The Fading Story of One of Our Very Bravest
He proved himself with both barrels
Bravery is a state of mind. Without fear, there is no bravery. And fear is reacting to danger. Not only that, it doesn’t matter if the danger is real as long as you truly think it is.
We have always retained special places of notoriety for our heroes. We remember and even revere them for great acts and often recognize many of them as having displayed almost superhuman bravery.
King Leonidas I of Sparta spearheaded a defense against an army of invading Persians with a small force of 300 Spartan Hoplites. Estimates of the size of Xerxes’ army have ranged from over two million men to more modest estimates ranging from 70,000 to 300,000. But even the best-case odds at 300 to 70,000 are impressive, and that’s why we remember what they did.
We have enough heroes that there is no possibility of listing them all in this essay. But here are a few — Boudicca faces down the Roman Empire — Davy Crocket defends the Alamo — Neil Armstrong takes a single step — And William Dock wields his double-barreled shotgun.
So, who is William Dock?
At 8 PM on the evening of October 30, 1938, the Mercury Theater on the Air broadcast a radio drama based on H. G. Wells’s novel The War of the Worlds. Orson Wells…
