Up by the Bootstraps

Behold, the American dream.

LOS ANGELES — Tibor Rubin kept his promise to join the U.S. Army after American troops freed him from the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria during World War II.

A Hungarian Jew, Rubin immigrated to New York after the war, joined the Army and fought as an infantryman in the Korean War. In 1951, Chinese troops captured Cpl. Rubin and other U.S. soldiers and he became a prisoner of war for 2 1/2 years.

More than five decades later, after a relentless campaign by grateful comrades and Jewish war veterans, President Bush on Sept. 23 will give Rubin the Medal of Honor.

"I was only staying alive to get that medal and now I'm going to enjoy it," said the 76-year-old Rubin, who now lives in Garden Grove.

He was nominated four times for the medal, the nation's highest recognition for bravery in battle. But some believe the paperwork was never submitted because a member of his chain of command discriminated against him for being Jewish and born in Hungary.

When he was at the Chinese prisoners' camp known as "Death Valley," Rubin said he would pray in Hebrew for the U.S. soldiers — about 40 each day — who died in the freezing weather. He also took care of soldiers suffering from dysentery or pneumonia.

It's people like Tibor Rubin that make this country what it is: the greatest nation on God's green Earth. It's people like Tibor Rubin that give us freedom, and it's people like these riff raff that make us appreciate his sacrifice even more.