Searching for Utopia

Most cancers are related to lifestyle factors, Elizabeth M. Whelan of the American Council on Science and Health reported. Tobacco use, poor diet, alcohol abuse, ionizing radiation (x-rays, for example), certain sexually transmitted diseases, certain reproductive patterns, and sunlight are among the proven causes of cancer. Therefore healthy lifestyle is a major key to prevent it. Of course, with the Global Cancer Report which said that cancer rates could increase by 50% to 15 millions by 2020, a cure is still needed.

There have been many efforts, but what HopeLab has recently announced is absolutely something different. It has released “Re-Mission”, the first PC-based video game scientifically shown to improve health-related outcomes for young people with cancer. The nonprofit organization is committed to help young people to deal with chronic illness; and the game is developed through a scientific study involving 375 young adults at 43 medical centers in the three countries—those are United States, Canada and Australia. They were helped by researchers, medical experts and game developers.

The game’s main character is Roxxi—a well-armed Nanobot. Its task is to destroy cancer cells throughout the human body, battling cancer and its life-threatening effects. Through 20 different levels of game play, Re-Mission illustrates what occurs inside the bodies of young cancer patients and how they can most effectively fight their disease. The study has proven that the participants who played Re-Mission maintained high levels of adherence to their prescribed medication regimens. They also maintained higher levels of chemotherapy in their blood and took their antibiotics more consistently than those in the control group who did not receive Re-Mission.

Saif Azar, a patient with Hodgkin’s lymphomas said, “It was perfect, actually. It helped me understand the things that were going on in my body.”

The president of HopeLab, Pat Christen, said, “Re-Mission works. It gives teens and young adults a sense of power and control over their cancer. Research on Re-Mission was conducted in much the same way research into a new drug is conducted, with rigorous testing based on scientific principles. Our study findings clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the game in improving health-related outcomes for these kids. It’s great news.”

“We approached the study in the same way and with the same rigor that we would with a new drug,” she added.

The game will be available in English, French and Spanish and free to download through www.remission.net starting on May 1.

India’s Kishan Shrikanth—known as Master Kishan to many—may be small, but he has a big heart. At the tender age of 10, he has already acted in 24 regional feature films and has starred in 1,000 episodes of a hit soap opera on television in India. Yet he is aware that many are not as fortunate as he is, and he seeks to change it. And just what can he do, we hear you ask. Read along and find out!

“When I was six years old, I saw the kids selling newspapers on the streets at the traffic lights and felt sad. I asked my dad why they had to do this. He told me that they were not like us. They did not go to school or study and they had to work for a living. I wanted to talk about their life,” Kishan told the BBC.

“Then I wrote a short story and read it to my dad who narrated it to his friends as well. It was my dad’s friends who suggested that I should direct the film myself, as I had written the story.”

The boy was not daydreaming. C/O Footpath (Care of Footpath)—the feature film—is telling about India’s street child who had the chance for school and managed to be success and became an inspiration to many other street children in the country. He directs it with his mother’s support as the film’s producer as well as music director.

Before stepping into his new task, he got himself prepared. “I read many books on Hollywood and saw DVDs. I had to learn camera angles and understand which lens will make things look narrow or wide. I used to ask questions to directors, cameramen, assistants, everybody,” he said.

His genuineness convinced Bollywood star Jackie Shroff to take part. “He is such a genius that I had to work in his film. He is constantly thinking about his next shot, constantly innovating to make it better. He is sure about what he wants from his actors,” Shroff told the Press Trust of India.

The shooting took place at the south of Chennai and Mumbai, the center of Bollywood—the world’s most productive film industry. The production budget for this135-minute length film is US$ 170,000.

“It is not tough to direct senior actors. I tell them, they listen and even suggest changes if necessary. We do rehearsals before a shoot and I sometimes act and show them, as I am an actor myself. The film is 85% complete and due to release next April,” Kishan said to Reuters at his home in Bangalore.

Of course things are sometimes rough for him. While other children were enjoying Harry Potter, he barely had time for school during the filming schedules and missed playing with friends. But the boy-wonder understands what he wants. “When I am absent my friends take notes and give them to me,” he said. “I’ll pass my exams. My first goal is directing. All other things are secondary. I want all slum kids educated, that’s all.”

Well, he may say so, but the Guinness Book of Records awaits him as the world’s youngest director.

Anton Novak, 11, from Czech Republic was indeed very lucky. After losing his nose for two hours, he finally got it back. The unfortunate event happened last year on November 17. While the lad was out with his father, a neighbor’s dog—a German shepherd—attacked and bit off his nose. His father beat the dog up and rushed him to St Ann Faculty Hospital in Brno. Police was called to take the dog to the vets where it was killed.

Earlier the hospital had successfully reattached a patient’s ear after being bitten by a dog. Dr Jiri Versely, the chief plastic surgeon said, “Sewing back a nose is not so exceptional in surgery. But we have looked in vain in the specialist literature for a case where a nose was sewed back that had stayed for two hours in a stomach.” He went on by claiming, “It is proof that we are the first to do this.”

The first thing they did was to call the vets to search for the boy’s nose. “We thought it was worth checking inside the dog in case it hadn’t chewed it,” Dr Versely explained. The dog’s belly was then opened and amazingly they found the nose still in one piece; although it was in a poor state that it might cause infection. They carefully sterilized it and used microsurgery to reattach it back to Anton’s face.

“We cut off the digested part, disinfected the rest and put it back,” Dr Versely further said.
It took 11 hour for the team to finish the operation. After ten days, Dr Vesely confirmed that no infection had happened, “It was a very complicated operation but all is well. The boy will be able to breathe normally and will look the same as he did before.”

Last month Nigeria’s Patricia Odi (48) celebrated the most anticipated moment in her life as a woman: to be a mother, that is. It was such a long wait since her marriage to Cyprian Nnamdi Odi on February 10, 1979. Her pregnancy, however, was rather odd. She had to carry the baby in her womb for three years and eight month. How so?

“In April 2002, I missed my menstrual period. I went for a test and it was positive. Before then I had never missed my period and I had cried to God for the fruit of the womb for 23 years since I got married in 1979. I registered for antenatal at military Hospital, Yaba and looked forward to my delivery. Later—I don’t remember exactly when—I was told that my baby wasn’t growing well as it should. I was afraid but I continued in my prayers and started going to Ijaw women in Ajegunle for massages.

“I went for massages because there the Ijaw people gave me more hope and strengthened my belief that my baby would be born healthy. Meanwhile, I did not have the kind of pregnancy I expected. I never vomited; I never had any spitting of saliva. All I had were odd feelings, headaches, weaknesses and a bit of backache. My baby did not move in my womb until the pregnancy was about a year old and yet the doctor said there was no fibroid in my womb.”

By the time, she said, people started to stare at her whether she was in the bus or on her street, and even at church where she—being a devoted Catholic—never stopped praying. Some of them were worried that she might have fibroids. The others thought she simply tied a pillow around her stomach to conceal the truth that she could not have her husband’s baby. Her friends however continued to believe her when they saw and felt the baby as it moved in her womb.

Financial problem in the meantime had been a constant problem. Her husband was transferred to Enugu and their salaries were rarely being paid on time. Considering her condition at that time, doctors suggested her to have an operation—which she refused. Mother Mary did not deliver Jesus Christ with operation, she said. She did not want to. As a believer, she found her solace in different Catholic churches—by collecting holy water, blessed salt and anointing oil which she always used.

And apparently she did not have to wait forever. On the 21st of December, 2005, she was preparing the celebration mass for the new assistant parish priest at the church; when suddenly she felt something was wrong with her body. She ignored it. She was even able to finish the cleaning and then kneeling down at the Blessed Sacrament for a prayer before going home. When she arrived, she started to have pain on her lower back and under her womb where she could not sit nor stand. She decided to call her sister Mary to take her to the hospital.

They reached the hospital at 8 pm where she was told that she was in labor. They did not lie. The baby, Emmanuela Odi, was born at 10.30 pm without any complications and physically normal. There was a sigh of relief as the baby cried.

“Now, after over twenty-years of marriage, people in my area call me mama somebody. Ah, there is indeed a God who hears and answers if you call on him. My joy is boundless and my heart has been cleansed of all sorrows”, she said.

Such a miracle—as Patricia puts it—has no medical explanation on how the offspring could have survived after years inside the womb. The doctor, Babatunde Abiodun, supported her story. “Sometimes it happens. Anything is possible,” he said. While those who only hear the story might be a bit skeptical for Patricia had no regular doctor to monitor her; many saw her throughout her years of pregnancy.

When most of us were probably gathering together with our family for Christmas on last December 23, poor little Miracle was strayed somewhere in Newark. He kept walking to where his feet led him.

Suddenly a parked sport utility vehicle attracted his attention. His inquisitiveness then encouraged him to climb into the guts of the SUV. He played until he grew tired and fell asleep there. A moment later a sound of engine aroused him up from slumber. He started to panic when he realized his new home was moving. Terrified, the cat—yes, Miracle is a cat, mind you—clutched to where he could. After 70 miles of journey along the New Jersey Turnpike, a person at last noticed him through a wheel well. He was afterwards taken out.

The woman who was driving the SUV—she wished to remain anonymous—took him to the Animal Welfare Association in Voorhees, N.J. where they did not normally take in strays. He was in quite good condition despite some burnt paws and a missing claw. But nobody could ever tell how he escaped the fan blades inside the car.

Since then his journey have attracted more than twenty people already inquiring about adopting him, which is about 8 months old and about six pounds, as the shelter director, Karen Dixon-Aquino informed.
“It’s amazing that he lived,” she said. “I’ve never heard of one surviving the engine being turned on, let alone surviving a ride down the turnpike. He’s certainly used up 81/2 of his nine lives.”

Before Miracle, however, there have been several stories involving cats’ survival; including a year old kitten that stowed away in paper bales shipped from Wisconsin to Chicago, then to Belgium and France back in September. She made it back home, compliments of Continental Airlines, after the owners listed on her name tag were contacted.

The coauthor of the book “Mews Item: Amazing but True Cat Tales” says that cats find themselves surviving the most precarious situations. And Miracle, he said, would have made his book.

Santino and William

There are prospects for peace at last in Sudan when the government and main rebel signed peace accords in January 2005—ending the civil war in the world which had taken place since 1955 between the largely Muslim, pro-government North and largely non-Muslim rebel South. In 1983, the fighting turned to be genocide when the Attorney General Hassan Abdulah el-Turabi, the leader of Sudan’s Islamic Charter Front persuaded President Nemeiri to apply the Islamic Law and began the systematic destruction of those who disagreed; including two millions of southern Dinka Christians, moderate Muslims, and animists.

William Akoi Mawwin was only six years old by then. His father made him flee to the south to avoid the raids for his safety. He was however caught and endured almost two decades of slavery, starvation, and the threat of death, before escaping and continued to live on the streets and eating out of garbage cans. He lost his hands during those difficult times. Some 30-thousand other boys between the ages of 4 and 10 had the same fate. Those who could avoid being captured were wandering for months across Africa without any clue what to do. It was estimated that only one in three boys survived the journey to the refugee camps in Kenya. Thousands were either shot by pursuing soldiers, drowned, died of hunger, or were eaten by wild animals. Babies were killed; girls were raped, killed or forced into slavery.

In 2001 the United States government agreed to allow 3,600 of them to live in America—the lost boys of Sudan. The largest numbers of these orphans were placed in Arizona; where they have a nonprofit support facility called The AZ Lost Boys Center to provide them with education, employment, heath care—and a home base for them to meet with each others. Most of them have been separated from their families during the war and adopted by American families.

William was one of the lucky 70% of them who could enroll to college and get a full-time job. He even co-directed a documentary feature of his life on “It Takes a Village”, a documentary feature of his life, in hoping that the film will raise awareness and money to help build hospitals and schools in Sudan.

The 19-year old Abraham Maker could also smile after being enrolled to a school where he played soccer and is a runner for the athletics team. “I don’t worry now that if I sleep those people are going to shoot me,” he said.

But getting an education is a big problem for those above 18—which means they were too old for school. Because of their lacking of qualifications, they were often faced with the low-paying jobs.

Santino Majok Chuor, 21, had to go through it. As attending school was not an option, he was loading trucks for minimum wage. He sent most of his salary each month to his disabled brother and his three nephews in Kenya; which left him almost nothing to live in an apartment he shared with another lost boy in Houston.
“There’s no way out unless you get education,” he believed.

Another lost boy, Samuel Garang, 23 could work in the day and learn at night. “America wasn’t paradise and it wasn’t as easy as they told you in the camps,” he said, reciting his previous jobs from becoming a security guard to a bagger at supermarkets. Yet he did well enough in school that he was enrolled at Stanford University in California.

Truly there are more in life than a picture of black and white. Being grateful with what we have is perhaps the best way to cope with our problems. As Samuel said, “Back in Africa, they do not know how hard it can be here for us.”

On November 11, Aceh’s Marlina (16) could smile for the first time after one long suffering year of having a bullet lodged in her head. How did she get a bullet in her head we hear you ask?

It was at 11 AM, July 8, 2004, when Marlina and elder sister Ani were cooking at the family’s kitchen behind the house. All of a sudden they heard an intense shooting within 1 km distance. Long before the nonstop natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes, Aceh had been an area troubled with constant clashes between the Indonesian army and GAM (Free Aceh Movement). During that period, shooting was more like daily incident for the Acehnese; and also for Marlina. She lived with her family in a village, 257 km from the city of Banda Aceh.

At that time, she and Ani ran inside their house for a shelter when the shooting became more extreme. The whole family then burrowed in fear until the noise ceased. Marlina hurriedly went back to the kitchen to check her cooking. Another shot was heard shortly after, at which point her mother shouted for her to come back inside. But it was too late. For Marlina had lost her consciousness and fell down on the floor. Blood spilled out of her head, colored her clothes in red. Her mother grew feeble at the sight.

Ani knew what to do. She carried her little sister to the bed and walked her to the nearest medical center when Marlina awakened. The street was empty still empty. People chose to hide themselves inside their house after the gunfire. The two girls too were afraid, but they strengthened their mind. Ani told her younger sibling that she would bear a bullet herself, as long as Marlina could make it to the medical center. The poor girl had to grit her teeth for pain as they walked step by step. Luckily, they met a cousin who was then willing to accompany them; and afterwards an army commander lent his motorbike.

But Marlina’s suffering was far from over. The health center had inadequate means for treating her that she was rushed to Fauziah Hospital in Bireun. A nurse explained that a small operation would help the girl, but the family could not afford it. Several people suggested them to go to Cut Mutiah Hospital where they would treat conflict victims for free. Hurriedly they went there, and she was eventually operated the next day—only to know that the doctors found no bullet. Marlina suffered constant pain and headache afterwards.

The family was not idle meanwhile. To cover her $ 3,500 USD operation, her mother sold the family heirloom—a small coconut field; and borrowed cash from the neighbors. Three days later she was operated in Zainal Abidin Hospital, Banda Aceh: the doctors could not find the bullet still. Desperate, she was transferred to the Adam Malik Hospital in Medan; but because of financial problem she was taken back home for a week until her family collected more debt.

When she was back in Medan, the hospital suggested her to be operated in Malaysia. The family grew more hopeless. They decided that they would simply cut all the medication and treated Marlina at home. Since then she stayed at home and did her normal activities with a bullet inside her head. The wound sometimes discharged thick pus accompanied by blood; making it hard for her to concentrate on her studies. “When the pain strikes, it really hurts. I take painkillers regularly to neutralize the pain,” said she.

And help came when a journalist from the Jakarta Post who saw her and wrote her trouble on October 12. The Indonesian Brain Foundation, the Sukma Foundation could finally get her operated in Jakarta on November 11, 2005—a year after the shooting took place. After 3 hour of operation, a team of doctors in the Siloam Gleneagles Hospital managed to remove the 1.5-centimeter-long, 3-millimeter-diameter projectile from the back of her back brain. “From 1 to 5, the bullet inside her head could be categorized into 4,” the leader of the team said.

Marlina, no longer had the headache, said she was ready to go back to school and wished to go home as soon as possible to eat her mother’s cooking. “I want to eat my mother’s cooking: milk fish in thick coconut milk sauce,” she said joyfully.

Kenya’s Wycliffe Kepha Anyanzwa believes that everything happens for a reason. There is no lip service there; that is the man who could turn his disability into a story of success.

Born as a normal child in the town of Kakamega in 1955, Wycliffe suffered from suffered from severe stomach ache when he was eight. The local hospitals failed to diagnose the problems that he was flown to the Kenyatta National Hospital for further treatment by the doctors who were in a partnership program with the Ministry of Education at the time.

A white doctor gave him an injection and the problems disappeared despite his alarm after being told that he could have died had he come later. Yet the case was far from being over. Shortly after, Wycliffe was struck by paralysis over his legs. He soon learned that the syringe used by the doctor was used before on a polio sufferer—which was transferred to him. And there had been no cure of the disease.

There he was. When sick people mostly are healed after visiting a hospital, Wycliffe’s experience was a little bit different. “I walked into a hospital; came out a cripple and my life has never been the same again,” he recalled. His father, a devoted Christian, decided to forgive and forget. He was afterwards taken to traditional doctors, other hospitals and prayer sessions. But there was no cure.

After finishing his elementary, Wycliffe had to face more challenges as he went to a normal boy’s boarding school where he was the only disabled student. As the consequence, he had to lean on other students to wheel him around. That was not easy. He often could not attend his classes when there was no one to help him climbing the stairs. His grades were not so impressive, except for the language class. He spent most of his time reading literature which resulted in winning various awards from speaking contests.

In 1971 he received a motorized wheelchair from the Association for the Physically Handicapped when his father passed away. He fell in love with it and was shortly trained as a leatherwork technician by the same association. With his knowledge, somehow he managed to modify his wheelchair by installing bearings to increase its range of mobility. In 1975, Scot visitors sponsored him for six-month training in mobility engineering to Sweden, along with students from twenty other countries in Africa.

Then life became kinder for him after returning. He was able to hire ten employees to start manufacturing mechanical wheelchairs, tri-cycles and motorbikes, which would be very useful for the physically handicapped. The business went very well that the Swedish Board of Transport soon hired him as an instructor for seminars in the UK, USA and Sweden.

But he did not stop there. He was then modified his car to get his own driving license. It was very difficult. At the point he realized that people must be independent no matter what. That was when he began to hold seminars to encourage other handicapped people to strive for their independence. “In my experience, that is the only way you can change people’s attitudes
towards you. As long as you are dependent on people for your upkeep, they will look down on you. I advocated financial empowerment as the only way to earn respect,” he said.

Wycliffe is now the chairman of the Kenya Society for the Physically Handicapped, and also the administrator of Star Disability Training Centre—set up in 2003 to assist the physically handicapped.

“I have no bitterness over my disability as it has motivated me to succeed in life. How many able- bodied people have what I have? My desire now is to champion the cause of the physically handicapped and to inspire them to view themselves as victors rather than victims,” he explained, ended his story.

HIV has been a threat to people of all ages on all continents longer before most of us, including myself, knew that the H5N1 existed. Despite common belief that there is no cure for the HIV yet; there may be a man who holds the key to unlock the mystery. Step forward Mr. Andrew Stimpson.

The 25-year-old Scot moved to London four years ago. He then had a long term relationship with Juan Gomez, 44; an HIV positive. In May 2002, Stimpson continuously felt tired, weak and feverish which led him to take three blood tests at the Victoria Clinic for Sexual Health in west London. The tests were negative, but he took more tests in August and this time it was positive.

The result brought him nightmares followed by suicidal depression; knowing that a cure was impossible. He took no special medication, and had been keeping dietary supplements instead. Each month he went for routine blood tests, had check ups on his liver, heart, and immune system. Doctors said his immune system remained strong; which was unusual for an HIV positive. It continued until October 2003, where he took another HIV test—and the result was negative. He afterwards took three more tests: all of them came back the same.

“There was a massive relief but I was also deeply confused. And the doctors seemed as confused as me. I thought the first positive tests must have been wrong,” said he, even admitted that he tried to sue the hospital for its inaccuracy in the testing system. But an investigation by the hospital proved otherwise. “I can’t help wondering if I hold the cure for Aids. There are 34.9 million people with HIV and if I have something to contribute, then I am willing and ready to help,” Stimpson said.

Yet experts remain skeptical about the news. Dr Patrick Dixon, an expert from Acet, an international Aids group, said, “You have to be rock-solid sure that both samples came from the same person, no mix-up in the laboratory, no mistakes in the testing. This is the first well-documented case.” Those were absolutely important, as there have been several similar claims made in South Africa. Such a case, however, have never been heard in the UK, said a spokeswoman for the Terence Higgins Trust.

Dr Gert van Zyl, an Aids expert at Tygerberg Hospital, suggested that there have been cases that made it look as if there is something like a “passing HIV infection”. However, these were cases where the virus was contracted through a needle prick or during birth - cases where the virus passed on before it turned into a systemic infection of the body.

“In this case (Stimpson’s) it seems however that he had a well established infection for which he tested positive more than once and then became negative. In such a case, one has to ask whether the virus was in fact cured or whether our tests are no longer picking it up.”

The major point now is that Stimpson agrees to undergo further tests to reveal more about the working of the disease—and develop vaccine, if possible. The decision will surely bring a new hope to many. Statistics showed that there have been about 39.4 million people who had HIV at the end of 2004.

Surviving from a war is never easy. Tibor Rubin (76) had not only survived from two wars, but he also came up as a remarkable hero. For his valor, the Korean war veteran and Holocaust survivor received the highest military award in the USA, the Medal of Honor from U.S President George W. Bush on September 23—after fifty years he was a soldier and being recommended four times by two separate commanding officers for separate actions and his fellow soldiers.

“By repeatedly risking his own life to save others, Corporal Rubin exemplified the highest ideals of military service and fulfilled a pledge to give something back to the country that had given him his freedom,” Bush said in a White House East Room ceremony.

Born in Hungary as a child of a shoemaker, in 1943 young Rubin (13) was taken to the infamous Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria during the Nazis’ effort to eliminate Hungary’s Jews. His mother and 10-year-old sister died in an Auschwitz gas chamber; while his father perished in Buchenwald. Rubin stayed long enough until he was liberated two years later by American troops. “We stunk, had terrible diseases. Still, they picked us up and brought us life,” Rubin recalled recently. He then took a vow to join that Army one day.

In 1948, his remaining family moved to America where he worked in New York City as a shoemaker, and then a butcher, before enlisting in the Army in 1950—not yet a U.S. citizen. Within months, he found himself on the front lines in Korea under the thumb of First Sgt. Artice Watson, an anti-Semite who repeatedly sent Rubin for dangerous assignments, such as to hold a strategically critical hill so his battalion could withdraw. So for the next 24 hours, the lone Private fought wave after wave of North Korean soldiers—ran around to fire from different directions and rolled hand grenades down so the enemy would think there were many soldiers to face in the battle.

For his deeds, the two commanding officers ordered Watson to secure the Medal of Honor for Rubin. But they were killed soon after, and the First Sergeant never prepared the papers. Fellow GIs later signed affidavits stating that the Watson rebuffed Rubin because he did not want the combat honor to go to a Jew. “I really believe, in my heart, that (the sergeant) would have jeopardized his own safety rather than assist in any way whatsoever in the awarding of the medal to a person of Jewish descent,” former Cpl. Harold Speakman wrote.

His undaunted bravery did not stop there, however. In October 1950 at the Battle of Unsan, the US troops were attacked by a large Chinese army. Rubin defended his unit using the last machine gun to give chance for the badly injured ones to retreat. The battle ended with hundreds of US soldiers—including the severely wounded Rubin—were captured.

Since then they had to fight the constant hunger, fatigue, and disease. Life was made difficult for those prisoners of war that nobody would help the others. But Rubin was an exception. having survived the Nazis concentration camp, he knew how to get through the hardest times. Almost every evening he stole food from the Chinese and North Korean supply depots and share anything he could get with the others. In a letter written in 1982, fellow prisoner James Bourgeois told how everyday Rubin would boil a helmet full of snow to clean his bandages and tend to a large open wound on his shoulder; when the wound filled with pus, Rubin foraged for maggots and placed them in the gash to eat away the infection, saving Bourgeois’ arm. “he was a godsend,” says Leo Cormier, another fellow POW. “Tibor saved my life, as well as many other guys.”

More than 1,600 prisoners were reported to die at the camp that winter in Korea. Rubin was said to keep at least forty inmates alive. Yet he received nothing from the Army but his discharge; kidneys half gone; plenty of implanted stents to keep his heart beating; bad arthritis and an unusable right leg: 100 percent medical disability!

In the early 1980s, his fellow prisoners acted. They began a campaign to have his heroics recognized. In the affidavits submitted to the Army after their release they recommended him for the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross and Silver Star, the Army’s investigation showed.

In 1988, Sen. John McCain introduced a special bill on Rubin’s behalf to force the Army to look into his valorous conduct. In 2001 U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida introduced a bill to force the Pentagon to review the records of veterans who may have been denied the Medal of Honor because they were Jews. And finally Pentagon moved and gave the heroes what they deserved.

Rubin only said in his still-thick Hungarian accent, “After 55 years, I never figured I’m going to get it, so I’m very happy.”

This has been originally posted here on October 17, 2005