Then a Hero Comes Along.

There's this wonderful application on my iTouch called Cool Facts. And basically what it is is just a bunch of Cool Facts, hence the name. And most of the facts are pretty cool. (Wow, I'm becoming redundant.) Anyways, my favorite fact that I've ever read goes like this: A baboon called Jackie became a private in the South African army in World War I.

Some of you might need to read that again: A baboon called Jackie became a private in the South African army in World War I.

When I read this I was in a car for six hours on a road-trip with my friends and since we didn't have internet access on the road, we had to wait to look Jackie up. All of our many questions about how this came about, how much responsibility Jackie was given, if Jackie lived or not, etc. had to wait to be answered. But we had faith that Jackie was basically a modern super-hero, like Optimus Prime or Wolverine or Betty White.
And our faith proved true. Not only did Jackie become a private, he was promoted to corporal. He also was given a paycheck, uniform and rations. He was in the front for three years and at one point his "friend" (owner) was injured and Jackie stayed by his side licking the wounds for hours until help arrived. Jackie himself was injured and had to have his right leg amputated, but made a full recovery and was given a medal of bravery right before being honorably discharged from the army. He also had an English accent. Ok, he might not have had an English accent, but if he could speak, he would have. And when my friends and I speak for him, he definitely does. But everything before the accent part is true. If you don't believe me you can look it up.

Needless to say, I think we all have a new hero in our lives. His name is Jackie; and he's a baboon.