MIAMI/ Conservative Monitor -- It was late on the night of April 15, 1998 when I got the call. I was working desperately to meet an April 20 deadline for my first book, later to be published as The Best Defense: True Stories of Intended Victims Who Defended Themselves with a Firearm.

I had interviewed more than a dozen people who had used guns to survive violent attacks. Now I was feverishly editing and revising their stories, hoping to impress my editors with my writing skills and my ability to meet a deadline when Sammie's call came out of the blue.

A few months earler, after having read a newspaper article about her, I'd tried to call. When she didn't answer the telephone, I left a message asking her to call me back. Then I went about my business and forgot about her.

When Sammie called on April 15, I realized that her story was extraordinary. She was articulate, educated, and had an unexpected wit that could carry the day in any debate over gun rights. She granted me permission to record her story, then launched into the brutal, bloody details. When it was done, we were both sobbing.

Here's the story: Sammie Foust, a 49-year-old divorcee, was attacked in her Cape Coral, Florida home early one morning by a masked, dope-crazed three-time loser named James Wayne Horne. He'd heard from a friend-of-a-friend that she was a wealthy widow, and he was determined to rob her. (Sammie would laugh about being "wealthy"--although she lived in an upscale home, her financial situation was precarious.)

As Horne beat her and tortured her and slashed her to pieces with a boxcutter knife, Sammie was able to retrieve a .25-caliber semiautomtic handgun. Even after firing four shots point-blank into him, it still took the crackhead more than an hour to die. During that time, he continued his horrendous assault, all the time demanding more jewlery and money.

Somehow Sammie survived. Thinking that she was going to die of her injuries, she managed to pray that God would forgive her of her sins, and that He would forgive her assailant of what he had done to her.

But even though she survived, her health was wrecked.

Sammie (a former contestant in the 1960s in the annual Miss Mississippi beauty pageant) had lasting facial scars from the attack. Her nose had been broken, her throat slashed, her cheeks fractured, and her gums crushed. After the attack, she was able to eat only soft food. She suffered physical pain every day for the rest of her life.

Emotionally, Sammie experienced acute Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. She attended counseling sessions for as long as she could afford them, but had to stop before they did much good. Later, I realized that she called me that night because she needed someone to talk to. In subsequent conversations, she would urge me to write about the "aftermath." I always put it off because it was too painful. But, knowing she needed a friend who understood what she'd gone through, I remained available to her. Many times when the phone would ring late at night, I knew Sammie needed to talk.

Over the years, we became close. We had a lot in common, both being Southerners with a strong sense of history and a skepticism of big government.

Financially, Sammie had been ruined by the attack. Medical bills were astronomical, and money paid to psychiatrists and counselors left her sinking in a sea of debt. She couldn't even afford to reconstruct her house which had been severely damaged in the battle with Horne.

Yet she always kept her sense of humor. When Sammie called, she'd tell me the latest joke she'd heard. Or she would impart scathing observations about President Clinton's escapades.

Everyone who read my book was amazed that Sammie could even survive such a violent assault, much less function afterwards. She was interviewed by several radio stations, and was filmed for an ABC News special. (She thought it funny that after ABC spent 8-10 hours filming her story, they only used 30 seconds of it in their broadcast.)

Through it all, she continued to be an unshakeable advocate for the rights of all Americans to be able to protect themselves. The concept of gun rights wasn't an abstract issue for her--it was up close and personal.

Yesterday I received a call from her daughter-in-law stating that Sammie had died. A fast-moving cancer had been discovered in her lungs two weeks earlier.

Sammie Foust represented all that is right in the self-defense movement. She was the innocent victim of a horrendous attack that left lasting physical and emotional scars. Had she not been a fighter, she would have ended up being just another statistic in the next morning's newspaper. But, using her little "pea-shooter", as she called it, she left her attacker lying dead on the floor. He would never hurt another innocent victim as he'd done so many times before.

She taught us that life is precious, and worth fighting for. She told me many times that the reason she held on during the assault was that she was expecting her son to come home in a few hours and she didn't want him to walk in and find her dead. In the tight-wire stress of a violent attack, her love of family had given her the strength to survive.

Had it not been for the political correctness of the day, she would have been hailed as an American hero. But through it all, she refused to give in to the jingoism of the gun control crowd. Her confrontations with those who would restrict our right to defend ourselves could only be called epic.

Ah, but that's another story.

Rest in peace, Sammie.

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