Hollywood Couldn’t Do These Guys Justice

I can’t clas­si­fy this as one of the great­est jobs in his­to­ry, because the chance of get­ting killed is way too high. How­ev­er, if you’re look­ing to read a sto­ry on some real bad-ass action heros, check out the cur­rent issue of Wired Mag­a­zine and their sto­ry on how Titan Sal­vage res­cued a car­go ship full of Maz­da cars.

They’re a mot­ley mix: Amer­i­can, British, Swedish, Pana­man­ian. Each has a spe­cial­ty — deep-sea div­ing, com­put­er mod­el­ing, under­wa­ter weld­ing, big-engine repair. And then there’s Habib, the guy who reg­u­lar­ly heli­copters onto the deck of a sink­ing ship, greets what­ev­er crew is left, and takes com­mand of the strick­en ves­sel. He’s been at sea since he was 18, and now, at 51, his tanned face, square jaw, and don’t-even-try-bull­shit­ting-me stare con­vey a world-weary air of com­mand. He holds an unlim­it­ed mas­ter’s license, which means he’s one of the select few who are qual­i­fied to pilot ships of any size, any­where in the world.

Should Hol­ly­wood attempt to por­tray these guys, at least get Tom­my Lee Jones to play Habib. And kids, stay in school. You’re going to need to learn some math to be a bad-ass like Rich Habib.