The Last Rescue by Howard Wasdin

The Last Rescue by Howard Wasdin with Joel Kilpatrick ISBN-13: 9781595555946 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Thomas Nelson Released: October 28, 2014

Source: Review copy from the publisher through BookLook.

Book Description, Modified from Back Cover:
As a Navy SEAL, Howard Wasdin survived the firestorm made famous in "Black Hawk Down" only to return to a world without support, without a mission, and soon without his family. Wounded in Mogadishu and facing a torturous journey of rehabilitation and recovery, he came home to find his marriage falling apart and his world upended. Then he met Debbie, an accountant emerging from her own trial by fire.

"The Last Rescue" is an unforgettable tale of brokenness and healing, going deep into the firing line of modern warfare, through the agony of broken marriages, and onto a path of redemption and love. With a clear-eyed view of the inevitability of heartache and the power of God's faithfulness, Howard and Debbie remind us that no matter what our circumstances, we should never, ever, give up hope.


My Review:
The Last Rescue is a memoir. Howard is the main viewpoint of the story, but Debbie gives her viewpoint of events at several points. Howard talked about his childhood and his injury in war to explain where he was coming from, but most of the book was about what happened when he returned: his recovery from his injury, his marriages, his attempts to make a living off his military skills, and finally choosing a new career--and life--path.

He was very open about admitting the ways that he was at fault in various relationship breakdowns and why he was acting that way. It was interesting to see his attitude changing from desperately wanting a loving family situation and needing to hold on to his "rock star" warrior status to slowly learning how to be a part of creating that loving, supportive family situation he craved and moving on to a new career path.

Though "rediscovering their faith in God" is in the book description, they didn't say much about their religious journey. The references were mainly about him feeling that God worked events in his life to bring healing and fulfillment and why he felt God had kept him alive. This book might interest returning war veterans who are having trouble readjusting as Howard has "been there, done that."


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Book Quote: Lost Boys of South Sudan

From A People Tall and Smooth: Stories of Escape from Sudan to Israel by Judith Galblum Pex (pages 37, 39, 46-47):

From 1983 to 1987 our life was stressful. Food was no problem, but when the government heard that rebels were in a particular place, they would come and even abduct children. So in 1987 when I was about ten years old, I decided to run away and join the other boys who were fleeing our area.

During the war the policy of the Arab-controlled government was to Islamize the boys especially. They aimed to change our ideology. The government soldiers might seize girls and women and abuse them, but boys were crucial to their plan to create a new Muslim society. They would brainwash the boys, give them guns, and send them back to kill their own people. That's how they operated. And that's why our parents sent us boys away.

Not all of us reached Ethiopia. We were protected by two or three rebel neighbors who were guiding us and fighting for us. But still, lions, leopards, and other wild animals killed many. Boys also died of hunger and thirst. Some were shot. Although the tribal militias were fighting with our guards, the bullets reached us too.

Each child received a tiny ration of water, barely enough for one day. In the desert they weighed the precious water for us.

'Be strong,' our leaders told us. 'When you reach the river you can drink as much as you want.'

Thankfully, in south Sudan a lot of gazelles pass through in herds, and our leaders hunted them. We children collected firewood and skinned and butchered the animals. We put the meat right on the fire. We had only a few pots, so if another group was cooking, we had to wait before we could have some soup. Only if we stayed in one place for a few days did we have time to wait. Otherwise roasting was the main way to cook. There were also wild vegetables to forage in the bush. We just ate what we wanted, depending on where we came from and what kind of wild fruits we had learned about in our area.

There were so many of us children traveling that I can't even estimate the number. In 1987 when we reached a place called Panyido over the border in Ethiopia, there were more than twenty thousand boys. For various reasons, no girls were with us. Because most of us were young, even eight years old, we started getting childhood diseases like chicken pox and measles. I witnessed a lot of my cousins dying in the camp but I didn't catch those sicknesses because I'd already had them at home. Many of us died of hunger and diseases. There was no treatment. Our rebel guards were trying to help us, but what could they do?

'You must come and care for these thousands of children,' the Ethiopian government begged the United Nations.

They came; but still our life was very, very, very hard. We suffered a lot. We were left to fend for ourselves. We had to build our own houses an construct roads too. When we went to the bush to fell trees, some of our friends never returned. We left them out there, killed by lions.

The few adults all lived separately from us. The grownups couldn't even help us except to just lend a hand in burying our friends. We buried most of them ourselves but if adults were around they helped us. They could also assist in unloading relief supplies from trucks, work that was too heavy for us boys.

Book Quotes: Colds are caused by viruses

I haven't read this book (beyond a short excerpt), but I thought people would like to know this short quote from AH-CHOO! by Jennifer Ackerman from pages 14-15:

[Colds] are not [caused by] bacteria, as some of the boys seem to think, but viruses. This is why antibiotics have no effect on colds. Zip. Nil. Antibiotics kill bacteria by preventing them from building their cell walls. Viruses are not cells and have no cell walls, so they're utterly unaffected by the drugs. This is also why those antibacterial soaps, shampoos, and lotions have no effect on cold germs. Promotional claims notwithstanding, these products will do nothing to protect you, your friends, or your family from contracting a cold.

Book Quotes: Transportation in American West in 1850s

From Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of California by Remi Nadeau (pages 154-155):

Henceforth, Shasta flourished more as a trans-shipping center than a gold camp. By 1857, four stages from the South and three mule trains from the North raised dust into Shasta every day. The fastest mode of communication was the stagecoach, carrying passengers, mail and express packages. It was a highly specialized vehicle, distinguished from others by the leather thoroughbraces which supported the carriage and took up the shocks of the road for both horses and passengers. The favorite model was the elegant Concord coach, shipped all the way from New Hampshire around Cape Horn to California. Considered the last word in horse transportation, it carried nine passengers inside and from six to eight on top. Rival stages from Colusa to Shasta carried travelers through in just over 12 hours--at the alarming rate of thirteen miles per hour.

While the six-horse stage was built for speed, the eight- and ten-mule freight teams specialized in tonnage. Plodding along at three miles an hour, they would cover the Colusa-Shasta route in around eight days. In mountain country the lead pair usually wore a bow of team bells over the collars, as a warning to head-on traffic coming around a blind bend. In contrast to the stage driver's box seat and six reins, the muleskinner rode astride the near wheeler and controlled the team by a single jerkline running through harness rings to the leaders. In her palmiest days, Shasta's streets were jammed with a hundred such teams every day.

At local wholesale houses, goods were unloaded and placed in saddle boxes for the most primitive transportation of all--pack mules. In trains of around 120 mules each, supplies moved on over bumpy, precipitous trails to Weaverville, Scott's Bar, Yreka, and the Oregon settlements. As this means of transport had been employed in Mexico for some 300 years, operations were in the hands of hardened Mexican muleteers. Though each animal was limited to around 300 pounds, no cargo was impossible for the mule trains. Crates of squawking chickens, stamp mill machinery, dismantled pianos, printing presses--all swayed and jostled over Trinity trails to the tramp of hoofs and the Spanish oaths of the muleteers.

Book Quotes: Sailing Ships

From Compass by Alan Gurney (pages 46-47):

...sixteen winds could be designated....One of the reasons for this multiplicity of winds was the improvement in the sailing qualities of ships due to a number of technical developments. A rudder hung at the stern instead of the two steering blades; the introduction of the bowline for hauling tight the leading edge of a squaresail when the yard was braced around for winds other than those coming from stern or on the quarter; the adding of one or two more masts, one of them being the lateen-rigged mizzen mast. All these improvements enabled square-rigged ships to sail closer to the wind and increase their arc of sailing. Using the analogy of a clock face, a merchant ship of Aristotle's time, with a wind blowing from the north or twelve o'clock, had a sailing arc restricted to the hours between four o'clock and eight o'clock. Later square-rigged ships, with the new technological improvements of rig and rudder, had increased that arc of sailing from two o-clock to ten o-clock. Yards could be braced around, bowlines hauled tight, and the attempt made to sail upwind.

Book Qoute: Civil War Hospitals

From Louisa May Alcott by Harriet Reisen (pages 170, 171-172):

The Union Hotel had been hastily converted to a hospital. It was badly lit, crowded, and poorly ventilated. The windows were nailed shut, and the smashed panes had been draped with curtains to keep out the cold....[Louisa] was put in charge of a ward of forty soldiers sick with rheumatism or fever...

...the first wounded were coming from Fredericksburg...

For an unmarried woman of thirty, who may have never seen a naked man....she had not only to see the men's bodies, but to touch them intimately and with assurance. She clutched her block of brown soap and "manfully" made a "dab at the first dirty specimen" she saw, an "old withered Irishman" so delighted to have a well-meaning woman sponge him clean that he blessed her on the spot, which made her laugh. The worst was not over, but the fear of it was. For the next twelve hours she moved from bed to bed washing putrid gaping wounds, mopping foreheads, bringing water to those who could drink and food to those who could eat, and stifling tears at the sight of young boys with stumps for legs or holes blown through their peach-fuzzed cheeks as she tried to ease their misery. Her gentle touch was usually the only, and the best, offering she could make to them. After she spoon-fed a New Hampshire man, she accepted a pair of earrings intended for the wife of his dead mate because, he said, she looked so much like the man's new widow.

Book Quotes: The Moon as a Shield

From Our Created Moon: Earth's Fascinating Neighbor by Don DeYoung & John Whitcomb (page 56):

...[the] moon actually prevents space collisions with the earth (Comins, 1991). Many space rocks that would otherwise hit the earth are instead drawn to the moon by its gravity attraction. The far side of the moon, exposed to incoming objects, is especially heavily cratered. Some of these lunar craters are over 150 miles (241 km) in diameter. Such large impacts on Earth could cause profound changes in the earth's atmosphere and climate.

On a larger scale, the planet Jupiter also protects the earth from collisions with asteroids and comets. Jupiter's mass is greater than the other eight planets combined. As a result, Jupiter has a large attractive gravity force for objects approaching the inner solar system.In 1994 astronomers watched fragments from Comet Shoemaker-Levy strike Jupiter. The approaching comet broke up when it crossed within Jupiter's Roche limit.... Two dozen separate impact collisions then occurred on Jupiter, each one much more energetic than a nuclear blast. Had any of the comet fragments hit the earth, a crater at least 50 miles in diameter would have resulted.

Book Quotes: The Moon as a Counterweight

From Our Created Moon: Earth's Fascinating Neighbor by Don DeYoung & John Whitcomb (page 52):

Earth's seasons are due to the tilt of its rotation axis, relative to the plane of the solar system....Computer studies show that the moon stabilizes the earth's tilt angle (Ward and Brownlee, 2000). The nearby moon acts as a massive counterweight that holds the earth's spin-axis in place. With no moon, the earth's axis would swing erratically between 0 degrees and 90 degrees due to gravity pulls from the sun and other planets, mainly Jupiter. Seasons would then be unpredictable and much more severe. For example, an earth tilt substantially greater than 23 1/2 degrees could lead to a permanent freezing of the oceans and the end of all life. Computer models indicate that this wandering of the earth's axis without a moon would be gradual, occurring over thousands of years.

Book Quote: Civilians Terrorized

From A Soldier's Promise by Daniel Hendrex, Wes Smith (page 158):

The increased American military presence in Husaybah had apparently incited Sayed and his henchmen to crack down on local Iraqis to maintain their control. They were ruthless. They had a group of eight to ten black bag operations guys, probably trained by Steve-O's father. They'd go into the homes of Iraqis, single out the father or mother or a child, and torture or kill them in front of the others to make the point that they would not tolerate American sympathizers. Women and girls were raped. They also used these techniques to force men and boys to fight for them, to plant bombs, or to gain access to the homes they needed as safe houses or weapons caches, lookouts, or ambush sites.

At first, it was hard for me and the other American soldiers to understand why most Iraqi citizens did not respond to our efforts to help them. But it became clear that until we rid them of the predators in their own neighborhoods, the Iraqi people would never be able to embrace the freedom they were being offered.

Book Quotes: America Brought to a Standstill

From Genius on the Edge by Dr. Gerald Imber (page 61):

In the fall of 1872 an equine viral epidemic, called the Great Epizootic, infected nearly 90 percent of the horses in the country. Four million horses died before the disease ran its course, leaving the country at a virtual standstill. Every industry was affected. Goods could not be produced or delivered, and financial panic engulfed the nation. Coal could not be transported from the mines to power the locomotives, and the railroads were forced to shut down. Income for the already financially extended railroads ceased; all were hit hard and many were forced into bankruptcy. Hopkins, who remained financially stable through diversified investments, was able to advance the B&O large sums of money to meet its interest obligations, thereby averting disaster for the company and solidifying his already lofty position in Baltimore business circles.

Book Quotes: Using Food as a Reward or Punishment

From Life Inside the "Thin" Cage by Constance Rhodes (page 70):

It is common in our culture to use food as a reward--I find myself doing this with my own son. A classic example of this is the promise, "Be good in the store, and Mommy will give you a treat." Indeed, food and the activity of eating were intended to be pleasurable. But it's important not to overemphasize the role of food as a reward, since this can send the message that eating is more than a normal and enjoyable part of our everyday lives. The child who is always rewarded with food grows into the adult who reasons away her overeating, saying, "I deserve this carton of ice cream. I've earned it!"

Adding to our confusion about the proper role of food is its use as a form of punishment. For example, when I was a child, my parents experimented with making us miss dinner as a consequence for wrongdoing. While many parents consider this an effective punishment, I personally think it is not a healthy one.

Using food as a punishment or a reward communicates that food and bad or good behavior are linked. It is only logical that these mixed messages can cause problems later in life when we turn to food for comfort or abstain from food as penance.

Book Quote: Blood Transfusions in the 1880s

From Genius on the Edge by Dr. Gerald Imber (pages 43-44):

Halsted's interest in transfusion led him to focus his efforts on a common condition of the day, illuminating gas poisoning. The first residential electric lights became available in New York City in 1882, but consumers had to be within a one-mile radius of Thomas Edison's direct-current generating plant on Pearl Street in order to receive service. It would be another decade before alternating current, which could transmit current farther, became generally available. Meanwhile, homes, businesses, and streets continued to be illuminated with gas, and a by-product of burning gas was carbon monoxide. Workers exposed to illuminating gas were often acutely poisoned by it, particularly in confined spaces like the gaslit night boats plying the rivers. In the emergency ward at the Chambers Street Hospital, Halsted devised a procedure called centripetal transfusion, in which the patient's blood was removed, aerated, and returned to the donor. Aeration removed carbon monoxide from its combination with hemoglobin and allowed the hemoglobin to combine with oxygen from the air. Halsted believed it was preferable to retransfuse the blood into an artery rather than a vein, so that it would go "against the stream and not mix with other blood and cause gangrene of the extremity." Whether arterial retransfusion was of any particular value is debatable, but the blood's renewed ability to carry oxygen cleared the acute toxicity and patients recovered rapidly.

Book Quotes: Sugar

From Life Inside the "Thin" Cage by Constance Rhodes (pages 119-120):

I first became aware of the influence of sugar on our body and brain when I read my mother's journals years ago. Intent on finding the elusive key to freedom from her bulimia, my mom had discovered a consistent connection between her intake of sugar and her out-of-control appetite. For example, she found that she would feel calmer and was less likely to binge if she chose pretzels instead of a candy bar for a snack.

Years after reading my mother's notes, I discovered this same connection in my own eating struggles. When I ate foods that were high in sugar, I seemed to crave more--even though I knew I didn't really want the sugar in my system. After a few days of avoiding candy and other high-sugar foods, I would feel calmer and less out of control.

In their book Why Can't I Stop Eating? recovering food addict Debbie Danowski and medical doctor Pedro Lazaro point out that, according to many studies, "Sugar is one of the most physiologically addictive substances." (They go on to say that the average American consumes more than 151 pounds of sugar per year!)

Many of us who watch what we eat may think we've done well to remove excess sweets from our diet when in fact the opposite may be true. For example, as we discussed in chapter 4, chronic dieters often try to maintain a low-fat or fat-free diet. What these dieters may not realize is that "in many cases, low-fat foods contain more sugar than 'regular' ones to provide enhanced flavor." Because of this, low-fat eaters often end up eating larger quantities of sugar than they realize, which only makes them hungrier.

Book Quotes: Causes of Suicide

From Too Soon to Say Goodbye by Susan Titus Osborn, MA; Karen L. Kosman; Jeenie Gordon, MS, MA, LMFT (page 108):

So it is in the throes of depression. The suicidal person can't see through the murkiness of her pain to know that safety lies only a short distance away.

Suicide is never a good option. It does not solve anything. It brings an abrupt end to the resources that could have brought relief, completion of fulfilled dreams, and the return of happiness.

There are a number of mental disorders that cause chemical imbalances in the brain and may contribute to suicidal behavior. However, they can often be controlled with medication when prescribed and overseen by a psychiatrist. Although these illnesses are often treatable, some emotionally desperate patients will choose not to live.

Often external circumstances such as job loss, financial disaster, loss of a child, failure in school, or marital problems are blamed for suicide. However, these events may act only as triggers. In a moment where reality is lost, suicide occurs.

Shame overwhelmingly surrounds a suicide. Society does not accept it in the same way as dying from a dreaded physical disease. Nonetheless, suicide represents horrific illness, one of the emotions and mind.

Book Quotes: Black Magic

From A Passion for the Impossible by Miriam Huffman Rockness (page 160-161):

As usual, during Ramadan, numbers sheered off from the tiny remnant [of Muslim converts to Christianity], but in addition to the invariable social pressure brought to bear on Christians during special times of fasting and feasting, the women were becoming aware of another force as insidious as it was subtle. Black magic was commonly employed in North Africa: to cure a friend, kill an enemy, or drive a desired woman crazy with love. A sorcerer, by the use of charms (melted lead forms), sacrifice of birds, invocation of demons, hypnotism, or poisons, could work his or her will upon the object of concern.

A foreign concept to the western mentality of the missionaries, black magic was a constant threat to young converts who were becoming prey to the mixture of poison [or drugs] and magic as a means of dulling intellectual faculties and numbing the will. As Lilias became more familiar with these practices, she would come to recognize the sudden pulling away of the young converts as symptomatic of poisoning (secretly administered into their food or drink) which, she observed, made them susceptible to suggestion and satanic influences.

Book Quotes: Getting Men to Listen

From The Male Factor by Shaunti Feldhahn (p. 259-260):

Take a look at the survey results to the scenario I created:

Imagine you are in a business meeting, and a woman with a great body stands up to give a presentation. She is all business, but she is wearing a suit and blouse that show off her figure in some way (for example, a low-cut blouse or tight skirt). Which answer below most closely describes the likely impact of that on your ability to concentrate on her presentation? (Choose one answer.)

14% - I'm instinctively drawn to look at her body, and sneak in peeks when she won't notice--so I'm missing quite a bit of what she says.

50% I try to concentrate, but I'm distracted from trying to look at her face and not her body--so I miss some of what she says.

36% I'm not affected; I can concentrate fully on her presentation.

Two out of three men said that they would be missing either "quite a bit" or "some" of what the woman was saying. Only one third said they would be able to concentrate fully on her presentation. And nearly every man to whom I have shown this has expressed amused skepticism about the latter number.

....the men I interviewed universally agreed that there were different degrees of distraction depending on what the woman wore and how she wore it.

and from page 265:

Douglass, the corporate sponsorship executive I introduced previously, says:

Realize that breasts can be distracting before they are sexual, and seeing part of a woman's breast is distracting. Conversely, a woman can be extremely attractive, but if she's not showing skin or wearing really form-fitting clothes, the issue doesn't come up. She's just...attractive. Women have the ability to be completely beautiful and completely appropriate...But there is a line a some point that you cross where it becomes distracting, and another line where it could become sexual. At least that is how it comes across, to me.

and from page 269:

[From Mark]: "It's sort of like what I tell my daughters: You don't have to show your figure for guys to know you've got a good figure. They get it! It's their job to always be aware of that!! You don't have to wear that outfit for guys to notice."

and from page 274:

Here is what one businessman told me with regard to outfits that tend to trigger a response in men:

It's all about curves, bare skin, and, frankly, the sight of whatever is supposed to be covered. That is what a man's eyes will be drawn to. A tight outfit, a short skirt, a bra strap showing, low-cut pants in the back where you can see the top of whatever she is wearing underneath if she leans over a bit...any one of those things. And cleavage. Breasts are always distracting.

It is so frustrating when I see in the morning that my one female colleague is wearing a button-down shirt, because she regularly has those types of shirts unbuttoned one button too low, and where it gapes or she turns sideways you can see everything. And I try to avoid looking, but I cannot put my hand up and go like this [he put his hand up as if to block his view of her chest] when I am talking to her, so that is a really difficult thing.

[I've also heard mentioned as distracting: very-short shorts that show butt-curve when the gal leans over.]

and from page 275:

"Tell the women to remember that men are taller than they are. The blouse may look fine straight in the mirror, but think about what it will look like if someone is six inches taller and looking down."

There's even more useful information on this topic in the book.

Book Quotes: A Refuge

From When I Was a Soldier by Valerie Zenatti on pages 223-225:

I can feel a very kindly eye on me. To my right there's a very wrinkled, shrivelled old woman watching me infinitely tenderly.

'You remind me of someone,' she tells me, 'a good person.'

'So do you. You have my grandmother's eyes...and she was a very good person.'

I feel like we're said everything; what could you add after confiding in someone like that? But she goes on.

'You're a good girl and I'm sure you're a good soldier. I'd like to have had a daughter like you, but I didn't have any children. I was born in Vilna. Do you know where that is?'

My history lessons quickly resurface: Vilna, the capital of Lithuania, the new Jerusalem as it was known, the city of a thousand wise rabbis, before the Nazis got there. I nod my head, my stomach's in knots.

'The Germans came. They shot some of the Jews and herded the others into a ghetto. Why shoot one person and not another? I was twenty-two, I had a father, a mother, a younger brother and a younger sister. And a sweetheart, we were going to be married. He wanted to wait till the end of the war, he said you can't have the best day of your life surrounded by death. His name was Yatsek.

'They killed my father on the first day. My mother fell ill and she died soon afterwards. We were hungry, and cold. I was frightened again, like when I was little and I was afraid of the wolf at night. But now I was twenty-two and there was a whole pack of wolves prowling round us day and night, howling. Yatsek tried to run away from the ghetto and was taken. No one ever saw him again.'

I'm crying silently. She goes on, with her hand on my arm.

'One day my sister and I went out to look for something to eat. A German looked at us, burst out laughing, then pointed his gun at me, at my sister, at me, at my sister, at me, at my sister. In the end, she was the one he shot.

'Now there were just two of us. Shloimele, my younger brother, and myself. We managed to escape from the ghetto and we went into hiding with our old neighbours. We stayed in their cellar for two years. At the end of the war they asked if we would like to go on living with them, but we couldn't, we had to leave that country which was gorged with the blood of our people.

'In 1948, we set sail on a boat heading here. We arrived on the first day of the war of independence. They took my brother as he stepped off the boat, gave him a gun and told him: "Go and fight with the others to defend your country." He'd never held a gun. He was killed on the second day of fighting.'

I don't even know if I'm still breathing. She finishes her story calmly.

'Why did I live when they all died? There's no answer to that. You remind me of Yatsek's sister--that's why I've told you all this.' She pauses for a moment, then she adds, 'You mustn't cry, you mustn't cry. Now there are girls like you, with beautiful smiles, who can defend this country if need be. I never married, I didn't want to make someone unhappy all their life. But every child in this country is my child, and I feel so happy when I see you...'

I heave a very deep sigh. In a few minutes I'll have to get off [the bus], I have a mission to accomplish. A new blood is flowing in my veins, as if I were going to fight for this old woman with her gentle eyes, this woman whose hand shook as it held my arm.

Book Quotes: Getting Supplies in an Occupied Town

From A Woman's Civil War by Cornelia Peake McDonald (page 123):

We find it so hard to live. So hard to get anything to eat. The [Union] soldiers would willingly exchange meat, sugar, and coffee with us for fresh bread or flour, but are not allowed. The prohibition, however, does not prevent me from getting Aunt Winnie to bake bread and give it to them surreptitiously as they pass on their way to the spring and receiving from them in return things which we can get in no other way.

Sometimes I sit in the dining room reading till midnight, and a low knock on the door. I get up and admit a Yankee soldier with a black camp kettle and a bundle in his hands. I take him to the pantry, lock the door on the inside and inspect the contents of the kettle and bundle. The kettle has coffee and sugar in it with a paper between to keep them apart. The bundle has a piece of fat bacon, but it is very welcome to us who have nothing but bread. I fill his kettle with flour and let him out to go his way back to the camp, while I lock myself in and hide the things. If they suspected him they would punish him as he is acting without permission.

Book Quotes: Helping Streetwalkers

From A Passion for the Impossible by Miriam Huffman Rockness (page 91):

It is one of the paradoxical aspects of Victorian society that in this era when the family was almost deified, prostitution was practiced blatantly. For some of the women it was perhaps their preferred form of trade; but for many young girls, stranded in the city without skills or means of employment, it was a tragic recourse. Whether they were victims of folly or circumstance, Lilias's heart was moved with compassion for these "lost sheep" so profoundly in need of a loving shepherd. At a time when it was unacceptable for a young woman to be out alone in the city, Lilias fearlessly traversed the streets to rescue these streetwalkers, many of whom haunted the neighborhood of Victoria Station. She brought them back to the hostel for a good night's sleep and for training in an employable skill, and she introduced them to the Good Shepherd.

Friends remember the lengths to which she went to help these girls, planning and providing for them, but often simply listening and offering a word of counsel. On one occasion, a friend recalls her staying up all night with a "half-crazed girl" to save her from taking her own life.

Book Quotes: Copying Buddhist works in Tibet

From The Culture of the Book in Tibet by Kurtis R. Schaeffer (pages 23-24):

[Note: Büton Rinchendrup was the great fourteenth-century scholar of Shalu monastery in west-central Tibet and oversaw or influenced much of the book-making at the time. In this quote, he's thought to be writing to the editors engaged in copying the Tengyur, part of the Tibetan Buddhist cannon.]

Büton advises the editors that "Since an understanding of the word and the meaning are dependent upon one another, when some doubt arises, understand the meaning from the word by looking at [the word] analytically, and the [correct] graph will be understood from the meaning." In other words, the text should make sense, and if it does not the editor is encouraged to emend it in accordance with his reasoned understanding of what the text should say. The act of editing was for Büton an act of personal interpretation, at least in part. This method no doubt led to many problems, and not a few anonymous editors have been accused of fabricating meanings in their efforts at conjectural emendation. Indeed, one of the most serious charges against authors and editors alike is that the texts they produce are self-made (rang bzo) and therefore not in accordance with tradition. Büton's positive assessment of conjectural emendation constitutes a significant difference between him and many later editors, who considered it to be a major source of textural error.

I was surprised to learn that the exact replication of the Buddhist cannon was rare throughout the 14-18th centuries and that changing the text was acceptable to one degree or another. That's very different than the exact, careful replication--down to the smallest mark--by the Israelite scribes copying the Hebrew scriptures!