RESCUE: True Stories of the U.S. Life-Saving Service

The men of the old U.S. Life-Saving Service have been called "America's Forgotten Heroes." Today these heroes from a bygone era (1871-1915) have been pushed off into the dustbin of history, all but ignored by historians and public alike. But their story is very powerful and inspiring, well deserving of being told again and again. There is always a lesson in courage, tenacity and pure guts. They were the "Storm Warriors" and "Heroes of the Surf," men who battled screaming winds and breaking waves at great risk of their own lives, to save victims of shipwreck. Their unofficial motto was, "Regulations say we have to go out. They say nothing about coming back." It was a pledge they honored every time they launched their small surfboats into the storm whipped surf. And many didn't come back, sacrificing themselves so others might live.