PHOTO: sacap.com
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” – Nelson Mandela
Sometimes all you need to keep you going throughout the week is a little boost. It’s nice to have a reminder that there’s good people in the world, real-life superheroes who saved the day. Some of them even altered the course of history. Here’s 25 inspiring tales of real-life bravery that remind us what courage is really about:
1. The Fukushima Volunteers
PHOTO: rt.com
After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, there was a lot of cleanup to be done. Yasuteru Yamada, a 72-year-old engineer, hated seeing young men risk their lives in a radioactive environment in an effort to contain the damage. Yamada organized the Skilled Veterans Corps, a volunteer force of elderly Japanese engineers and others who would willingly take the place of younger men and expose themselves to radiation in order to contain and clean up after the disaster.
“I am 72 and on average I probably have 13 to 15 years left to live,” Yamada said, “Even if I were exposed to radiation, cancer could take 20 or 30 years or longer to develop. Therefore us older ones have less chance of getting cancer.”
