Few people have heard of Larry Grathwohl, but the anniversary of his death, on July 18, 2013, is fast approaching. We lost an American hero that day, but like many, he died in relative obscurity. That we don't publicly honor such men as a matter of public policy - never mind tradition - is a stark indication of how singularly self-absorbed, careless and contemptuous of selfless sacrifice our political and media classes have become.
Larry served with the 101st Airborne during the Vietnam War, and joined the Special Forces "Hatchet Force" teams. These 40 - 100 man units were sent on search and destroy missions in some of the most dangerous areas, to rescue and/or locate smaller Special Forces squads who regularly got into trouble with much larger North Vietnamese elements determined to wipe them out.
Returning from the war, he learned about activities of the Weather Underground and determined on his own to find out more about them. He subsequently became an undercover informant, first for the Cincinnati police, then the FBI. He was the only person to successfully penetrate the communist group, and his testimony might have sent two of its leaders, domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, to jail for a very long time. However, Ayers and Dohrn managed to avoid prosecution on a technicality. As Ayers later said "Guilty as Hell, free as a bird. What a great country!"























