We Still Have Plenty Of Heroes
A friend told me he asked his 13-year-old son to name his heroes. The lad couldn’t come up with any names. That was after he was informed professional athletes and entertainers don’t count.
His father thought it was sad the teenager seems to have no real heroes.
Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, I had lots heroes.
John Glenn comes to mind. So does Chuck Yeager. So does John McCain.
And so do some of the people I went to high school with, who went to Vietnam.
Sometimes we forget people like them. We don’t stop to think that virtually every day in Afghanistan, Iraq and similarly troubled places, people whose names we will never know are being heroes.
And we forget about the old guys in their American Legion and VFW uniforms, Because so many of them never achieved officer rank or had movies made about their lives, many of our real heroes aren’t known outside their communities.
That doesn’t make them any less worthy of veneration.
Here’s the thing about many teenagers, though: Ask them what color socks they’re wearing, and chances are they’ll have to pull up a pants leg before answering. They’re kids, preoccupied with any number of things other than naming their heroes.
Ask one what the formula for determining the volume of a cylinder is, and there’s a reasonable chance he or she will be able to tell you, because that was covered in class last week. Or ask what kind of wood Harry Potter’s broomstick is made of, and the answer may pop right out.
It’s just that the kids have their minds on many things other than the full names of people they consider heroes. Think back — honestly — to when you were 13.
They have lots and lots of modern-day heroes, of course. There’s Captain Richard Phillips, the mercant mariner who risked his own life to safeguard his crew. There are the private security contractors who saved lives during the Benghazi attack (who can forget a fellow nicknamed “Oz”?). There are the Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden.
There are the hundreds of firefighters and police officers, and some civilians, who gave their lives to save others during the 9/11 attacks.
We shouldn’t read too much into a teenager’s inability, when asked with no warning, to name heroes. Chances are he’s aware of them, even if he can’t name names when victimized by a parental pop quiz.
We Americans still have plenty of genuine heroes. That’s what’s important.
As for naming them, tell me, right now, the last name of “Oz.”
Had to think a moment, didn’t you?
Myer can be reached at: mmyer@theintelligencer.net.
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