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The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 38, September 16, 2001, Article 14 FEATURED WEB SITE This week's featured web site is the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission. The awards were created by industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who was inspired to act after a massive explosion on January 25, 1904, in a coal mine at Harwick, Pa., near Pittsburgh, claimed 181 lives. Two of the accident's victims had entered the mine after the explosion in ill-fated rescue attempts. "Within three months of the disaster, Carnegie had set aside $5 million under the care of a commission to recognize "civilization's heroes" ...and to provide financial assistance for those disabled and the dependents of those killed helping others." "The Commission's definition of a hero has been largely unchanged since 1904: A civilian who knowingly risks his or her own life to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save the life of another person. The cases submitted for consideration--in excess of 75,000 to date -- are scrutinized by a full-time staff before formal review by the Commission itself. Persons selected for recognition receive a bronze medal and a grant of $3,500, and each becomes eligible for scholarship aid. Those disabled in their heroic acts or the dependents of those killed are eligible for additional benefits, including ongoing aid to meet living expenses. Approximately 20 percent of the awards are made posthumously, reflecting a verse from the New Testament embossed on each medal: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13)." http://www.carnegiehero.org/History.shtml "Over the 97 years of its existence, the Fund has awarded 8,510 medals and $24.9 million in accompanying grants, including scholarship aid and continuing assistance." As a result of Tuesday's events, the fund could become swamped with nominees, beginning with New York police and fire personnel who raced to the scene of the World Trade Center attack, only to lose their lives in the collapse. Just a few weeks ago, a featured web site highlighted the Congressional Gold Medal (August 5, 2001, v4#32). While medals of any sort are on no one's priority list at the moment, perhaps someday there will be awards for some of those who perished on the fourth hijacked airliner, which crashed in Pennsylvania after some passengers tried to stop the hijackers, according to cell phone messages from the doomed aircraft. From a Sunday, September 16th New York Times account: "[Vice President] "Cheney guessed that "some real heroism by Americans" aboard that plane had prevented the hijackers from crashing it into the Capitol in Washington. "What they did was to foil the attack on Washington," the vice president said of the passengers who fought back." These brave citizens were among the first to resist and fight this incarnation of evil, and they won't be the last.

Wayne Homren, Editor

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