Attention must be paid: Ted Rubin

Tibor “Teddy” Rubin died this month of natural causes in Garden Grove, Calif. His was an extraordinary life: A Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor, he moved to America, joined the Army, fought heroically in the Korean War and performed even greater heroism as a POW.
He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2005.
“When Corporal Rubin’s battalion found itself ambushed by thousands of Chinese troops,” President George W. Bush said at the ceremony, “the Americans’ firepower soon dwindled to a single machine gun. The weapon was in an exposed position and there soldiers had already died manning it.
“That was when Corporal Rubin stepped forward. He fought until his ammunition was gone. He was badly wounded, captured and sent to a POW camp.”
He was no stranger to captivity. At 14, he’d been sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. He survived 14 months there; his parents and younger sister did not. Liberation inspired him to become a GI when he was old enough.
As a POW, he was confined in a Chinese-run prison camp along the Yalu River, on the border of North Korea and Manchuria. His captors offered to send him back to Hungary; he refused.
Instead, in 30 months as a prisoner, he took it upon himself to take care of his brothers. Time after time, he snuck out of the camp, stole food — and brought it back.
“He shared the food evenly among the GIs,” Sgt. Leo A. Cormier Jr., a fellow prisoner, wrote in a statement, according to The Jewish Journal. “He also took care of us, nursed us, carried us to the latrine. Helping his fellow men was the most important thing to him.”
He’d also earn two Purple Hearts for his wartime actions and courage.
“I have a mom who was very religious,” Rubin said in a documentary. “And she always [taught] us: ‘There is one God, and we are all brothers and sisters. You have to take care of your brothers, and save them.’ To her, to save somebody’s life is the greatest honor. And I did that.”
If only we had more like him.
May he rest in peace.
NYP