... that Dr. Ruth used to be a sniper. Well, here ya' go - interesting reading for your Friday:
Tom Foreman: Your parents sent you away from the Nazis when you were ten years old and your entire family died at Auschwitz.
Dr. Ruth: That's right. They were all exterminated in concentration camps. And when I went to then Palestine, which became Israel in 1948, and the first fellow who offered to marry me…we loved each other, and we are still good friends—but it wasn't a marriage forever. Then I met a gorgeous looking French guy and I married for one year and have a beautiful daughter, and then that didn't lead to a relationship. However, my late husband who passed away, he was Fred Westheimer. We were married for 37 years, and that was a marriage.
Tom Foreman: You were trained as a sniper?
Dr. Ruth: We were all trained in the forerunner of the Israeli Defense Force, and for some reason that I can't explain I'm a very good sniper. I can put five bullets into this little red circle (makes circle with her fingers). I know how to throw hand grenades. I've never killed anybody. I was badly wounded.
Tom Foreman: There was a bomb that went off in the barracks.
Dr. Ruth: Yes.
Tom Foreman: Many of your friends were wounded as well?
Dr. Ruth: Yes and died. Boy you did your homework.
Tom Foreman: Do you think that some of those experiences of your life made you bolder? Many people comment that the thing that strikes them about you is that you so fiercely walk into any culture and you ask very intimate questions.
Dr. Ruth: I am what you call bold because the one thing that I've learned coming out of Nazi Germany is that I have to stand up and be counted for what I believe. And that's how people are listening to me, because they know it's not a put-on.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/06/0611_030611_drruth_2.html
