Daily Inspiration — The Greatest Hero in Military History

a standoff with Soviet warships outside Havana's harbor. A Soviet submarine, however, was undeterred. Unbeknownst to the Americans, the submarine was armed with nuclear weapons. US battleships set off depth charges to warn the sub to take the quarantine seriously.

It worked. They were locked under the sea, afraid to surface, and running out of air. Everyone in the crew was shaken up by explosions that echoed like hammers on hollow metal. Some crew members passed out from toxic CO2 levels in the sub.

Panic ensued. Commander Valentin Savitsky tried unsuccessfully to reach the general staff. He then ordered the officer in charge of the nuclear torpedo to prepare it for battle, shouting, "Maybe the war has already started up there, while we are doing somersaults here. We are going to blast them now. We will die, but we will sink them all. We will not disgrace our Navy." [Oliver Stone & Peter Kuznik, Untold History of the US Read the book. Watch the video.]

Savitsky turned to the other two officers. Unanimous consent of the three was the required protocol for using the nuclear torpedo. One officer agreed immediately, but the second, Vasily Arkhipov kept a calmer mind and a clearer head. He was able to calm the other two, and convince them to be patient.

We are all grateful to Vasily Arkhipov. In that act of reason and restraint under duress, one man saved the world from a war that would have instantly killed a billion people, and, over several years, wiped out most of the world's human and animal populations through fallout and nuclear winter.