Harrison Ford
Ford is famous, in part, for piloting a spaceship, but most people don’t know that he also pilots helicopters. He’s been involved in multiple rescue operations, including saving a woman who was trapped on top of a mountain in Idaho and searching for a Boy Scout who was lost in the woods. When he’s not adventuring around the world looking for lost treasure, he apparently spends at least some of his free time flying around the Hudson River, looking for people who are polluting the water. How’s that for a hero?
Arnold Schwarzenegger
While he’s now known for his rules as Terminator and Governor of California, Schwarzenegger was born in Austria and started training as a bodybuilder at the age of 14. Even after he was drafted into the Austrian Army, he continued his training and was named Junior Mr. Europe.
Coming to America, he quickly began working in Hollywood on the side, even though he didn’t yet speak English. Somehow, this Austrian immigrant, in addition to being one of the world’s strongest men and an immensely successful actor, managed to find the time to become a naturalized US citizen and run for office in the most populous state in the country… and win.
Julia Child
That’s probably not a name you expected to see on this list. Child is known for her cooking skills, not for being a badass. However, when the US joined WWII, Child was desperate to serve. And since she was too tall for the options that normally accepted women, she decided to join the Office of Strategic Services, which would later be turned into the CIA. There, she discovered ways to cook chemicals that repelled sharks from both soldiers and underwater mines, saving many lives and helping fight the Nazis with her cooking skills.