Heroes for My Son Read Online Free PDF Page B

Twain
    Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
    â€”Mark Twain

— FIRST LADY —
eleanor roosevelt
    Activist. Role model. Wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

    The first lady during the Great Depression and World War II, Eleanor Roosevelt became a fighter for women’s rights, minorities’ rights, and social justice.
    Â 
    Â 
    I n 1932, seventeen thousand veterans and their families descended on Washington, D.C., and built a tent city, demanding what they believed were overdue payments for their service during World War I.
    Â 
    President Hoover sent General Douglas MacArthur and troops armed with fixed bayonets to meet the veterans with force. With tanks. With tear gas.
    Â 
    By March 1933, when the veterans returned, FDR was president. Instead of sending the Army, he sent his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt.
    Â 
    The first lady went to the tent city. Alone.
    Â 
    In mud and rain, she walked among the veterans. She talked to them like people. She listened.
    Â 
    Soon after, an executive order was issued that created twenty-five thousand jobs for veterans through the Civilian Conservation Corps and eventually led to the 1944 passage of the GI Bill of Rights, which gave veterans federal assistance in returning to civilian life. *
    No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
    â€”Eleanor Roosevelt
    Many journalists suggested that if Eleanor Roosevelt wanted to comment on politics, she should do it off the record. That wasn’t her way.
    â€œI am making these statements on purpose,” she said, “to arouse controversy and thereby get the topics talked about.”
    Race relations, the suffrage movement, poverty—every topic was fair game. Indeed, President Roosevelt didn’t publicly support civil rights for black people—until after the first lady started speaking out against the social injustice of Jim Crow laws.

— EXPLORER —
neil armstrong
    Test pilot. Astronaut. Space traveler.

    On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 mission commander Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon, embodying the hopes and dreams of generations.
    Â 
    Â 
    A t ten, he started cutting grass at the cemetery, just so he could earn enough money to buy that model plane.
    But a model wouldn’t cut it.
    Â 
    At fifteen, he worked three jobs at forty cents an hour, saving it all to pay for flying lessons.
    But lessons could only take him so far.
    Â 
    At sixteen, when his friends were learning to drive, he earned his pilot’s license. Then he hitched a ride home to tell his parents.
    But he still didn’t have a plane.
    Â 
    At thirty, he fearlessly tested two hundred different aircraft.
    The X-15 rocket plane went faster and higher than any plane had gone before. But it wasn’t fast enough.
    Â 
    At thirty-nine, he floated down the ladder, his voice calm, his movements unhurried.
    Then he took a small step…and began walking on the moon.
    Â 
    Still, Neil Armstrong was being modest.
    It wasn’t just one small step that got him there.
    It was the thousands that came before it. *
    I think we’re going to the moon because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges.
    â€”Neil Armstrong

— IDEALIST —
paul new man
    Actor. Sex symbol. Philanthropist.

    Founder of the Newman’s Own food line and benefactor of numerous philanthropic causes, actor Paul Newman used his fame to help others.
    Â 
    Â 
    I t started the week before Christmas 1980.
    Â 
    He mixed the first big batch of salad dressing in his basement, stirring the tub with a canoe paddle.
    Â 
    They poured it into wine bottles and put ribbons on them.
    Â 
    He thought it’d be fun. Then it got serious.
    Â 
    Even if it didn’t work, all the profits were going to charity, so at least there’d be a little bit more for cancer research.
    Â 
    Dressings, popcorns, salsas, and $265 million later, movie star