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Vasili Arkhipov

en.wikipedia.org

1–10 of 54 posts

Re: Vasili Arkhipov

#6
It's a lonely and sad thought that the biggest heroes whose immense sacrifices and contributions to the well being of everyone around them are celebrated by... the blissful ignorance of everyone else.

Except in movies. There, we get to see and experience it all.

Re: Vasili Arkhipov

#8
post #3

This is another interesting story about a Russian who may have saved the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

Yup in 1983. Thanks to both of them. Petrov is still alive, so you can send him a Hallmark card if you're over 30 and glad to be alive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

Re: Vasili Arkhipov

#10
I was lucky enough to learn about this in high school - Andover. I forget the speakers name but he gave the speech between 2001 - 2005 (I can't remember). It was an incredible speech about Mutually Assured Destruction and how the theory was absurd. The speaker pointed out that no one thought that we would exit the Cold War without a horrible war. And then he asked, "Why did this not happen?" He pointed to Vasili's example as to how one SANE person can make a difference. He talked about several other examples. He ended the speech by repeating, "PEACE. PEACE. PEACE." At the moment I thought it was cheesy... but here I am more than 10 years later and I still remember it.
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