Someone sent us a link on our Facebook page to the story of Sergeant First Class Lynnette Hobson-Shearwood assigned to the Supply Support Activity Platoon, Alpha Company, 501st Brigade Support Battalion at Fort Bliss, TX. She came home one night and heard sobbing coming from the neighbor’s yard;
She saw a child, around age 2 or 3, pulling on what appeared to be a doll in the pool.
She knew something was wrong and her instincts and Army training took over.
Hobson-Shearwood called out for any adults, and when she heard no response, she jumped the fence to investigate further.
She then observed that the child who was reaching into the pool was actually holding onto the foot of another child, age 1, who was submerged in the pool, she said.
She reached into the pool and pulled the child out. The baby was already unconscious and had turned blue. She quickly administered CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Water came out of the child’s mouth and he started breathing again. She then went to the neighbor’s house, knocked on the door and found a person inside she believed to be a grandmother.
She then told the woman to call 911 and emergency crews soon arrived.
Hobson-Shearwood…said she just did what she was trained to do.
“It was something you just do,” said Hobson-Shearwood, a naturalized U.S. citizen since 2003.
She had never talked to the family that lives behind her before the incident. Various family members, however, have since come over to her house to thank her. They have also reported that the child is doing fine now, she said.
Wow great job!
Well done, SFC Hobson-Shearwood. Kudos.
Just reading that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
OMG, glad this worked out for the best.
Well done, SFC Hobson-Shearwood! Thank you.
Hooah. Well-done.
BZ to SFC Hobson-Shearwood!
Well-trained and observant and caring. The best of all worlds. Really excellent.
Observe, orientate, decide, act. All done in a fraction of a second and a life saved. The linked article says they are still putting together the paper work for a Soldiers Medal. At the glacial pace the Army likes to move at, I’m sure it will be ready for her when she retires in a few years. Good job SFC Hobson-Shearwood.
As much as I want to see this soldier properly recognized, Andy11M – I hope that doesn’t go thru.
The Soldier’s Medal by reg requires non-combat heroism equivalent to that required for the Distinguished Flying Cross (para 3-13b, AR 600-8-22). The article linked above says that the soldier here reached into the pool (implying they did so from the pool apron without entering the water themselves) and pulled out the 1-year-old who was in distress.
Maybe I’m getting cynical, but I don’t see a huge degree of heroism there. An immensely meritorious act, yes – but not one involving much personal risk. Awarding a Soldier’s Medal for an act involving little or no personal risk just doesn’t seem right, because it would cheapen the awards previously granted to those who literally did risk their lives and were later awarded same. To me, that would be like awarding all BSMs with V-device – whether awarded for service or for valor.
Due to the apparently low level of personal risk here, I’d say a more proper decoration here would be a suitable peacetime award such as an MSM or ARCOM. And someone we’ve heard of here at TAH has IMO rather cheapened the ARCOM, so I’d argue an MSM is more apropos.
Again: this SFC certainly deserves serious recognition. I just don’t see the heroism, and I’d hate to see the Soldier’s Medal cheapened. It’s presented for heroism, not necessarily for lifesaving.
I’ve never understood the drive to award *everything* with a medal of one sort or another.
Imo, all medals should be limited to battlefield actions.
A “good job” write up in the person’s record book, maybe an article in the local newspaper, and the respect of those the person works with and for should be enough in the recognition category for any and all non battlefield actions. Also, commanders who sign their staffs up for silver stars as a “I was there too” medal for staff weenies should be drawn and quartered in front of their commands.
All that said, well done Sergeant First Class Lynnette Hobson-Shearwood.
I don’t have much problem with commanders awarding medals when people do outstanding things, Grimmy. They cost little, but provide recognition to the deserving, and (when done fairly) build morale – though they certainly can trash morale if they’re not awarded fairly.
My only issue is that the individual should get the proper medal. Medals for heroism should be just that – medals for heroism. Non-heroic acts or achievements simply shouldn’t be recognized by decorations that by definition are awarded for heroic acts.
MSM awarded at Generals Mast. The MSM works here well enough, however it will take wordsmithing.
Understand and agree with what you are saying. The article doesn’t really say if this was a neighborhood where you can get shot for jumping a fence or if most of the homes in the area have a couple of large dogs, for instance. 😉
Well, done!!
Good for her. She is a fine young woman.
A lot of questions regarding this story.
As the narrative starts out, “one night” – what in the hell is a 2 or 3-year-old child, never mind the 1-year-old in the pool, doing out by themselves at night when there’s a pool on the property?
Like I said, there’s a lot of questions to be asked. Mind-boggling.
Children and pools never mix. Glad she was in the right place at the right time.
Make that “unsupervised children and pools never mix” and I’ll agree.
Outstanding!! It’s good to see a positive story.
Whoa, I almost cried. I have two little boys, one 3 years and one 9 months old, and something like this is a nightmare.
Now, after the emotional response, comes the rational questions. What the hell were two little kids doing by themselves on the pool?
I go effing ballistics when I see someone being that negligent.
I understand I don’t want to get the goverment involved. They are involved in everything these days, but PLEASE, people need to act like effing adults and take care of their dam kids.
Oh, yeah …
I just wanna know:
HOW LONG IS HER DOUBLE-BARRELED NAMETAG?
Criminey!
Dude, you are right!
I didn;t pay attention to her name until you mentioned it. What kind of name is Hobson-Shearwood? Does that means one of those open marriages I hear about?
Is that her husband’s name with her father’s name?
That’s so friggin weird. I mean, we all come from two persons, father and mother, and no matter what we do, the female last name will be dropped at some point, when the next generation gets married and have kids.
Let’s say her name, Hobson-Shearwood, is her father and mother, like some European countries do. Then if she marries an Smith for example, her daughter would be Smith-Hobson, dropping the Shearwood. Let’s say her daughter marries a Johnson, then the grandsons would be Johnson-Smith, and the Hobson-Shearwood is completely gone in two generations.
This is why is completely STUPID to have more than one last name.
She’s from Trinidad-Tobago so even her birthplace is hyphenated.
Yo, what the fucht are you talking about?
Present this argument to MY wife and SHE WILL kick your ass!
It is all about preserve one’s family name and heritage.
KMRIA!
In that case, tell her to use her birth name (like my wife does)! That is, unless she is ENGLISH and likes the posh sound of a double-barreled surname. And … I know you love the ENGLISH, Master Chief!
Hahaha …
Anyway, I think having a double-barreled name is a prerequisite for being an NPR correspondent/personality.
–just taking the mick out of you, MCPO — you know I love & respect you.
Respectfully submitted,
–Alister Ranald Macdonald-Frasier-Bannister IV
AH … I HATE YOU ALL!
And KMRIA!
That is all!
Out!
PS: No actual person, place or thing was actually HATED in the above comment. So don’t go shooting cops, burning cities and insisting you need money to be cured!
Thas’ hatefu!
Whoa whoa, your wife uses her birth name? Isn’t this a no-go in America?
I am just an smelly furriner, but I always understood American tradition was for the wife to take the husbands name.
Not hating, but keeping her birth nane seems to me extremely liberal and completely pointless, since her birth name will still be dropped by the next generation.
Besides, her birth name is her father’s, right? So she is already droping her mother’s? Also, what about the 2 grandmothers, or the 4 great grandmothers, or the 8 great great grandmothers?
Completely pointless.
This here is ‘Merica. Ya ken name yersef whatevs ya feels like.
Seriously, there is no hard and fast rule. Often the naming thing is done in the tradition from which came the ancestors. Many women use whatever name they were using when they entered the workforce throughout their career.
Very good point. People should be free to name whatever they want.
However, I feel the double name thing is a liberal conspiracy to undermine American traditional family structure.
I am sorry but I immigrated to america to live my american dream, not to live in a fundamentally transformed 3rd world piss hole.
Liberals want equality and collectivism, which translate as poverty for everybody.
Forgive me if I am VERY suspicious of everything the liberals do and promote.
You need to get out more. Even boys have hyphenated names now. I think it’s kind of silly myself, but that’s the way it is.
Oh, and don’t forget the new trend. Blended names, for lack of the scientific term. For example, you’ll see ‘Smithjones,’ or ‘Taylordavis.’
Pinto,
Really — I do get out. hehehe
I personally know some Scottish and English men who have double-barreled names; had to do with inheritance, though, that’s not always the case. I’m more accustomed to seeing this phenomenon with the landed families of the UK (men), and with the (female) commentators on NPR.
[And, I do know it is common in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Spain to double-barrel the father-mother surnames.]
–Alister Ranald Macdonald-Frasier-Bannister IV
Bravo Zulu, SFC!
For the Nautically Challenged,
“Bravo Zulu is a naval signal originally sent by semaphore flags, and, in English, simply means “Well done.” Now, why Bravo Zulu? Its origins are in the Allied Naval Signal Book, which for decades has been used by members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which was created in 1949.”
As I recall, NATO use of the acronym “BZ” had a second meaning as well.
I sometimes wonder if some “guests of honor” featured at TAH aren’t acquainted with the second meaning.
Never figured those guests of honors were able to obtain something as interesting as BZ Hondo….
My guess is they are more peyote or shroomers…or some home brewed vision enhancing substance….
Sadly that’s the only place their lives are interesting and filled with honor, in their dreams and visions.
Now if they could come to terms with how wrong being a LSOS is they could actually turn their lives around and become men of character if not actual honor.
But I won’t be holding my breath waiting for that to happen…I think some of these fellows are such good liars that Scopolamine or Pentothal based substances won’t help them find their way to truth.
Ah, thank you!
I did a NATO cruise in 80 – 81. Never seen more BZ’s in my life.
Trivia question:
What happened during that cruise?
Hondo is holding the prize!
Gulf of Sidra Incident, and I was there.
More precisely, the first Gulf of Sidra incident. There was a second such incident on 4 Jan 1989.
Results in both cases were the same: US 2, Libya 0. (smile)
Had to look it (Sidra) up since my memory is only as good as yesterday’s breakfast.
Hmmm……..what did I eat yesterday? Did I have breakfast? Damn….
Well Hondo, I think you get the point.
Yeah, I know. Sometimes these days days my memory is as short as my . . . well, nevermind. (smile)
Yeah, I know. The “curse.” I’ve had it for all of my 67 years!
And I was there for THAT one, too. On the Combat Ready Alert in my P-3C Orion at Sigonella.
NATO not Sidra!
Russians Mass Troops to Invade Poland:
Soviet reaction to the Polish crisis of 1980–81
The Polish crisis of 1980–1981, associated with the emergence of the Solidarity mass movement in Poland, challenged the Soviet control over the satellite countries of the Eastern Bloc.[citation needed]
For the first time however, the Kremlin abstained from military intervention unlike on previous occasions such as the Prague Spring of 1968 or the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and thus left the Polish leadership under General Wojciech Jaruzelski to impose martial law to crush the opposition on their own.
Initial reaction
Contrary to the interpretations of US intelligence, no preparations were underway for even minimal Soviet intervention at the time martial law was imposed, according to declassified Soviet archives.[1] On August 25, a special commission was created in Moscow to formulate policy in response to developments in Poland. It was headed by senior Communist Party ideologist Mikhail Suslov, and included KGB chairman Yuri Andropov, foreign minister Andrei Gromyko and defense minister Dmitriy Ustinov. They were reluctant to intervene in Poland, recalling the Polish 1970 protests, and dealing already with problems in the ongoing Soviet war in Afghanistan.
The East German and Czechoslovak leaders, Erich Honecker and Gustáv Husák, however, were eager to suppress Solidarity, along the lines of previous crackdowns. The aging Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev agreed with Honecker and Husák, leaning towards intervention. A planned joint Soviet, East German and Czechoslovak attack, under the pretext of a Warsaw Pact military exercise called ‘Soyuz-80,’ was planned for December.[2]
Deeply concerned Polish United Workers’ Party (PUWP) leaders, who had initially been lenient, slowly began to consider suppression of the popular movement on their own. On October 22, Polish defense minister Jaruzelski started planning for martial law.[2]
United States intelligence, by this time, had an accurate idea of the Warsaw Pact’s plans. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski persuaded President Jimmy Carter to disclose the Warsaw Pact military build-up publicly and to warn the Soviet Union of its consequences.[2][3]
On December 5, at the insistence of Honecker, the Warsaw Pact countries held a summit in Moscow. The Polish leader, first secretary of the PUWP Stanisław Kania, promised to do his best to uproot the opposition by domestic means. Brezhnev didn’t insist on armed intervention, Kania having managed to persuade him that foreign intervention would lead to a national uprising. Intervention was postponed, to give Polish leaders a chance to deal with the situation on their own.[2]
Final decision
However, the Kremlin was discontent with how leniently this suppression proceeded, and on October 18, 1981, it forced the Polish United Workers’ Party to replace Kania with Jaruzelski. The latter promised to impose martial law but demanded backing his action by a promise of Warsaw Pact military intervention if he failed to control the situation. On October 29, Jaruzelski’s demands were discussed at a session of the Soviet Politburo, where Andropov confirmed the consensus that no Soviet troops would be sent to Poland.[2][4]
At the 14th annual meeting of the Committee of Ministers of Defense of the Warsaw Pact, which took place in Moscow on December 1–4, Jaruzelski’s deputy Florian Siwicki on behalf of the former proposed to issue a bluffing strong statement pledging support of the Warsaw Pact armed forces to the Polish authorities in order to give a “cold shower for the counterrevolution” and to deny western claims that Jaruzelski didn’t have backing of his allies. The Soviet, East German, Czechoslovak and Bulgarian ministers, Dmitriy Ustinov, Heinz Hoffmann, Martin Dzúr and Dobri Dzhurov, supported the proposal. However, it failed to pass because Romanian minister Constantin Olteanu, who was not aware that the plans for invasion had already been discarded and took the threat for real, vetoed the draft after consultations with Nicolae Ceauşescu, and his Hungarian counterpart Lajos Czinege was not ready to agree unless everyone else did.[2][5][6]
At the Politburo meeting of December 10, 1981, the Soviet leadership was outraged to learn that Jaruzelski was still making his crackdown on Solidarity conditional on a promise of a Soviet military intervention if anything went wrong. The Politburo firmly and unanimously rejected the demand for military backing. Andropov, one of the most influential figures in the Politburo, who would become the Soviet leader in less than a year, wary of the threat of Western political and economic sanctions, made it clear to his fellow Politburo members that he was ready to reconcile himself to the possible loss of the Soviet control over Poland to Solidarity, however unpleasant it might be, if the Soviet communications with East Germany via Poland continued uninterrupted:
“We can’t risk such a step. We do not intend to introduce troops into Poland. That is the proper position, and we must adhere to it until the end. I don’t know how things will turn out in Poland, but even if Poland falls under the control of Solidarity, that’s the way it will be. And if the capitalist countries pounce on the Soviet Union, and you know they have already reached agreement on a variety of economic and political sanctions, that will be very burdensome for us. We must be concerned above all with our own country and about the strengthening of the Soviet Union. That is our main line…. As concerns the lines of communication between the Soviet Union and the GDR that run through Poland, we of course must do something to ensure that they are safeguarded.[4][7]”
Chief ideologist Suslov supported him, considering the possibility of invasion after the Soviet support of détente in the 1970s as a severe blow to the Soviet international standing.[2][4][7] The Brezhnev Doctrine was effectively dead.[8]
Andropov and Jaruzelski
Martial law
After unsuccessfully begging Warsaw Pact commander-in-chief Viktor Kulikov and Soviet ambassador Boris Aristov for military assistance once again, on December 13, 1981, Jaruzelski finally proclaimed martial law.[2] To justify the emergency measures, Jaruzelski was still playing on the public fear of Soviet invasion. However, there was no significant resistance to the martial law and any foreign military backing proved unnecessary. Ever since Jaruzelski himself has denied that he invited Soviet troops, insisting that, on the contrary, the martial law was aimed at prevention of a Soviet military intervention.[2]
1997 Jachranka conference
In November 1997 a conference was held in Jachranka on the Soviet role in the Polish crisis of 1980–1981, where Solidarity, Polish communist, Soviet and American participants of the events, including Jaruzelski, Kania, Siwicki, Kulikov and Brzezinski, took part. Jaruzelski and Siwicki maintained that the Soviets had been preparing for invasion all the time, Kania and Brzezinski opined that the plans for invasion had been discarded by the second half of 1981 and Kulikov denied the existence of any plans to intervene even in 1980.[3][9]
Outstanding job! Thank God she heard the child, and reacted to it.
Saving lives and reinforcing the image of soldiers as men and women of strength and character…
One could not ask for better than SFC Lynnette Hobson-Shearwood for that example. Outstanding stuff and more than deserving of recognition.