby born to a poor farming family from the Bahamas, he survived infancy against the odds. His early life in the islands, in Miami and in New York was an anonymous one of farming and odd jobs, primarily washing dishes. He did not learn to read until his late teens. After a stint in the army, he simply went back to washing dishes. While he was able to gain a spot in the American Negro Theater, his early appearances were not applauded.

Then things changed. One successful role on Broadway led to another, which led to a notable role in the film No Way Out, which led to more Hollywood successes. Suddenly this quiet, perseverant man was a star — the first Black actor to be nominated for a competitive Academy Award, then the first Black actor win the Academy Award for Best Actor.

But he was more than that. In the tempestuous 1960s, in the midst of the Civil Rights Era, a time of race riots and student protests and a counter-cultural overturning of tradition, a time of clashes between generations and ideologies and bewildered bystanders, a time in which the pent-up anger of centuries came to a head, Sidney Poitier found himself to be a role model. Without any ambition to do so, he touched the lives of millions.

You could hear a pin drop.

This is not to say there was no controversy; nothing and no one is immune to that. There were accusations of tokenism, of appeasement. With his serene manner, his gentle voice — even after all these years still informed by a gentle island lilt — and his general thoughtfulness, this gentleman was deemed by many to be inadequate to the revolution. As the only major Black actor of his time, he was encouraged to take stronger, grittier, more controversial roles — in the parlance of the age, Blacker roles.

Poitier was conflicted. He did not disagree, since, as does any artist, he thrived on challenge. But, in his thoughtful way, he determined that living up to his own expectations as a role model was more important. He did indeed tackle the great racial issues of his time– a man of his character could do no less– but he did it his own way.

In the classic film Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?, a movie whose theme of the marriage between a Black man and a White woman (miscegenation!) was still unspeakably scandalous to much of the nation, his character quietly said to his father, “You think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man.”

And that was it. While others accused and attacked, he led by example. While others incited passion, he incited peace. While others were fighting battles, he won the war by teaching us that the entire conflict was based on a lie.

Of course it’s not over, even after all these decades; the troubled times are not behind us. There is still racism and chauvinism, still confusion and chaos, still antisocial throwbacks and self-serving crusaders. Even so, standing serenely above them all is a giant named Sidney Poitier– actor, director, author, diplomat– a role model for those with sincerity in their hearts, a leader for those who will listen.

Sidney Poitier, you see, is not too quiet — the world is simply too loud.

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Rick Hutchins was born in Boston, MA, and is a regular contributor to this blog.  In his quest to live up to the heroic ideal of helping people, he has worked in the health care field for the past twenty-five years, in various capacities. He is also the author of Large In Time, a collection of poetry, The RH Factor, a collection of short stories, and is the creator of Trunkards. Links to galleries of his art, photography and animation can be found on http://www.RJDiogenes.com.

Two of Hutchins’ previous essays on heroes appear in our new book Heroic Leadership: An Influence Taxonomy of 100 Exceptional Individuals.

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Harriet Quimby: Aviatrix One

By Rick Hutchins

In the early 20th Century, men and women were considered quite different animals and the social roles assigned to them reflected that belief. Women were expected to keep house and raise children while the adventures of invention and exploration were left to the men. Going beyond those expectations was not encouraged, and often punished. Most people conformed to those limitations, but some were not content to be grounded–- some, like Harriet Quimby, felt compelled to find new horizons.

Long before being bitten by the aviation bug, Quimby led an independent and liberated lifestyle that was the envy of many women of her day. An unmarried woman in New York City, she was a successful writer, turning out articles for the magazine Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly for many years, as well as several screenplays for DW Griffith in the early days of Hollywood. She was an “old maid” of thirty-five when she attended an international aviation tournament on Long Island and met famous aviator John Moisant (whose sister was to quickly follow in Quimby’s footsteps). Her first flying lessons soon followed. A headline in The New York Times, typical of the attitudes of that era, stated “Woman in Trousers Daring Aviator; Long Island Folk Discover That Miss Harriet Quimby Is Making Flights at Garden City.”

A year later, in 1911 (more than a decade before Amelia Earhart), Quimby became the first woman in the United States to earn an aviator’s certificate. Her friend Matilde Moisant became the second shortly thereafter.

But Quimby was not yet finished with making history. The next year, in April of 1912 (the day after the sinking of the Titanic), she became the first woman to pilot an aircraft across the English Channel.

Sadly, her next milestone was a tragic one. In July of 1912, she attended, and participated in, The Third Annual Boston Aviation Meet at Squantum on Dorchester Bay. While circling Boston Harbor, with event organizer William Willard as a passenger, her plane experienced unexpected turbulence and both pilot and passenger fell to their deaths, the plane crashing on the beach.

A century has now passed since the untimely death of Harriet Quimby. The romantic figure of the first aviatrix in her distinctive purple flight suit is all but forgotten. But thanks to her and others like her, the opportunities for women in society have expanded to a degree that few in her lifetime would have believed possible. Yet it is still true, well into the 21st Century, that both women and men are pressed to limit themselves to roles defined by their gender. Most will conform. But some will not be content to be grounded. And thanks to those like Harriet Quimby, their flight may be a little smoother.

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Rick Hutchins was born in Boston, MA, and has been an avid admirer of heroism since the groovy 60s. In his quest to live up to the heroic ideal of helping people, he has worked in the health care field for the past twenty-five years, in various capacities. He is also the author of Large In Time, a collection of poetry, The RH Factor, a collection of short stories, and is the creator of Trunkards. Links to galleries of his art, photography and animation can be found on http://www.RJDiogenes.com.

This is Hutchins’ fifth guest blog post here.  His first two, on astronaut and scientist Mae Jemison and the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards,  appears in our new book Heroic Leadership: An Influence Taxonomy of 100 Exceptional Individuals.