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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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