Category: Real Soldiers

When Leo Labogen’s cheese slid off his cracker the other day at the University of Nebraska’s Criss library, Army soldier, Brandon Valle was there to put a damper on the lunatic’s threats to start cutting people with the three knives that Labogen was brandishing in reaction to library patrons who asked Labogen to take his cellphone conversation outside, according to the Washington Times;

“He’s screaming out he’s going to kill us and slit people’s throats,” Mr. Valle told the station. “I knew it was a threat and this person had crossed a line — it was time to do something about it.”

“As soon as he pulled the knife out, I grabbed his wrist and twisted him and put him down on the couch,” the soldier said.

Two other students reportedly helped Mr. Valle pin the suspect down until Omaha Police arrived.

From local news station WOWT, students who were in the library say that Valle is a hero;

Valle is being hailed as a hero by his fellow students, including Jennifer McDanal, who was also studying in the library. She told WOWT 6 News: “Knowing there are people on campus who are ready to help out and do what’s necessary to keep people safe is a relief.”

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.

Two Army sergeants were awarded the Soldiers Medal for their “heroism not involving actual conflict with an enemy”. The first is Sergeant Gregory La Fleur of the 7th Special Forces Group who earned the medal for subduing a gunman on Eglin Air Force Base, despite the gunman’s repeated attempts to ventilate the good sergeant.

Staff Sergeant Kenneth Kam of the Combat Training Company, 43rd Adjutant General Battalion at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri was supervising a soldier on his grenade range firing line when the young soldier failed to get her grenade over the blast wall. Thinking quickly, SSG Kam extricated himself and the young soldier from the pit when the grenade rolled back to them in the three seconds it takes for a grenade to explode after the pin pulled. Neither of them were injured.

Thanks to Chief Tango for the links

The UK’s Daily Mail reports that Queen of England has presented the Victoria Cross to Lance Corporal Joshua Leakey of the 1st Para. The Queen remarked that she doesn’t award many of the Victoria Crosses, but Joshua Leakey’s cousin, Nigel Leakey, was also awarded one 70 years ago. Despite the fact that three of the awards have been issued for the war in Afghanistan, Leakey is the only one of the group to survive his ordeal;

In 2013, he braved heavy gunfire from 20 Taliban insurgents in Helmand to rush to the aid of a wounded US Marine [Captain Brandon Bocian].

He also took control of a machine gun post to begin the fightback, then ran down a barren hillside, dodging a hail of bullets, picked up another machine gun and continued the battle in which 11 insurgents were killed and four wounded.

According to the official citation, L/Cpl Leakey, who is single and from Hampshire, showed ‘complete disregard for his own safety’ as his unit came under attack for around an hour.

His cousin, Nigel Leakey, was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously for his actions in the Ethiopia Campaign, according to Wiki;

On 19 May 1941, in World War II, at Kolito, Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), when the Allied forces had made a bridgehead against the strong Italian opposition, the enemy made a sudden counterattack with both light and medium tanks. In the face of withering fire, Sergeant Leakey leaped on top of one of the tanks, wrenched open the turret and shot all the crew except the driver, whom he forced to drive the tank to cover. Along with three others, he tried to repeat this with another tank, but just as he opened the turret, he was killed.

Tequila Volare sends us a link from FoxAtlanta about David Bryant, a UPS employee and an Afghanistan veteran of the Marine Corps variety. He was out driving his route yesterday, when he saw an elderly woman lying alongside the road – she was choking on a piece of food. Bryant leaped from his truck, not taking time to change into his superhero uniform, and performed the Heimlich maneuver on the woman;

Luckily, the 83-year-old victim was able to dislodge that piece of food. Paramedics then took her to a local hospital.

Bryant says his military training kicked in to help save that woman. Bryant served as a Marine in Afghanistan. He was a gunner and reached the rank of corporal. Bryant says he does not consider himself to be a hero; saying instead that he did what anyone else would have done to save that elderly woman.

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