By Nancy Gibbs 
 
 Not the glittering weapon fights the fight, says the proverb, but rather the hero’s heart. 
 
 Maybe this is true in any battle; it is surely true of a war that is waged with bleach and a prayer. 
 
 For decades, Ebola haunted rural African villages like some mythic monster that every few years rose to demand a human sacrifice and then returned to its cave. It reached the West only in nightmare form, a Hollywood horror that makes eyes bleed and organs dissolve and doctors despair because they have no cure. 
 
 But 2014 is the year an outbreak turned into an epidemic, powered by the very progress that has paved roads and raised cities and lifted millions out of poverty. This time it reached crowded slums in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone; it traveled to Nigeria and Mali, to Spain, Germany and the U.S. It struck doctors and nurses in unprecedented numbers, wiping out a public-health infrastructure that was weak in the first place. One August day in Liberia, six pregnant women lost their babies when hospitals couldn’t admit them for complications. Anyone willing to treat Ebola victims ran the risk of becoming one. 
 
 Which brings us to the hero’s heart. There was little to stop the disease from spreading further. Governments weren’t equipped to respond; the World Health Organization was in denial and snarled in red tape. First responders were accused of crying wolf, even as the danger grew. But the people in the field, the special forces of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Christian medical-relief workers of Samaritan’s Purse and many others from all over the world fought side by side with local doctors and nurses, ambulance drivers and burial teams. 
 
 Ask what drove them and some talk about God; some about country; some about the instinct to run into the fire, not away. “If someone from America comes to help my people, and someone from Uganda,” says Iris Martor, a Liberian nurse, “then why can’t I?” Foday Gallah, an ambulance driver who survived infection, calls his immunity a holy gift. “I want to give my blood so a lot of people can be saved,” he says. “I am going to fight Ebola with all of my might.” 
 
 MSF nurse’s assistant Salome Karwah stayed at the bedsides of patients, bathing and feeding them, even after losing both her parents—who ran a medical clinic—in a single week and surviving Ebola herself. “It looked like God gave me a second chance to help others,” she says. Tiny children watched their families die, and no one could so much as hug them, because hugs could kill. “You see people facing death without their loved ones, only with people in space suits,” says MSF president Dr. Joanne Liu. “You should not die alone with space-suit men.” 
 
 Those who contracted the disease encountered pain like they had never known. “It hurts like they are busting your head with an ax,” Karwah says. One doctor overheard his funeral being planned. Asked if surviving Ebola changed him, Dr. Kent Brantly turns the question around. “I still have the same flaws that I did before,” he says. “But whenever we go through a devastating experience like what I’ve been through, it is an incredible opportunity for redemption of something. We can say, How can I be better now because of what I’ve been through? To not do that is kind of a shame.” 
 
 So that is the next challenge: What will we do with what we’ve learned? This was a test of the world’s ability to respond to potential pandemics, and it did not go well. It exposed corruption in African governments along with complacency in Western capitals and jealousy among competing bureaucrats. It triggered mistrust from Monrovia to Manhattan. Each week brought new puzzles. How do you secure a country, beyond taking passengers’ temperatures at the airport? Who has the power to order citizens to stay home, to post a guard outside their door? What will it take to develop treatments for diseases largely confined to poor nations, even as this Ebola outbreak had taken far more lives by mid-October than all the earlier ones combined? 
 
 The death in Dallas of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed on U.S. soil, and the infection of two nurses who treated him, shook our faith in the ability of U.S. hospitals to handle this kind of disease. From there the road to full freak-out was a short one. An Ohio middle school closed because an employee had flown on the same plane as one of Duncan’s nurses. Not the same flight, just the same plane. A Texas college rejected applicants from Nigeria, since that country had some “confirmed Ebola cases.” A Maine schoolteacher had to take a three-week leave because she went to a teachers’ conference in Dallas. Fear, too, was global. When a nurse in Spain contracted Ebola from a priest, Spanish authorities killed her dog as a precaution, while #VamosAMorirTodos (We’re all going to die) trended on Twitter. Guests at a hotel in Macedonia were trapped in their rooms for days after a British guest got sick and died. Turned out to have nothing to do with Ebola. 
 
 The problem with irrational responses is that they can cloud the need for rational ones. Just when the world needed more medical volunteers, the price of serving soared. When nurse Kaci Hickox, returning from a stint with MSF in Sierra Leone with no symptoms and a negative blood test, was quarantined in a tent in Newark, N.J., by a combustible governor, it forced a reckoning. “It is crazy we are spending so much time having this debate about how to safely monitor people coming back from Ebola-endemic countries,” says Hickox, “when the one thing we can do to protect the population is to stop the outbreak in West Africa.” 
 
 Ebola is a war, and a warning. The global health system is nowhere close to strong enough to keep us safe from infectious disease, and “us” means everyone, not just those in faraway places where this is one threat among many that claim lives every day. The rest of the world can sleep at night because a group of men and women are willing to stand and fight. For tireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time to boost its defenses, for risking, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving, the Ebola fighters are TIME’s 2014 Person of the Year. 
 
 Read more: 
 
 TIME’s 2014 Person of the Year: The Ebola Fighters 
 
 Runner-Up: Ferguson Protesters, The Activists 
 
 Runner-Up: Vladimir Putin, The Imperialist 
 
 Runner-Up: Massoud Barzani, The Opportunist 
 
 Runner-Up: Jack Ma, The Capitalist ||||| Play Facebook 
 
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 Declaring his cure a miracle, a doctor infected with the Ebola virus while working to save patients in West Africa walked out of an Atlanta hospital on Thursday. Hospital officials said they released a colleague quietly on Tuesday at her request. 
 
 "Today is a miraculous day. I am thrilled to be alive, to be well and to be reunited with my family," Dr. Kent Brantly, 33, of Christian aid organization Samaritan’s Purse, told a news conference. 
 
 Nancy Writebol, 59, an aid worker who also contracted Ebola while doing missionary aid work in Liberia, was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday, according to Emory and the aid group SIM. She is spending private time with her husband. "As she walked out of her isolation room, all she could say was 'To God be the glory,'" Brantly said. 
 
 Brantly, who clutched the hand of his wife, Amber, before speaking, said he would be spending a month in private with his family before sharing any more of his story. "But for now we need some time together after a month apart," he said. 
 
 "Please do not stop praying for the people of Liberia and West Africa and for an end to this Ebola epidemic," Brantly pleaded in a brief statement. He hugged his doctors and nurses as he left, and officials at Emory and the CDC emphasized that the patients pose no risk to public health. 
 
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 “After a rigorous course of treatment and testing, the Emory Healthcare team has determined that both patients have recovered from the Ebola virus and can return to their families and community without concern for spreading this infection to others,” Dr. Bruce Ribner, director of Emory’s Infectious Disease Unit, said at the news conference. 
 
 "We understand that there are a lot of questions and concerns about the Ebola virus and the infection that is causes. However we cannot let our fears dictate our actions," Ribner added. "We don't think he's contagious." 
 
 Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan's Purse, said Thursday that he had "marveled at Dr. Brantly's courageous spirit as he has fought this horrible virus" and thanked staff at the hospital. On Friday, Brantly released a statement asking that people "continue to pray for and bring attention to those suffering in the ongoing Ebola crisis in West Africa." More than 1,300 people have died from the disease in the region, according to the World Health Organization, which has declared the Ebola epidemic a global health emergency. 
 
 Both Americans received experimental treatment before being flown to an isolation unit in Emory University Hospital in Atlanta in early August. Ribner says there is no way to tell if it helped. "They are the very first individuals to ever receive this agent ... and frankly, we do not no whether it helped them, whether it made no difference or whether it delayed their recovery," he said. 
 
 Ribner said doctors would follow up on both Writebol and Brantly to make sure they continue to recover, and to watch for any side-effects from the treatment. They will almost certainly be immune to this particular strain of Ebola but it's not clear what immunity they may have to other, related strains of the virus. 
 
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 In fact, both could return to Africa if their recovery continued. "We would anticipate immunity to this virus so that they would probably not be at risk of infection if they were caring for patients with Ebola virus disease during this outbreak," Ribner said. 
 
 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there is no concern for anyone with the release of the two patients. "They no longer have Ebola virus in their blood and therefore pose no risk to household contacts or the public. There are no restrictions to the patients' activities of daily living," CDC said in a statement. 
 
 Ribner said the hospital allowed Writebol to leave quietly and privately at her request. There was no need to tell the public because she poses no threat, he said. 
 
 "Nancy is free of the virus, but the lingering effects of the battle have left her in a significantly weakened condition," her husband David Writebol said in a statement. "Thus, we decided it would be best to leave the hospital privately to be able to give her the rest and recuperation she needs at this time." 
 
 F. Brinley Bruton and Lexi Rudolph contributed to this story ||||| Kaci Hickox, 33 Nurse with MSF quarantined in U.S. Bryan Schutmaat for TIME I was deployed to the second largest town in Sierra Leone, called Bo. I was the Medical Team Lead of a 35-bed Ebola Case Management Center. We worked 12-to-14-hour shifts six days a week, and working in the PPE was cumbersome. Every inch of your body is covered. It’s very warm in Sierra Leone, in the high 90s when I was there, and the suit isn’t breathable. Worst of all, the suit doesn’t give you the opportunity to look people in the eye easily, and with the mask over your mouth you feel like you have to yell to communicate. You feel like you don’t have time to really care for patients the way you would like. I think a lot of people in the U.S. think of Ebola treatment as ICU-level care, but the truth is, keeping patients clean to make them feel good and encouraging them to drink and eat is the core of Ebola treatment in West Africa. There were so many devastating moments. There was a friend of mine who was from Sierra Leone, and I was the one who told him that his test came back positive for Ebola. I chose to tell him at a distance from across a fence so that I could do it in my normal clothes and look him in the eye. He had the most blank look on his face. It was complete shock. He walked away and went back to his room where I couldn’t see him. He didn’t want to speak anymore. When you tell someone they have Ebola, they know what it means. They’re scared. They’re sad. They’re just waiting to see what’s going to happen because that’s all we can do. There is no cure. He was young and strong, but he did not survive. But there were also moments that brought hope. When someone survived, the whole clinic team gathered together. The patient would take a final shower of chlorine and soap and leave the patient area with fresh clothes. Everyone clapped and danced. There was one woman who was being discharged, and I asked her if she was excited. She said, “Yes, I lost two of my children to Ebola, but I have one daughter left on the outside and I want to go take care of her.” It was so beautiful. When it was time to leave Sierra Leone I was torn. On the one hand I was tired and I knew I needed to go home. But you put all this time and energy into this clinic and the local staff. It’s really difficult to leave knowing the outbreak is nowhere near being over. When I stepped off the plane in Newark Liberty International Airport in late October, I knew I would be asked questions because I was aware there was a monitoring process taking place in the U.S. When I handed my immigration forms to the immigrations official, I told him I’d been in Sierra Leone and I was treating Ebola patients, and he said, “O.K., no worries, they’ll ask you some questions.” He walked me to the CDC quarantine office in the airport. They took my temperature, which didn’t surprise me, and it was normal. It didn’t surprise me when they asked me questions about my work and possible exposures. What did surprise me was that no one seemed to be in charge. Everyone seemed very nervous and scared. No one was clear about what they were doing and why. That was what started making me nervous. I was in the airport for over six hours. At one point, the New Jersey director of infectious disease at the department of health called me and said, “We are going to have to quarantine you.” I said I didn’t understand why. I didn’t have any symptoms, and if you’re not symptomatic you can’t transmit Ebola. I only had contact with Ebola patients when wearing full personal protective equipment. He alluded to the fact that it wasn’t him making the final decision. I wondered who was. A few hours after I arrived, someone took my temperature again and said I had a fever. I disputed this because by then, I was very frustrated and my face was flushed, which could result in a false positive reading using a temporal scanner thermometer. They said, “We are going to need to take you for evaluation.” I had to ask which hospital I was being taken to—they didn’t tell me that information without me asking—and I waited another hour before the ambulance arrived to take me to the hospital, where I was put in a tent. I tested [negative] for Ebola. Eventually I was released to be quarantined at my home in Maine, something I contested again. A Maine judge overturned the quarantine. I have witnessed the devastation Ebola causes and have personally experienced the stigma that fear of this disease brings. Still, I hope that compassion and knowledge will soon overcome the fear so that we can beat Ebola. I do want to go back to West Africa, but for now, I’m taking things day by day. —as told to Alexandra Sifferlin 
 
 Iris Martor, 32 Nurse at the More Than Me Academy, a school for vulnerable girls from the West Point slum of Monrovia Jackie Nickerson for TIME We have these big buses in Monrovia. On these buses you have, like, 200 passengers, and on my way to Monrovia from where I live is a long journey. So you have a lot of people from different walks of life and a lot of different conversations that come out. So it was in the buses I first heard about Ebola. Initially two people will say the government is telling the truth about this new sickness we are hearing about. But 198 will say the government is lying. I was sitting next to some person when the argument came to hand. I decided to ask, “What is this sickness that the government says is coming?” He explained it to me. I became interested, and I started to follow up. So for me, I said, if the international community is putting their money in for this sickness, I want to believe it. But the majority in Liberia did not believe. The incident that occurred that really brought fear into the minds of Monrovians was when the outbreak started in Redemption Hospital [in early June]. A nurse and a few other health workers at the hospital died of Ebola. This nurse treated a patient that came from Sierra Leone, and most of her colleagues attended to her, and eventually she died, and then this Ugandan expatriate [doctor] contracted Ebola and also died. And then everybody began to see the evidence of Ebola. When Redemption got hit, people were really scared, and they stayed away. The other hospitals were scared too—when a staff member got infected and maybe died, then everyone got afraid. So that is how eventually all the health facilities and clinics started to shut down. Even private hospitals, at a certain point in time, closed down. In the rainy season, you have a big increase in malaria cases and in diarrhea cases—you find a lot of sick people normally. Then we had this stranger called Ebola. So all the hospitals were closed, and the only places that were open were ETUs [Ebola Treatment Units]. So it meant that every person that was sick in the community needed to go to the ETU to be triaged from there. To be tested, to say O.K., this is positive, go [to the treatment center], or negative, so get some treatment and go home. And the ETUs didn’t have the capacity to take many people. The point [when I realized I had to do something] was when we were finding out that people were dying from other sicknesses. It was August. We decided to bring in the home-care nurses because malaria was killing children and adults. Other sicknesses that could be treated were killing people because there were no facilities that they could go to. We go to the homes of the sick and do the assessment. If we see that the patient has signs that are related to Ebola, we link them to the ambulance service. And they take them to the ETU. Where there is no case [of Ebola], we do another investigation to see what is going on. Before Ebola, I was already the school nurse. Then after Ebola started to escalate, we started to go into the community to look after our students, to really care for them. We didn’t want any of them to get sick, and praise be to God none of them had gotten sick of Ebola. So I and my team, we would go house to house where our students lived in West Point. And we sensitized them and we gave them materials to help. [But] what could the aid do, if I only sensitized my student, and I see this neighbor and that neighbor have Ebola? I leave that neighbor alone, and the neighbor contracts the virus, there is a possibility that my student can contract the virus. So when the number of sick people began to increase, More Than Me saw the need that they should do a bigger intervention than just limiting to their students. Now we visit every house where there is a sick person. Home care is dangerous because you don’t know the environment. If it is in a hospital setting, you are sure of your environment because that is where you work. And you know that this is an ETU, and everyone has Ebola, so you know how to act. But going into a home where it is not confirmed whether the patient has Ebola or not, that makes it dangerous. Whatever way you do it, it is a risk. So we did it in a way to reduce the risk. The only way you can get Ebola is through direct contact with the body fluids of an infected person. So whether a person shows signs of Ebola or not, consider a sick person as a suspect. That is clear. So don’t touch. Don’t even sit. Now you talk to the patient at least one meter apart. Based on what the patient says, based on what you have seen—if you are a professional nurse, if you see these signs, it suggests this. Sometimes it might suggest two things, but if you probe and ask follow-up questions, then you rule out one and it points to one. So based on that, you treat. As a nurse, when you are graduating, you swear an oath to take care of life. Initially I was afraid. I should admit that. I don’t want to die. I have my family, I have my children. But if I don’t help, I will still not be free. I might be more exposed, and this time around my entire family could be wiped away. God forbid, if I died in the fight maybe my children and my parents could live. So I decided to take that courage and to go out there and help my fellow Liberians. Because that is the oath that I swore. If someone from America comes to help my people, then why can’t I? This is my country. I should take the first step, and someone can walk in my footsteps. The cases are going down, yes, but in my opinion, it is not time to celebrate. It is time to be more cautious. Ebola has not been completely eradicated. It is still around. The more we start to get complacent and become careless, there is a possibility that it may shoot up again. As long as Ebola is still in Guinea and Sierra Leone, I can tell you that Liberia will not be free. If I become a decisionmaker in this country, I would like for this country to always have a contingency plan. If we had had a contingency plan, [Ebola] wouldn’t have spread as it did. So there should be a lesson learned for any Liberian who lives after Ebola is gone. Policymakers should be able to look at this experience and really plan for the future. Because tomorrow it may not be Ebola, it may be some other things. —as told to Aryn Baker 
 
 Nina Pham, 26 Nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Bryan Schutmaat for TIME The first time I heard the word Ebola, it was probably when they were doing all the coverage about Dr. Brantly and Nancy Writebol. When I heard it in Dallas, it was a couple of hours before I was to get Mr. Duncan as my patient. That day, my manager came to me and told me we had this patient in the ER who was going to come up to the intensive care unit—and that we were ruling him out for possible Ebola. I was obviously scared, but I chose to keep my assignment. It’s part of who I am—nursing is a calling. There was a patient who needed help, and I was going to help him. I wouldn’t have denied the assignment. I replay it over and over again in my head how I could have gotten infected. If I had to guess when it happened, it probably would have been in the first couple of days, when Mr. Duncan wasn’t in control of his bodily fluids, and he didn’t have catheters and tubes in place. We had to go in there and do blood sticks and deal with intimate procedures that were very high-risk. I did everything the CDC and the hospital recommended, from how to put on the personal protective equipment to how to take it off. I even interviewed with the CDC in the hospital after I took care of Mr. Duncan, and they deemed me no risk. So it was just a shock when my chief nursing officer, Cole Edmundson, and a CDC officer came to see me in their full protective equipment. I saw Cole’s eyes, and they were red from crying. I knew immediately it was not good. I think my heart just sank. I was in a little bit of denial at first. I started calling my family and telling them what happened, and that I loved them. Because Mr. Duncan had died three days prior, flashbacks started coming to my head of how his disease progressed and eventually led to his death. That’s the kind of thing that came to my mind when I found out. But now, I hope we as Americans know it’s still such a big issue in West Africa, and I think it’s important as a global community to help each other out. It’s not about closing off our borders or leaving people to fend for themselves. —as told to Alice Park ||||| Atlanta (CNN) -- A medical plane whisked an American infected with Ebola from Liberia to Georgia on Saturday, the latest leg of a race to save the first known patient with the deadly virus to be treated on U.S. soil. 
 
 Shortly after the plane landed, an ambulance rushed Dr. Kent Brantly from Dobbins Air Reserve Base to Atlanta's Emory University Hospital. He's one of two Americans sickened by the deadly viral hemorrhagic fever last month while on the front lines of a major outbreak in West Africa. 
 
 Video from Emory showed someone in a white, full-body protective suit helping a similarly clad person emerge from the ambulance and walk into the hospital. 
 
 Hospital visitor: 'Oh, my God' 
 
 Emory has said it will treat Brantly, 33, and fellow missionary Nancy Writebol in an isolation unit. 
 
 The plane equipped with an isolation unit can only transport one patient at a time. It will now pick up Writebol in Liberia and bring her to Georgia early next week, said Todd Shearer, spokesman for Christian charity Samaritan's Purse, with which both Americans were affiliated. 
 
 Brantly's wife, parents and sister cried when they saw him on CNN walking from the ambulance into the hospital, another representative of Samaritan's Purse said on condition of anonymity. His wife, Amber, later said she was relieved that her husband was back in the United States. 
 
 "I spoke with him, and he is glad to be back in the U.S.," she said in statement. "I am thankful to God for his safe transport and for giving him the strength to walk into the hospital." 
 
 Brantly's wife visited with him from behind a glass wall for about 45 minutes, the Samaritan's Purse representative said. Kent Brantly was described as "in great spirits and so grateful." 
 
 Tennessee doctor who worked with Ebola patients quarantines self 
 
 Brantly, who has ties to Texas and Indiana, and Writebol, of North Carolina, became sick while caring for Ebola patients in Liberia, one of three West African nations hit by an outbreak. 
 
 Treatment in isolation 
 
 This will be the first human Ebola test for a U.S. medical facility. The patients will be treated at an isolated unit where precautions are in place to keep such deadly diseases from spreading, unit supervisor Dr. Bruce Ribner said. 
 
 Everything that comes in and out of the unit will be controlled, Ribner said, and it will have windows and an intercom for staff to interact with patients without being in the room. 
 
 Ebola is not airborne or waterborne, and spreads through contact with organs and bodily fluids such as blood, saliva, urine and other secretions of infected people. 
 
 There is no FDA-approved treatment for Ebola, and Emory will use what Ribner calls "supportive care." That means carefully tracking a patient's symptoms, vital signs and organ function and taking measures, such as blood transfusions and dialysis, to keep patients stable. 
 
 Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Ebola will go global 
 
 "We just have to keep the patient alive long enough in order for the body to control this infection," Ribner said. 
 
 Writebol was given an experimental serum this week, Samaritan's Purse said, though its purpose and effects weren't immediately publicized. 
 
 The Ebola virus causes viral hemorrhagic fever, which refers to a group of viruses that affect multiple organ systems in the body and are often accompanied by bleeding. 
 
 Early symptoms include sudden onset of fever, weakness, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat. They later progress to vomiting, diarrhea, impaired kidney and liver function -- and sometimes internal and external bleeding. 
 
 Bruce Johnson, president of SIM USA, a Christian mission organization with which Writebol also is linked, said Saturday that both were seriously ill but stable. 
 
 "My last report (on Brantly) was yesterday. ... He was ambulatory, being able to talk, converse, and get up. So that was encouraging," Johnson said Saturday morning. 
 
 On Writebol, Johnson said: "She's responsive, and we're encouraged at how she's doing." 
 
 Emory's isolation unit was created with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based down the road. It aims to optimize care for those with highly infectious diseases and is one of four U.S. institutions capable of providing such treatment. 
 
 The World Health Organization reports that the outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea is believed to have infected 1,323 people and killed more than 729 this year, as of July 27. 
 
 Fear, conspiracy theories 
 
 As officials worked to bring the two Americans home, the idea of intentionally bringing Ebola into the United States has rattled many nerves. 
 
 "The road to hell was paved with good intentions," wrote one person, using the hashtag #EbolaOutbreak. "What do we say to our kids When they get sick& die?" 
 
 On the website of conspiracy talker Alex Jones, who has long purported the CDC could unleash a pandemic and the government would react by instituting authoritarian rule, the news was a feast of fodder. 
 
 "Feds would exercise draconian emergency powers if Ebola hits U.S.," a headline read on infowars.com. 
 
 Ribner repeatedly downplayed the risk for anyone who will be in contact with Brantly or Writebol. 
 
 "We have two individuals who are critically ill, and we feel that we owe them the right to receive the best medical care," Ribner said. 
 
 The fight against Ebola 
 
 All concerns about the United States pale in comparison to the harsh reality in the hardest-hit areas. 
 
 Even in the best-case scenario, it could take three to six months to stem the epidemic in West Africa, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC. 
 
 There's no vaccine, though one is in the works. 
 
 There's no standardized treatment for the disease, either; the most common approach is to support organ functions and keep up bodily fluids such as blood and water long enough for the body to fight off the infection. 
 
 The National Institutes of Health plans to begin testing an experimental Ebola vaccine in people as early as September. Tests on primates have been successful. 
 
 So far, the outbreak is confined to West Africa. Although infections are dropping in Guinea, they are on the rise in Liberia and Sierra Leone. 
 
 In the 1990s, an Ebola strain tied to monkeys -- Ebola-Reston -- was found in the United States, but no humans got sick from it, according to the CDC. 
 
 Experts: U.S. health care system well-prepared for Ebola 
 
 CNN's Chelsea J. Carter, Greg Botelho, Deanna Hackney, John Branch, Danielle Dellorto, Barbara Starr, MaryLynn Ryan and Ben Brumfield contributed to this report. ||||| President Barack Obama thanks American service members and pays tribute to six U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan days earlier. Rough cut (no reporter narration). 
 
 The leader of the world's Anglicans, says Islamic State is a 'Herod of Today' who want to exterminate Christians in the Middle East. Rough cut (no reporter narration). 
 
 A suspected suicide bomber kills himself and wounds several other people in an attack on a mosque in north-western Bangladesh. Rough cut (no reporter narration). 
 
 Katie Couric examines the disease behind the new movie “Concussion” starring Will Smith and speaks with those directly impacted by traumatic brain injury. 
 
 Why the NFL doesn't want you to see "Concussion' 
 
 Barron Whited stops by to talk about some resolutions for parents to build better relationships with their kids. 
 
 A longtime relationship between two allies, Amazon and UPS, has recently come under strain. WSJ's Laura Stevens discusses with Tanya Rivero. Photo: Getty 
 
 When Mitch chosen to officiate a wedding over Russell. The battle to prove who is the real best man for the job causes both guys to find out what's important in their own relationships. When Mitch (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) is asked to officiate the wedding of friends Derek (guest star Terrence Jenkins) and Charlene (guest star Letoya Luckett), Russell (Tone Bell) is sent into a tailspin because he was the one who introduced the couple. When a piece of juicy gossip threatens to break-off the wedding, 
 
 Dealing with all of the pressures of the holidays can be very stressful especially if you don't always get along with some of the extended friends or family members that you may have to be in the same roof with for a dinner or party. (5:07) WCCO Mid-Morning – Dec. 23, 2015 
 
 Credit impacts more in a relationship than just the size of your home. According to a new study released by the Federal Reserve, higher credit scores correlate with more successful relationships, and couples with similar credit scores are more likely to last than ones that differ significantly. This podcast was recorded on Nov. 10, 2015. 
 
 A widowed Navy Veteran is told she can’t be buried with her late wife because her home state of Idaho doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages. Jen Markham has the story. 
 
 Madelynn Taylor, 74, served six years in the United States Navy. When she passes away, she says, she wants to be buried with the ashes of her late wife, Jean Mixner, in the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery. 
 
 But there's a problem. Because gay marriage isn't recognized in Idaho, Taylor's wish has been denied, even though the cemetery allows opposite-sex spouses to be buried or interred with veterans, KBOI.com reports. 
 
 "I'm not surprised," Taylor said to KBOI.com. "I've been discriminated against for 70 years, and they might as well discriminate against me in death as well as life. 
 
 "I don't see where the ashes of a couple old lesbians is going to hurt anyone," she continued. The couple were first married in 1995 and then legally married again in California in 2008. Mixner died in 2012. 
 
 "I could take the same documents and get buried in Arlington if I needed to, with no problems," Taylor told KHOU.com. "But here they said it's a state veterans cemetery, not a national cemetery. So we have to go by the state laws. So, we gotta change the state laws." 
 
 Idaho's governor, C.L. "Butch" Otter, confirmed the state law wouldn't allow the couple to be buried together. 
 
 "The veteran’s cemetery rules require a valid marriage certificate in order for a spouse to be buried with a veteran. Idaho’s Constitution does not recognize same-sex marriage," Otter said in a statement released on Thursday. "The voters spoke in 2006 by passing an amendment to our Constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman. I am defending their decision and the Idaho Constitution in federal court, so I’m not going to comment any further." 
 
 Taylor says she will continue to speak out against the rule. She told KBOI.com that she recently joined the Add the 4 Words protest, a movement that seeks to add the words "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to Idaho's human rights act. 
 
 "Normally I stammer and stutter myself. I'm not a public speaker," Taylor told KHOU.com. "I'm a background person. I work in the background. What's changed is I got mad at the cemetery and decided it's time to do something about it." 
 
 Taylor says she has no intention of being buried in the veterans cemetery without her late spouse. Should she pass away before the state law is changed, she wants her family to hold her ashes and Mixner's until a time in which they are allowed to be together. 
 
 "Eventually I'm going to be there. It'll happen. They might as well give up and let us go now," Taylor told KHOU.com. 
 
 A total of 33 states, including Idaho, prohibits same-sex couples from marrying and does not recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere, according to MSNBC. 
 
 Follow Mike Krumboltz on Twitter (@mikekrumboltz). ||||| Fatima Ali is a chef in NYC and a former ‘Top Chef’ contestant. Last year, she was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma, a rare form of cancer. She underwent chemotherapy and surgery and wrote about how the experience changed her relationship to food. In September, Ali learned that the cancer had returned and was told she had a year to live. Here, she writes about how the terminal diagnosis is giving her a new perspective on life. 
 
 Sitting in the airport lounge, I can feel her gaze locked on the back of my head before I see her. Her brows furrowed under dark bangs, small fists curled up around the sides of her princess dress. She stares at me, eyes full of curiosity and confusion. She senses that something is not quite right. It’s not just the baldness that gives it away or the sallow skin or baggy clothes. A cloud of death is following me. It’s followed me all the way to the first class lounge at LAX. I have never flown anything but basic economy on a domestic flight, but my illness has forced me to upgrade my life. 
 
 The cancer cells my doctors believed had vanished are back with a vengeance in my left hip and femur bone. My oncologist has told me that I have a year to live, with or without the new chemotherapy regimen. I was looking forward to being 30, flirty, and thriving. Guess I have to step it up on the flirting. I have no time to lose. 
 
 It’s funny, isn’t it? When we think we have all the time in the world to live, we forget to indulge in the experiences of living. When that choice is yanked away from us, that’s when we scramble to feel. I am desperate to overload my senses in the coming months, making reservations at the world’s best restaurants, reaching out to past lovers and friends, and smothering my family, giving them the time that I so selfishly guarded before. 
 
 I hate to use my illness as a tactic, but I swallow my guilt as I slip into Noma ’s DMs to see if somehow the Copenhagen restaurant can accommodate a table for two for their already booked seafood season. I’m floored when I receive a reply from chef Rene Redzepi himself. Turns out that people respond when you tell them you’re dying of cancer. 
 
 In my wallet, I keep a crumpled cocktail napkin with a list of names scrawled on it. They’re people I need to make amends to before I go. I have to learn how to ask for forgiveness without expecting to receive it. It’s probably the most frightening thing I have ever had to do, and I’ve experienced some seriously terror-inducing moments. 
 
 I’ve spent more time in sterile hospital rooms in the past year than I have in my own apartment. This has become my new home, and the staff a part of my family. I wonder if I’ll accidentally call my nurse “Mom” when she sneaks in to check my vital signs in the middle of the night. My blood pressure always stays on the low side of calm. Everyone’s amazed that I’m taking it so well. But when you hit rock bottom, there really is no place to go but up. 
 
 An odd sense of relief has settled inside me, knowing that I can finally live for myself, even if it’s just for a few more precious months. I call a local hair stylist to come to my hospital room to dye half my hair platinum blonde and buzz the rest. He panics a little as he’s setting up, whispering to my brother in his thick Italian accent. “The dye… it won’t, uh, burn her scalp will it?” I tell him to carry on even if it does. It’s the only sense of control I feel like I have right now. I have embraced my alter ego. She doesn’t hold back. 
 
 “I love your hair!” they all say when I’m done. They think I’m brave, but really, I’m not. I’m scared. I suspect I won’t last very long. There’s a faint feeling deep inside my gut like a rumble of passing air, ever expanding and filling slowly until, one day, I’ll pop. 
 
 Until then, every day is an opportunity for me to experience something new. I used to dream of owning my own restaurant. Now I have an ever growing list of the ones I need to visit. From decadent uni and truffle toast at Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare to spice-laden Szechuan hot pot in Flushing, I’m sketching a plan to eat my way through New York and the boroughs while I can. 
 
 I think back to my favorite movie of all time, American Beauty . “I don’t think that there’s anything worse than being ordinary,” Mena Suvari says as she sits with Kevin Spacey ’s lecherous character. I was always deathly afraid of being average in any way, and now I desperately wish to have a simple, uneventful life. ||||| The husband of the American woman infected with Ebola said Friday that he hopes to return to the U.S. to be with his wife soon, but remains in Liberia waiting for the approximately 21-day incubation period to pass to make sure he is not infected as well. 
 
 David Writebol spoke by telephone from Monrovia, Liberia, where he and his wife Nancy were doing missionary work. CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook asked Writebol if he was waiting to see if he was infected, and Writebol replied, "Yes, I am taking my temperature every day." 
 
 Today, I asked David Writebol if he is waiting to see if he is infected with Ebola & he said, "Yes, I am taking my temperature every day." — Jonathan LaPook, M.D (@DrLaPook) August 8, 2014 
 
 Since the Ebola outbreak first began about six months ago, the virus has killed at least 932 people in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. 
 
 On Tuesday, Nancy Writebol was transferred on a specially-equipped medical flight from Liberia to the U.S. She is now being treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, the same facility where her colleague Dr. Kent Brantly, 33, of Fort Worth, Texas, is also a patient. 
 
 Brantly issued a statement Friday through Samaritan's Purse, the aid group he was working with, saying, "I am growing stronger every day, and I thank God for His mercy as I have wrestled with this terrible disease." 
 
 David Writebol said he is not sure how his wife contracted Ebola but he doesn't believe it was due to a failure to follow safety protocols in the isolation unit. He said his wife worked outside the unit and was responsible for the decontamination process and as support for the medical team to make sure they were properly dressed and protected before entering patients' rooms. 
 
 InChrist Communications, Reuters 
 
 In preparation to volunteer for the mission, he said his wife took a number of courses to become a nursing assistant. He added that her experience as housewife provided some background in cleaning. 
 
 He said he spoke with his son today, who had just been to visit her at the hospital where she remains in isolation. He reported that her condition had improved, she was maintaining her sense of humor and her memory was intact. "I don't believe we could say she's in the clear," David Writebol said. "I would say she's in very good hands and is being well attended to." 
 
 Nancy Writebol, 58, has also received a third dose of the experimental serum, ZMapp, he revealed. Though the safety and effectiveness of the drug for humans is still unknown, the couple believed using it in these circumstances could provide doctors with crucial information about how to treat Ebola and save more lives in the future. 
 
 Writebol and his wife have been married for 40 years. He said as soon as his doctors have confirmed he hasn't contracted Ebola, he looks forward to returning to his wife's side. "I want to be with my wife," he said. "I hope to be there soon." Asked what's the first thing he'll do when she recovers, Writebol said, "I'm going to give her a kiss!" ||||| (Editor’s note: Kaci Hickox, a nurse with degrees from the University of Texas at Arlington and the Johns Hopkins University, has been caring for Ebola patients while on assignment with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone. Upon her return to the U.S. on Friday, she was placed in quarantine at a New Jersey hospital. She has tested negative in a preliminary test for Ebola, but the hospital says she will remain under mandatory quarantine for 21 days and will be monitored by public health officials. Dr. Seema Yasmin, a Dallas Morning News staff writer, worked with Hickox as a disease detective with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With Yasmin’s help, Hickox wrote this first-person piece exclusively for the News.) 
 
 I am a nurse who has just returned to the U.S. after working with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone - an Ebola-affected country. I have been quarantined in New Jersey. This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me. 
 
 I am scared about how health care workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in West Africa. I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganization, fear and, most frightening, quarantine. 
 
 I arrived at the Newark Liberty International Airport around 1 p.m. on Friday, after a grueling two-day journey from Sierra Leone. I walked up to the immigration official at the airport and was greeted with a big smile and a “hello.” 
 
 I told him that I have traveled from Sierra Leone and he replied, a little less enthusiastically: “No problem. They are probably going to ask you a few questions.” 
 
 He put on gloves and a mask and called someone. Then he escorted me to the quarantine office a few yards away. I was told to sit down. Everyone that came out of the offices was hurrying from room to room in white protective coveralls, gloves, masks, and a disposable face shield. 
 
 One after another, people asked me questions. Some introduced themselves, some didn’t. One man who must have been an immigration officer because he was wearing a weapon belt that I could see protruding from his white coveralls barked questions at me as if I was a criminal. 
 
 Two other officials asked about my work in Sierra Leone. One of them was from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They scribbled notes in the margins of their form, a form that appeared to be inadequate for the many details they are collecting. 
 
 I was tired, hungry and confused, but I tried to remain calm. My temperature was taken using a forehead scanner and it read a temperature of 98. I was feeling physically healthy but emotionally exhausted. 
 
 Three hours passed. No one seemed to be in charge. No one would tell me what was going on or what would happen to me. 
 
 I called my family to let them know that I was OK. I was hungry and thirsty and asked for something to eat and drink. I was given a granola bar and some water. I wondered what I had done wrong. 
 
 Four hours after I landed at the airport, an official approached me with a forehead scanner. My cheeks were flushed, I was upset at being held with no explanation. The scanner recorded my temperature as 101. 
 
 The female officer looked smug. “You have a fever now,” she said. 
 
 I explained that an oral thermometer would be more accurate and that the forehead scanner was recording an elevated temperature because I was flushed and upset. 
 
 I was left alone in the room for another three hours. At around 7 p.m., I was told that I must go to a local hospital. I asked for the name and address of the facility. I realized that information was only shared with me if I asked. 
 
 Eight police cars escorted me to the University Hospital in Newark. Sirens blared, lights flashed. Again, I wondered what I had done wrong. 
 
 I had spent a month watching children die, alone. I had witnessed human tragedy unfold before my eyes. I had tried to help when much of the world has looked on and done nothing. 
 
 At the hospital, I was escorted to a tent that sat outside of the building. The infectious disease and emergency department doctors took my temperature and other vitals and looked puzzled. “Your temperature is 98.6,” they said. “You don't have a fever but we were told you had a fever.” 
 
 After my temperature was recorded as 98.6 on the oral thermometer, the doctor decided to see what the forehead scanner records. It read 101. The doctor felts my neck and looked at the temperature again. “There’s no way you have a fever,” he said. “Your face is just flushed.” 
 
 My blood was taken and tested for Ebola. It came back negative. 
 
 I sat alone in the isolation tent and thought of many colleagues who will return home to America and face the same ordeal. Will they be made to feel like criminals and prisoners? 
 
 I recalled my last night at the Ebola management center in Sierra Leone. I was called in at midnight because a 10-year-old girl was having seizures. I coaxed crushed tablets of Tylenol and an anti-seizure medicine into her mouth as her body jolted in the bed. 
 
 It was the hardest night of my life. I watched a young girl die in a tent, away from her family. 
 
 With few resources and no treatment for Ebola, we tried to offer our patients dignity and humanity in the face of their immense suffering. 
 
 The epidemic continues to ravage West Africa. Recently, the World Health Organization announced that as many as 15,000 people have died from Ebola. We need more health care workers to help fight the epidemic in West Africa. The U.S. must treat returning health care workers with dignity and humanity.
– "For tireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time to boost its defenses, for risking, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving, the Ebola fighters are Time's 2014 Person of the Year." So concludes editor Nancy Gibbs' piece on why this year's honor goes to a group of people who have "the hero's heart," those who freely put themselves at risk in order to fight the virus. Time shares the stories of a few of the many, some in their own words (Kaci Hickox and Dr. Kent Brantly penned their own stories). One nurse's assistant who survived Ebola describes hurt "like they are busting your head with an ax"—though a hurt perhaps second to watching her parents die. "I went out of my mind for about one week," says Salome Karwah. Time ultimately photographed more than 20 Ebola fighters in a dozen locations around the globe for its story. In Gibbs' piece, she shifts from writing of how the fighters were tested to how we were all tested and, in many ways, failed: On our own soil, a "full freak-out" quickly ensued, with an Ohio school closed because an employee flew on the same plane (not flight) as one of Thomas Eric Duncan's nurses, and with a Maine teacher unable to return to her school for three weeks simply because she attended a conference in Dallas. "The problem with irrational responses is that they can cloud the need for rational ones"—which this honored group of men and women had. This year's runners-up: Ferguson protesters, Vladimir Putin, Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, and Alibaba founder Jack Ma.