California teen, Christian Lozano, hero
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Christian Lozano was sitting on a Ventura beach last week when he saw a head poking up from the waves. He soon heard a cry for help and knew what he had to do.
Lozano ran into the heavy surf, grabbed the 11-year-old girl and the pair made it to shore safely after a few harrowing moments.
The 16-year-old Young Marine is being hailed a hero by Maya Harding’s family who wanted to express their thanks for what he did.
“I feel a sense of obligation and a sense of gratitude … Any way I can help him going forward in life, I would be happy to do so,” the girl’s grandfather Paul Harding told the Bakersfield Californian.
Lozano feared the girl was going to die if someone didn’t help her. He believes his years of surfing and his training with the Young Marines, a national nonprofit education and service program that teaches leadership, teamwork and self-discipline, prepared him for the rescue. […]
Lozano was greeted by strangers who rushed to congratulate him when he and Maya got to the beach. Harding said his granddaughter wants to meet her rescuer in person.
John Gonzales, executive officer of Bakersfield Young Marines, said he has a letter ready to send to the program’s national offices in Washington, D.C., recommending Lozano for the group’s Lifesaving First Degree ribbon.
Lozano has made his family proud and the rescue affirmed his career goals to join the Marine Corps and then the U.S. Coast Guard.
“I know now that I could save someone’s life,” he said.
How much do you want to bet this fine young man gets cited by somebody for performing lifeguard duties without the proper training and certification?
Someone should contact this kid’s congresscritter and get him a letter of recommendation to the USCG Academy in Connecticut. Four years later, he’ll be Ensign Lozano and have a sheepskin.
Maybe he’d rather go to the Naval Academy and be a Marine instead of just a young Marine.
Of course, I suppose he might actually want to work for a living.
the rescue affirmed his career goals to join the Marine Corps and then the U.S. Coast Guard.
Just going by this statement, Ernst. Life is easier in the USCG. I certainly wouldn’t suggest that officers don’t work for a living.
That’s it? Some guy did a good/decent/honorable thing and everybody’s happy about it? Damndest thing.
I’m so used to reading these types of stories with the “… and then he was arrested for violation of the Endangered Species Act, or whatever” twist that the story just seems incomplete without the obligatory “and then evil triumphed” ending.
missed the USCG thing leigh.
The work for a living thing is an old noncom joke –at least on the TV, anyways.
Yeah, it’s pretty much a teevee joke. No harm, no foul.
What a nice story (especially after weeks of scandal, etc.) and a great young man.
I was expecting some sort of twist, too. Think I found it: the boy’s youth group – Young Marines – may have just been de-funded (or at risk of being de-funded) by the DoJ Office of Civil Rights if it includes mention of God in their activities. The Lousiana chapter of the Young Marines lost its funding:
http://townhall.com/columnists/toddstarnes/2013/06/25/doj-defunds-atrisk-youth-programs-over-god-reference-n1627526
I live a few miles from the Coast Guard Rollover Boat school on the Columbia river at Cape Disappointment. I have watched the Coasties take their motor lifeboats out across the Columbia River bar with seas running as high as a 3 or 4 story building on training missions.
This young man will fit in well with this brave group.
Semper Fidelis
Greetings:
I don’t know. That first name might be more than a bit of a handicap in our current Islamophilic, not to mention hollowed out, military.
Outstanding. Semper fi.