Ted Rubin: An American Hero

Fire of Liberty


Here's James S. Robbins awesome tribute over at National Review Online to Ted Rubin, our most recent Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. This wonderful tribute paints a wonderful picture of Rubin who after surviving the horrors of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria during WWII, emigrated to the US and joined the Army during the height of The Korean War in which he showed bravery under fire by staying behind and protecting a hill from the advancing enemy why fellow troops moved to another hill. Though Rubin's defense of the hill is an amazing feat, I found his crowning achievement during the conflict occurred during two and a half years in a POW camp in Korea, where has was credited for saving some 40 lives. Take a look:

Ted found himself in the Pukchin POW camp, also known as "Death Valley," and later at Pyoktong, along with hundreds of Americans, Turks, and others. The camps were at first run by the North Koreans, then by the Chinese, whom Ted said treated them slightly better. Nevertheless, life was nightmarish for the prisoners. They were cold and hungry, and disease was rampant. "Healthy men became like babies, helpless," Ted said. "Everything was stink, death, it was terrible, terrible." Thirty to forty a day were dying. "It was hardest on the Americans who were not used to this," Ted said. "But I had a heck of a basic training from the Germans."

Ted used all the experience he had gained as a Holocaust survivor in helping keep himself and other prisoners alive. "I did it because I was an American," Ted told me, "and because it was a mitzvah. Regardless of color or nationality, they were my brothers." Food was vital for survival, so he began to steal rations from the enemy, who had little enough themselves. Fellow POW Sergeant Carl McClendon stated, "every day, when it got dark, and we went to sleep, Rubin was on his way, crawling on his stomach, jumping over fences, breaking in supply houses, while the guns were looking down on him. He tied the bottom of his fatigue pants and filled up anything he could get ahold of. He crawled back and distributed the food that he had stolen and risked his life."

Ted also did what he could to treat the sick and injured. But many were beyond saving, and diseases such as dysentery could strike anyone. "No one knew when they would die," Ted noted, "It was all random." When prisoners passed away, Ted would bury them, and recite the Kaddish. "I buried my friends, my comrades, American soldiers," Ted said, "and asked the Good Lord to let them rest in peace."

So let's give Tibor "Ted" Rubin a hand for his excellent service to this nation.