Heroes

In the winter of 2004 a joint US, Iraqi, and British operation kicked off in Iraq. Local forces called it Operation Al-Fajr. Allied troops titled it Operation Phantom Fury. The world came to know this simply epic scrap as the Second Battle of Fallujah.

Ian Fleming conjured his fictional MI6 agent 007 based upon his personal experiences as a spy during WW2. The name James Bond was pirated from that of an obscure ornithologist of the day. Fleming wanted his secret agent to have a name that was both pedestrian and unremarkable.

Wild Bill Donovan’s statue graces the lobby of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, today. In 2011 Vanity Fair writer Evan Douglas described Donovan’s exploits as “a brave, noble, headlong, gleeful, sometimes outrageous pursuit of action and skullduggery.” Wild Bill Donovan was the real freaking deal.

It’s a timeless question. Nature versus nurture. Does greatness stem from some simple combination of nucleotides embedded within your DNA, or is it something that can be coaxed, taught, or trained?

Eli Crane’s life has been full of failures and success. He sat down with GunsAmerica to tell us how he went from near-high school dropout to Navy SEAL to successful business owner.

The security contractor did what we all hope we would do. He ran to the sound of gunfire, took charge of the chaos, and risked his own life to save others. His story is fraught with life lessons for armed Americans.

On a particularly dark day in October of 1918, John Barkley singlehandedly stopped an aggressive German Infantry assault using a captured German machinegun and a knocked-out French tank. John Barkley personified American heroism and courage.