by Joseph P. Tartaro | Executive Editor
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman many years ago in his writings and lectures divided people into sheep, wolves and sheep dogs. That was his way of defining those who have chosen or been trained to be victims, those who prey on them, and those who try to intervene to prevent the toll from growing too intolerable. Among the sheep dogs Grossman counted the military, the police, and those prepared to intervene in defense of themselves and others—particularly the sheep.
This column was inspired recently in part by Megyn Kelly’s interview on Fox News of the three American heroes of the French train terrorist attack in August, which program was aired on Friday night, Sept. 11, 2015, the fourteenth anniversary of the al-Queda attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Virginia, and a third intended target, believed to be a US government building in Washington, DC.
It struck me that we were presented, however unintentionally, with the striking confluence of heroic action by some of the passengers on Flight 93 in September 2001 and that of a few passengers on the Amsterdam to Paris train late this summer.
No one knows for sure all the names of the people who rushed and fought the Islamic terrorists on Flight 93 in 2001, but we have to assume that all the passengers and probably crew deserve credit. We do know that their intervention prevented the suicidal terrorists from causing further death and destruction. United Airlines Flight 93 had been diverted from its scheduled destination of Pittsburgh and at least some passengers aboard had learned through cell phone communications what had happened when two hijacked flights had struck the World Trade Center.
They knew the fate that awaited them if they acted like sheep and allowed the box-cutter-armed terrorists who had commandeered their flight to dictate their fate, and the fate of perhaps thousands of others in the real target area.
They chose not to be sheep. Though unarmed, they became sheep dogs and took the fight to the armed hijacking terrorists, with two words: “Let’s roll.”
They did not save their own lives, nor those of their fellow passengers and the United Airlines crew, but they forced the plane to crash in a Pennsylvania field, and they saved the lives of an unknown number of Americans had their flight been allowed to reach its intended target.
The heroism of the unnamed sheep dog passengers of Flight 93, along with the crew and other passengers, have since been permanently memorialized at the Shanksville, PA, site where the terrorist wolves’ ambitions were dashed on a hillside.
There is a symmetry to the flight over Pennsylvania and the train tracks in Europe.
When the AK-armed terrorist showed himself on the train, and assaulted his first passenger, three young American friends quickly took action to intervene, again with just two words: “Let’s go.”
They were aided by a British businessman in the same car.
Unarmed, the young American trio—US Airman Spencer Stone, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, and their longtime friend, Anthony Sadler—instinctively charged the terrorist within seconds of his showing himself. During the struggle, they not only disarmed the terrorist of his AK, but of a Glock pistol and a box cutter. Stone was severely slashed by the terrorist’s box cutter. But the sheep dogs subdued him, and he is now in the custody of French authorities. His lawyer later claimed that he was not a terrorist but merely a hungry robber.
The Americans, and the Brit who came to their aid, have been lionized by the governments of France and Belgium and received plaudits from their respective governments. They were honored during a ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris in which the French president, Francois Hollande, pinned the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest medal for valor, on the three American and one British sheep dogs, saying they had prevented a “veritable carnage” aboard that train and saved the lives of hundreds.
Once again, a few men with no requirement to act had chosen not be sheep but sheep dogs,
The trio of Americans have since been honored and their heroism recognized in their home state of California, and will probably be honored everywhere, as they have been in Europe.
I’m sure Col. Grossman will also recognize the fact that they acted immediately, even though unarmed, to prevent great loss of life. They didn’t have time for a debate.
But I have a small bone to pick with Grossman. In his writings, so far I have not found mention of a fourth division of human beings: the jackals. Maybe he has touched on that category, but I haven’t yet read everything he has written.
The jackals are those politicians, especially those like Michael Bloomberg, who hire sheep dogs for their own personal protection but would deny the average citizens the right to resistance, and force them to become sheep and victims, even if that is against their will.
The jackals are also those European politicians who have largely disarmed the people of their nations with restrictive gun laws that do not prevent the criminal and terrorist wolves from being armed. The mass murderers, terrorists and common criminals don’t seem to have trouble getting guns in Europe to prey on sheep, and even professional sheep dogs.
Such gun control laws as they have in France and much of Europe eventually create a permanent class of sheep victims: people who sit by when assaulted and die without resistance. They even agree with the concept that people have no right to self-defense, and that they should not even cry out for help when attacked.
Some in the United States and most of the diplomats at the United Nations consider this enlightened and strive to disarm all the peaceful citizens of the world. I consider it shameful.
The Fox News broadcast also reminded me of a poem I had read and liked many years ago entitled “Sheep” by W. H. Davies. I won’t quote the whole 19th century poem in which a young man, the narrator, is hired for 50 shillings down to work aboard a ship transporting sheep from Baltimore to Glasgow, Scotland, only the closing two lines:
“For fifty thousand shillings down
I would not sail again with sheep.”
