I have always marveled at the concept of heroism and those, who by design or by accident become real heroes. There are many examples of those who give their all. I remember years ago reading a Readers Digest article about a young man walking along the Potomac River in Washington DC, in the evening, in the dead of Winter when all of a sudden a large commercial jet liner crashed into the river. Later the accident report said that the wings had iced up and as a result the pilot was unable to maneuver the plane into a safe flight pattern. Survivors, in shock and freezing, were floundering in the water. The young man, without hesitation, dove into the icy water and pulled several of the passengers to shore where others then cared for them. After rescuing one last person, he slowly slid under the water and was not seen again. I remember weeping as I read the fate of that hero and thought in my mind, there will be a special place for him in Heaven. He did essentially what the Savior did; he gave his life so that others might live. Heroes, like him, seem to be born with the instinct to know and to do what needs to be done in the time of disaster, apparently absent of any regard for their own safety. Heroes are sometimes defined as saviors and rightly so.
Alexander Green told the following story, “In the summer of 1941, Sergeant James Allen Ward was awarded the Victoria Cross for climbing out onto the wing of his Wellington bomber in mid-flight to extinguish a fire in the starboard engine. Secured only by a rope around his waist, he smothered the fire and managed to crawl back into the cabin.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a great admirer of swashbuckling exploits, summoned the soldier to 10 Downing Street. Struck dumb with awe in Churchill’s presence, however, Ward was unable to answer even the most basic questions. Surveying the unhappy hero, Churchill said, “You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence.”
“Yes sir,” stammered Ward.
“Then you can imagine how humble and awkward I feel in yours,” replied Churchill.”
I, too, feel humbled just by virtue of reading the stories of these extraordinary people. When we hear, read or observe someone doing something like that, Alex Green said your mouth wants to say, “I can’t believe a human being did that?”
But wait, aren’t there many kinds of heroes, are there not heroes who did nothing flashy and brave before the crowd. Those, the quiet ones, they are in families, those who are guardians of their smaller brothers and sisters. There are fathers and mothers who struggle to put bread on the table or to provide shelter for the family and often neglect their own needs and seldom if ever enjoy life’s comforts. Are they not heroes?
In the mid to late nineteen thirties, during the great depression, my father worked in a dry cleaning business barely making enough to feed his family of eight. Some nights there was no food in the house for supper until he came home. We lived a mile out of town and usually his old car wouldn’t start so he walked to and from work. During the winter months it got dark and cold early and my brothers and sisters and I would be hungry and anxious to see dad come through the door with some groceries for our supper. We would scrap ice off the inside of the windows in order to try to see him coming. On several occasions the evenings were bitter cold and dad would walk in the door with a bag of groceries in each arm. The cold and wind had caused his nose to run and his eyes to water and without a way to free his hand to wipe the moisture from his eyes and nose they would drip and freeze. When he finally got home there would be little ice cycles hanging from his eye lashes and his nose. As that memory was brought to my mind as I wrote a brief history about him, I realized then that my dad was a hero, as he sacrificed for our lives.
A person doesn’t have to put his life in danger or save someone from a runaway stage coach to be a hero in my mind. There are all kinds, of heroes; community minded men and women who have been, and are, willing to stand up for the right even though what they stand for may not be popular. Some statesmen have been described as heroes because of difficult decisions they had to make when a nation was in grave peril. Abraham Lincoln was such a statesmen, he was our President, when we were involved in the civil war and only because he made many heroic and difficult decisions, we are the United States of America today. Some say, and I agree, the greatest nation on God’s green earth.
Max Ehrmann has said, “Be not blind to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.”
In some cases, I believe, a person can be defined as a hero if they are just willing to give up a life of ease (maybe from a retirement community) to do something of value for others, or to do something for those who are unable to do for themselves. There are many men and women who have not been placed in a precarious position but yet are viewed as heroes (by me). For example, those people who have caught the vision of the Father’s Plan of Salvation for all mankind and who work so hard to research their ancestors and make sure their earthly ordinances are done.
I have learned that heroes are the people who do what needs to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences. Heroes are saviors. I, for one, will always love and revere heroes.