Meena Keshwar Kkamal

MEENA (1956-1987) was born on February 27, 1956 in Kabul. During her school days, students in Kabul and other Afghan cities were deeply engaged in social activism and rising mass movements. She left the university to devote herself as a social activist to organizing and educating women. In pursuit of her cause for gaining the right of freedom of expression and conducting political activities, Meena laid the foundation of RAWA in 1977.

This organization was meant to give voice to the deprived and silenced women of Afghanistan. She started a campaign against the Russian forces and their puppet regime in 1979 and organized numerous processions and meetings in schools, colleges and Kabul University to mobilize public opinion.

Another great service rendered by her for the Afghan women is the launching of a bilingual magazine,  Payam-e-Zan (Women's Message) in 1981. Through this magazine RAWA has been projecting the cause of Afghan women boldly and effectively. Payam-e-Zan has constantly exposed the criminal nature of fundamentalist groups. Meena also established  Watan Schools for refugee children, a hospital and handicraft centers for refugee women in Pakistan to support Afghan women financially.

At the end of 1981, by invitation of the French Government Meena represented the Afghan resistance movement at the French Socialist Party Congress. The Soviet delegation at the Congress, headed by Boris Ponamaryev, shamefacedly left the hall as participants cheered when Meena started waving a victory sign. Besides France, she also visited several other European countries and met their prominent personalities.

Her active social work and effective advocacy against the views of the fundamentalists and the puppet regime provoked the wrath of the Russians and the fundamentalist forces alike and she was assassinated by agents of KHAD (Afghanistan branch of KGB) and their fundamentalist accomplices in Quetta, Pakistan, on February 4,1987.

Meena gave 12 years of her short but brilliant life to struggle for her homeland and her people. She had a strong belief that despite the darkness of illiteracy, ignorance of fundamentalism, and corruption and decadence of sell outs imposed on women under the name of freedom and equality, finally that half of population will be awaken and cross the path towards freedom, democracy and women's rights. The enemy was rightly shivering with fear by the love and respect that Meena was creating within the hearts of our people.

Malalai Kakar

The woman in the burqua is an Afghani martyr who put her life on the line for democracy and women’s rights. Her name was Malalai Kakar, and she was Kandahar’s first female police officer .

The mother of six was considered an iconic figure around the world for her efforts in protecting Afghani women from the terror of the Taliban. After following in the footsteps of her police officer father and brothers in 1982, Kakar eventually rose to the rank of captain and became the head of the department of crimes against women. She was a protector, and her burqa was what allowed her to do her job.

Photographer, Lana Šlezić met Kakar while she was living in Afghanistan and working on a photography book about the country’s women from 2004 to 2006. She remembers Kakar as “an incredible person” and “a light at the end of the tunnel.”

“She was my hope for Afghani woman in the future,” Šlezić says, “Malalai was the only woman they could turn to.”

Šlezić met with Kakar multiple times, both in her home and at the police station. “I remember one woman knocking on her door with her white burqa covered in blood because she had been beaten,” Šlezić says, recalling how local women were constantly in need of Kakar’s help. One day Šlezić even joined her on the job to confront a group of kidnappers who had taken a young girl. She remembers Kakar throwing a burqa over her uniform, jumping in a truck, and entering the kidnappers hideout with her pistol drawn, eventually rescuing the girl. “She was a hero,” Šlezić says.

In the Afghanistan of the Taliban, the woman named Malalai Kakar appeared like a guardian angel and for a brief  moment, shone bright until the Taliban fatally shot her in September of 2008.

Count Felix Graf von Luckner

When thinking about the Imperial German Navy in World War One, the image of a U-Boat automatically springs to mind. But there were other stories of the sea, and there were other men of the sea that were lauded by friend and foe alike because of their courage, honor and nobility. Felix Graf von Luckner was one such man.

Felix Graf von Luckner was born in Dresden on June 9, 1881 and was quite an adventurer. He had ran away from home at age thirteen to see a Buffalo Bill show, then signed up as an unpaid cabin boy on a Russian sailing ship under the assumed name of “Phylax Lüdecke.” He jumped ship in Australia and spent seven years doing an assortment of things to get by.

He enrolled in a German navigation training school at age twenty and passed the examinations for his mate’s commission. He volunteered service to the Imperial Navy and he took part in the Battle of Heligoland Bight, and during the Battle of Jutland he commanded a gun turret aboard the battleship Kronprinz Wilhelm.

In order to combat the lethal British blockade, Germany had converted several merchant ships into raiders by equipping them with guns and sending them in search of Allied merchant ships, but by 1915 most of the armed raiders had been sunk or interned. Germany could not send out any of the German Grand Fleet as they were involved in a stand off with British and French fleets, and they could not afford to lose any more ships.

All the Germans had left to commission was a 245-foot, full-rigged, Scottish-built three masted wooden bark built in 1888 that the Germans had captured off of Norway. It was close to the end of its life and needed a total rehaul. She was renamed “Seeadler” and she would find herself a perfect captain: the ten year veteran of sailing ships with an outstanding record in the German Navy, colorful aristocrat Count Felix Von Luckner. As virtually the only officer in the German Navy with extensive experience of large sailing ships, Luckner was appointed commander of the impounded ship. The problem was how to get it through the tight British blockade.

The Seeadler, with its bogus name “Irma” and a load of timber supposedly bound for Australia, carried false papers and a pilfered log book when it quietly slipped out of the river Weser on December 21, 1916 and skirted up the Norwegian coast to sneak around the tip of Northern Scotland where it could break free into the Atlantic. Many of the crew of 6 officers and 57 men on the “Irma” were chosen for their ability to speak Norwegian, as could the captain, in case of British interception.
As part of the pretense, von Luckner had a thin young sailor ready to wear a blonde wig and masquerade as his wife.

The Seeadler had only two obsolete cannons and a few rifles for protection when she sailed straight into one of the worst hurricanes that had hit the North Sea in a long time. As Luck(ner) would have it, the hurricane was more of a blessing than a curse. Although Von Luckner, running the frozen ship with the wind, was being pushed dangerously North toward the arctic ice, the storm had dispersed the British blockade and forced their ships back to port. In the nick of time, the winds died down and the crew was able to free the ice from the blocks and the running rigging could finally be used to change sail. The Seeadler sailed toward calmer seas.

After a close call with a boarding party from an armed British merchant cruiser, Von Luckner was cleared to proceed, and on Jan 9, 1917 the Count captured his first vessel, the steamship Gladys Royal, who was carrying 5,000 tons of coal. The entire crew of captured sailors were taken safely aboard the Seeadler while the Gladys Royal was sent to the bottom of the sea. In the next thirty thousand miles of sailing, Von Luckner sunk 14 ships and would never allow any of the crew of his captured vessels to drown. He not only allowed the captured sailors to live, he treated them with the utmost respect and courtesy. They were well-fed, well-berthed and allowed recreation on deck while their Captains dined daily with Von Luckner at the Captain’s table.

About the time the Seeadler’s prisoners’ quarters were bursting at the seams from his generosity, Von Luckner captured a French bark, the Cambronne, which was well stocked with provisions. He extracted a promise from his prisoners that if he let them have the Cambronne, albeit with much-reduced rigging to slow it down, they would not try to converse with any ships and would sail directly to the nearest port, Rio de Janeiro, thus allowing the Seeadler time to make her getaway. He then treated the departing Captains, under the command of Captain Mullen of the Pinmore, to a banquet, and with his own money he paid every captured seaman the same wages they would have earned otherwise during their time of captivity. They sailed off to freedom and all of them kept the promise. The notorious Count was from that time forward given the name “The Sea Devil.”

The Seeadler had successfully sunk 50,000 tons in her short career. Every man of the crew eventually returned home to Germany. Von Luckner had lost not one of his own crew or any of those captured throughout his many raids. After the war, Von Luckner authored a book of his adventures and traveled extensively, lecturing and teaching in the United States and England. Many cities in the United States made him an honorary citizen.

Captain Ed Freeman - Vietnam war

Sometimes guns are not enough to win the day. A little bit of courage and determination in the right person is all that is needed.

Ed W. "Too Tall" Freeman (November 20, 1927 – August 20, 2008) was a United States Army helicopter pilot who received the U.S. military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions in the Battle of Ia Drang during the Vietnam War. During the battle, he flew through gunfire numerous times, bringing supplies to a trapped American battalion and flying dozens of wounded soldiers to safety. Freeman was a wing-man for Major Bruce Crandall who also received the Medal of Honor for the same missions.

You're a 19 year old kid. You are critically wounded and dying in the jungle somewhere in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam . It's November 11, 1967. LZ (landin...g zone) X-ray. Your unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is so intense from 100 yards away, that your commanding officer has ordered the MedEvac helicopters to stop coming in. You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns and you know you're not getting out. Your family is half way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again.

As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day. Then - over the machine gun noise - you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter. You look up to see a Huey coming in. But.. It doesn't seem real because no MedEvac markings are on it.

Captain Ed Freeman is coming in for you. He's not MedEvac so it's not his job, but he heard the radio call and decided he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire anyway. Even after the MedEvacs were ordered not to come. He's coming anyway. And he drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 3 of you at a time on board. Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses and safety. And, he kept coming back!! 13 more times!! Until all the wounded were out.

No one knew until the mission was over that the Captain had been hit 4 times in the legs and left arm. He took 29 of you and your buddies out that day. Some would not have made it without the Captain and his Huey. Medal of Honor Recipient, Captain Ed Freeman, United States Air Force, died August 28, 2008 at the age of 70, in Boise, Idaho.

Ken Taylor

May 10, 1934 – October 15, 2015

Canadian Ambassador to Iran – 1977 - 1980

Awarded the United States Congressional Gold Medal
Officer of the Order of Canada
Canadian Consul-General to New York City
University of Toronto- Chancellor of Victoria College.

A shining example of friendship between countries. A perfect example of personal courage. A fantastic example of Brains over guns.

On November 4, 1979, a mob of Iranians, mostly radical university students and supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini, surged over the wall around the United States compound in Tehran and occupied the American Embassy. They took most of those in the compound hostage, illegally holding them for 14 long, dark months, as the world's superpower looked on, desperate and helpless.

But six Americans escaped capture that day The Agricultural Attaché, Lee Schatz,Robert Anders, the head of the consular section, and two Consular Attachés, Joe Stafford and Mark Lijek, with their wives.

Picking their way cautiously through the streets, they reached the temporary security of Anders' apartment, and shortly after, and for the months that followed, the "Canadian Caper unfolded.

The Canadian Ambassador in Iran, Ken Taylor, first heard of the Embassy takeover from his Swedish colleague, whose building overlooked the compound. He promptly informed Ottawa. Four days later, his Chief Immigration Officer, John Sheardown, was astonished to receive a phone call from Bob Anders. Anders explained the situation and asked if he and his group could be given shelter within the next few days; Sheardown promised to consult the Ambassador.

Taylor didn't hesitate. The Americans would be given shelter and after many anxious months of planning, a daring and successful plan was developed.

The daring rescue touched a nerve in the U.S., where Americans were desperate for good news. It brought an outpouring of gratitude across the United States and made a celebrity of Taylor, who made personal appearances across North America, reaping honours and awards from grateful Americans. Exploiting his celebrity, the government appointed him Canada's next Consul-General in New York. And why not? He had already received the keys to the city!

Washington awarded Taylor the Congressional Gold Medal and Canada made him an Officer of the Order of Canada. Sheardown, Lucy, Taylor's secretary, Laverna Dollimore, and the Embassy's communicator, Mary Catherine O'Flaherty, were made Members of the Order of Canada. Sgt. Gauthier and two fellow military policemen received the Order of Military Merit. Foreign service spouses were outraged that Pat Taylor and Zena Sheardown were not similarly honoured, and protested strongly. They too became members of the Order of Canada.

Specialist Joshua Strickland

Army Sgt. Joshua J. Strickland

Died September 21, 2013 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

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23, of Woodstock, Ga., assigned to 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.; died Sept. 21 at Forward Operating Base Shank of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire while conducting range training in Gardez, Paktia Province, Afghanistan. Also killed in the incident were Staff Sgt. Liam Nevins and Staff Sgt. Timothy McGill.

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Pentagon IDs 3 Special Forces soldiers killed in Afghanistan attack
Staff report
The Pentagon on Tuesday identified three soldiers killed in an apparent insider attack Sept. 21 at a base in Paktia province, Afghanistan.

According to a Department of Defense press release, the three soldiers died at Forward Operating Base Shank when “enemy forces” attacked their unit with small arms fire while the soldiers were conducting range training in Gardez.

Earlier reports said an Afghan wearing a security forces uniform turned his weapon against U.S. troops on Sept. 21 inside a base of the Afghan army in Gardez.
Killed were:

-- Staff Sgt. Liam J. Nevins, 32, of Denver, Colo., assigned to 5th Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group, Watkins, Colo. Nevins received a Purple Heart with Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster (2nd Award) and Army Commendation Medal with two Bronze Oak Leaf Clusters (3rd Award) among his numerous awards. Nevins is survived by his mother, his father, two sisters, and his fiance.

-- Staff Sgt. Timothy R. McGill, 30, of Ramsey, N.J., assigned to 2nd Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group, Middletown, R.I. McGill deployed with the 3rd Marine Division in 2005 and joined the R.I. National Guard in 2008. His awards and decorations include the Army Commendation Medal and the National Defense Service Medal. He is survived by his parents and two sisters.

-- Spc. Joshua J. Strickland, 23, of Woodstock, Ga., assigned to 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. His awards and decorations include the Army Commendation Medal and the Army Achievement Medal. He is survived by his wife, his son and two daughters.

So-called insider attacks killed 62 personnel in 47 incidents last year compared with 35 killed in 21 attacks a year earlier, according to NATO.
So far in 2013, 11 foreign soldiers have been killed in seven such attacks, including Saturday’s, according to an Associated Press count.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Specialist Joshua Strickland is only one of the thousands of soldiers who could, and should be placed among the bright spots of humanity, not for what they do, but how they do it.

In some cases, what a person has already accomplished speaks volumes about that individual. Imagine what that person could have accomplished had they not been struck down.

To all the service men and women who serve, or have served, or will serve, what you are choosing to do with your life speaks volumes about your character.  Guns are simply your keyboard, your business flow charts and your tools of the trade. You have chosen a life of service for reasons only you can adequately understand.

When you come home, remember your humanity. Until then, do your job well and with integrity and strength of character. But do come home

John Diefenbaker

"On 31 March 1958, Diefenbaker led the Progressive Conservatives to a landslide win over the Liberals. They held 208 of 265 seats in the House of Commons (53.7% of the popular vote) including 50 of 75 seats in Québec. Diefenbaker’s victory remains the largest in Canadian history, based on a percentage of the total seats in the House of Commons. Following the election, Diefenbaker wasted no time in moving toward fulfilling his vision of creating a Canada that promoted fundamental rights and freedoms."

John Diefenbaker was a prominent criminal lawyer in Saskatchewan before becoming an MP in 1940. After two losses, Diefenbaker finally won the position of the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in 1956. With Diefenbaker at the helm, the Progressive Conservatives won the 1957 election and ended the Liberal Party’s 22 year run in office.

In 1960, Diefenbaker implemented a Bill of Rights to protect the fundamental rights of Canadians. While he was exceedingly proud of the accomplishment, it was less effective than it should have been, as the provincial governments did not consent to the Bill. The Bill was therefore not entrenched in the Constitution.

Diefenbaker was also responsible for changing the laws that made it possible for Aboriginal people to vote in federal elections. Prior to 1960, they were not permitted to.

One of the things Diefenbaker is most remembered for is the cancellation of the Avro CF – 105 Arrow fighter jets after high building costs and low sales. In an unusual move, the government ordered that all of the plans and the prototypes be destroyed. Only small models of the aircraft remain as evidence of this significant part of Canadian aeronautical history.

Diefenbaker’s government ran into political trouble in a number of areas. The use of nuclear weapons was a hot topic, but the government decided that nuclear weapons would not be permitted in Canada. (to this day, no nuclear weapons exist in Canada nor does the Canadian military possess nuclear weapons as part of their arsenal.)

John Diefenbaker's oratorical powers have not been seen in Canadian politics for many years and it was not so much what he said but the passion and belief in what he said that made him one of Canada's greatest political figures .

John Diefenbaker remained a Member of Parliament until his death in August 1979.