rescue

Operation Eagle Claw: Disaster In The Desert

Quintus Curtius History , , ,

In early November 1979, rioting Iranian students entered the American embassy in Tehran and seized fifty-two government employees.  Whether this was a spontaneous act, or a planned operation by Iran’s revolutionary government, is still open to debate; but in either instance, the nation’s clerical leadership moved quickly to exploit the crisis.  In the United States, the Carter administration was still reeling from the shock waves sent out by the fall of the Shah, who had long been an American ally in the region.  There was a sense of confusion, even paralysis; and the problem was compounded by the fact that the Americans had very little knowledge of what was happening in Tehran.  There were no eyes and ears on the ground.

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A Dog’s Heroism During The Wreck Of HMS “Harpooner”

Quintus Curtius History , , ,

Whether our canine friends risk themselves out of a conscious sense of duty, or whether they act out of blind instinct, is a question that dog lovers and animal behaviorists will endlessly debate.  It is not an unimportant question.  For if it is true that dogs may, under some circumstances, feel the pull of obligation, then it must follow that they are capable of the noblest emotions, and the stirrings of love.  This was the question that the following sea-story raised.  Buried in a volume of forgotten nautical lore, it describes the heroics of a service dog named King during the wreck of the British transport Harpooner in Newfoundland in 1816.

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One Should Avoid Dangerous Places: The Rescue Of Euthymios And His Brethren

Quintus Curtius Literature, Thought , , ,

When considering tales from the lives of the great saints, we should be more mindful of the moral imparted by the story than strictly attentive to the accuracy of its details.  We must take into account the perspective of the writer, his proximity to the events he describes, and his moral purposes.  To do anything less would defeat the purpose of the anecdote.  Yet I am confident that many of the stories related by the biographer of Euthymios the Younger (823 A.D.?–898 A.D.) are based on actual events, and are not the idle speculations of the cloister.  One of these stories we will now relate.

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