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Did you ever hear of Stanislav Petrov? I’m sure you haven’t, but i think you should read what this humble man had done for all of us and the price he paid for his caurage…
 

 
Stanislav Petrov born 1939 is a retired Russian Strategic Rocket Forces lieutenant colonel who, on September 26th, 1983, allegedly deviated from standard Soviet doctrine by positively identifying a missile attack warning as a false alarm.
 
This decision, according to several sources, was a major factor in preventing an accidental retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States. Investigation of the satellite warning system later confirmed that the system had been malfunctioning.
 
Stanislav Petrov,  was the officer on duty at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow on September 26, 1983. Petrov’s responsibilities included observing the satellite early warning network and notifying his superiors of any impending nuclear missile attack against the Soviet Union. If notification was received from the early-warning systems that inbound missiles had been detected, the Soviet Union’s strategy was an immediate nuclear counter-attack against the United States, specified in the doctrine of mutual assured destruction.
  
Though there continue to be varying reports as to whether Petrov actually reported the alert to his superiors, or what part his decision ultimately played in preventing a nuclear war, his willingness to risk punishment in order to possibly prevent a catastrophe exposed a critical flaw in the Soviet missile warning system and deeply embarrassed the upper echelons of the Soviet Army. In retaliation, he was branded as an “unreliable” officer, transferred to non-command duty, and eventually forced to retire. Because of Soviet military secrecy and international political concerns, Petrov’s actions were kept secret until 1998 when a Russian officer present at the bunker wrote a book detailing the incident.
 
Shortly after midnight, the bunker’s computers reported that an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was heading toward the Soviet Union from the US. Petrov considered the detection a computer error, since a United States first-strike nuclear attack would hypothetically involve hundreds of simultaneous missile launches to disable any Soviet means for a counterattack. Furthermore, the satellite system’s reliability had been questioned in the past. Petrov dismissed the warning as a false alarm, though accounts of the event differ as to whether he notified his superiors or not after he concluded that the computer detections were false and that no missile had been launched. Later, the computers identified four additional missiles in the air, all directed towards the Soviet Union. Petrov again suspected that the computer system was malfunctioning, despite having no other source of information to confirm his suspicions. The Soviet Union’s land radar was incapable of detecting missiles beyond the horizon, and waiting for it to positively identify the threat would limit the Soviet Union’s response time to minutes.
  
Had Petrov reported incoming American missiles, his superiors might have launched an assault against the United States, precipitating a corresponding nuclear response from the United States. Petrov declared the system’s indications a false alarm. Later, it was apparent that he was right: no missiles were approaching and the computer detection system was malfunctioning. It was subsequently determined that the false alarms had been created by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds and the satellites’ Molniya orbits, an error later corrected with cross-reference to a geostationary satellite.
 
Petrov later indicated the influences in this decision included: that he had been told a US strike would be all-out, so that five missiles seemed an illogical start; that the launch detection system was new and, in his view, not yet wholly trustworthy; and that ground radars were still failing to pick up any corroborative evidence, even after minutes of delay.
 
Lt. Col. Petrov stood accused of disobeying his orders and defying military protocol by the manner in which he handled the possible nuclear threat. He later underwent intense questioning by his superiors about his actions during the distressing ordeal, the result of which was that they no longer considered him a reliable military officer.
 
In the inquiry, Col. Petrov’s commanders blamed him for the incident and held him responsible for what had happened. His actions showed his superiors in a bad light. He was given a reprimand for the improper filing of paperwork. He was reassigned to a less sensitive post, took early retirement and suffered a nervous breakdown.
 
The incident involving Petrov first became known publicly in the 1990s following the publication of memoirs written by Col. Gen. Yury Votintsev, the former commander of the Soviet Air Defense’s Missile Defense Units. Widespread media reports since then have increased public awareness of Petrov’s actions.
 
Petrov has said he does not regard himself as a hero for what he did that day. In an interview for the documentary film The Red Button and the Man Who Saved the World,Petrov says, “All that happened didn’t matter to me — it was my job. I was simply doing my job, and I was the right person at the right time, that’s all. My late wife for 10 years knew nothing about it. ‘So what did you do?’ she asked me. I did nothing.”
 
In January 2006 Petrov travelled to the United States where he was honored in a meeting at the United Nations in New York City. There the Association of World Citizens presented Petrov with a second special World Citizen Award. The following day Petrov met with American journalist Walkter Cronkite at his CBS office in New York City. That interview, in addition to other highlights of Petrov’s trip to the United States, will be included in the documentary film The Man Who Saved the World, which is expected to be released in the summer or autumn of 2008.
 
via wikipedia.org