Hold the Mayo...

Please...spare me the drivel about the cops and the nurses and the teachers and the EMTs...

I know...they're all heroes...every day they do personally heroic things on a small scale that have a profound effect on the people with whom they come into contact.

I already know that. I appreciate them. I don't marginalize or denigrate. They are wonderful.
Really.

I'm not talking about them. They are virtually invisible. They matter...but...

Where are the true, real heroes? Where is Ike...?

We are treated to cheap imitations...in politics, in the media, in the movies...on the playing fields especially.

We used to salute our heroes...at every parade, at every lunch counter, in every train station.

We used to hold, in the highest esteem, the men (and sometimes... women) who did heroic things.

Charles Lindbergh (for the flying...not the Nazi thing)

Amelia Earhart (for the flying...not the gay thing)

Dwight Eisenhower (for WWII...not the Republican thing)

Jesse Owens (for the running...and for the Black thing...take that! Adolph...!)

Eleanor Roosevelt (for the social awareness...not the suffering wife thing...Hillary...)

Jonas Salk (for the vaccine...not the Jewish thing)

On and on...heroes...in everyday life...doing publicly extraordinary things...serving as true role models for all of us...young and old.

Now we have corrupt politicians with TV shows, and convicted felons with TV shows and former
cheating athletes with TV shows and blowhards with...TV shows.

I guess it's TV's fault...

I recently visisted with an old friend...a former Marine Sargeant with bars and stars from his several years in Viet Nam. A hero. A man who put his life on the line for me. He enlisted...in the Marine Corps! He fought for me...and you.

"Welcome Home Callie..."

A hero.

A real hero.