D-Day vet combats invasion. (Exercising the Right).

During World War II, Anchorage, Alaska, resident Roy Lee Hendricks, 81, served with the 82nd Airborne Division. On D-Day, he parachuted into the thick of battle at Normandy, and after the war fished for crab in the Bering sea, worked for a time as a longshoreman, and on one occasion lopped off the top of a thumb in a sawmill accident.

On the morning of August 10th, while his wife was staying in town with a niece for a couple of days, burglars pushed open a downstairs bedroom window and invaded the Hendricks home. Mr. Hendricks, asleep in an upstairs bedroom, awoke to find two men in dark hooded shirts standing by his bed. They demanded his wallet.

When he tried to jump up, the intruders pushed him down, but then let him up when he said he was only trying to get his billfold. Instead, he grabbed a two-shot, .22 caliber Derringer resting on top of his dresser. He told the August 11th Anchorage Daily News, "I really wanted to get ahold of my .44, but I couldn't reach it. The guy was hanging onto me."

The two thugs began shoving and hitting the crusty war veteran (who stands nearly six feet tall and weighs around 200 pounds). Fearful that the robbers would gain control of the gun, but not wanting to kill them, he waited until he could fire a shot unlikely to be fatal. The bullet grazed the arm of one man, but on the way accidentally struck the first joint of Hendricks' own left-hand pinkie. "They were," he recalled, "burning the turf to get outta here once I started shooting."

The scuffle and shot roused Hendricks' longtime friend Joe Gallagher, 57, asleep in a downstairs bedroom. As described by the Daily News, "Gallagher pulled out his own gun, a .22-caliber long-barrel six-shooter, and froze the wounded burglar at gunpoint. The other man pushed open a downstairs window and dived out." The latter fled with Hendricks' wallet, which contained sundry cards and around $100.

Since the main phone lines had been cut, Gallagher's cell phone was used to call police, after which Hendricks and his friend kept 19-year-old Gabrielle A. Anderson "lying on his belly on the floor" at gunpoint until help arrived. The youth was subsequently charged with first-degree burglary, and first-degree robbery, fourth-degree assault, and third-degree criminal mischief.

In addition to his injured finger (he drove himself to Alaska Regional Hospital to have it treated), Hendricks suffered a cheek abrasion, a scratched cornea from a poke in the eye during the scuffle, and a few minor facial cuts and scrapes. He called his wife, Ann, at around 6 a.m. the next morning. She drove to the hospital with two of their granddaughters and told the Daily News that she was shocked by the incident, but not by the outcome, since "that's my husband."

Asked if he was frightened during the ordeal, Mr. Hendricks said that it did not scare him nearly as much as had the bayonet attacks and bullets he dodged during the war. "I never ran in my life, and I don't intend to now," he insisted. And in any event, "I'd rather be a dead hero than a live coward."

Queried further about any lessons learned from the incident, he wryly replied: "Don't pick on old men." At least, "some old men."