Stolpa’s Heroics

Survival! It is our basic instinct when we approach the on-ramp to the freeway each morning. This instinct, multiplied a thousandfold, was evinced by James Daniel Stolpa, private first class, U.S. Army, when he saved himself, his wife, and his baby by hiking 40 miles through snow for two days in freezing weather (Jan. 7-8). The story is both astounding and thought-provoking.

Suddenly we are reminded of the Donner party and their horrendous ordeal in an earlier era, and we realize that such feats of courage still exist. But what is the trigger that brings about this response in people who today live in an age of unprecedented standards of ease?

Clearly it is the training given to this young man in his military service that gave him the knowledge, the capability and the courage to perform this incredible act. It is a sterling example of how military training can have a blessed spillover into every phase of our living.

SHIRLEY THOMAS

Hollywood