When their nation, the United States, was attacked by the Empire of Japan, the Navajo people responded. I had the opportunity to sit down with a Marine Navajo Code Talker in his home on the Rez, in Ganado. A little known, yet true American warrior-hero. And what an amazing evening! The opportunity of a lifetime, offering priceless insights into the meaning of patriotism and sacrifice, a glimpse into a world I shall not forget...

Can one person change the course of history? You bet! It's happened many times in our past. President Lincoln was about to be turned out of office and a Copperhead Democrat elected in his place, promising to sign a treaty with the Confederate South, allowing them to keep their slaves and break apart the United States of America, creating two (or more) probably perpetually hostile, and weak, nations. This would have been a disaster for the world, especially five decades later when Communism, and then Nazism, would sweep the world. And without a strong, united America, the world would not likely have prevailed. And the eternal evil of human bondage would continue. In fact, today we would not recognize our nation, or even ourselves. Can one person have a major impact upon history? Stick with me at HEROES FOR FREEDOM! and I'll show you how and why. I'm Rick Robison and this is Heroes For Freedom!

In 1825, the renegades, Indian and white, surrounded six-year-old Wye-anna’s Shoshoni village in the predawn raid in the shadows of the Wind River Mountains of what would become Wyoming. They sought scalps and young captives they could abuse and then sell.

Sweeping through my triple-great grandmother’s village, the raiders killed the men outright, molested, tortured, then murdered the women, and captured a number of children, including Wye-anna (Sally). The brutality was unspeakable. But fortunately for my triple-great grandmother, Sally ended up being rescued by a kind-hearted mountain man who was headed back to St. Louis. There she was raised by a compassionate Christian family where she was educated in the ways of the whites. But when fifteen years old, she longed for the great Rocky Mountains of home, so she set off alone on her quest, following the Missouri River westward seeking its headwaters and into an adventure rarely repeated by a teen in the history of our nation.

Too often hidden or ignored in America’s extremely diverse past we find amazing examples of peoples, cultures, races, and creeds, working together to build our free, open, prosperous society.