Arizona's First Political Blog

E-mail Anonymous Mike at zonitics4-at-yahoo.com

By Anonymous Mike, pseudonymously.

 
Heart of a Soldier

Those who know my views on parenting know that I believe that kids lack in their lives are heroes. Somewhere we have drained heroism from our culture in favor of the mundane and routinized. At the same kids and especially young boys have a hard distinguishing between "tough" and "brave" or between their more immediate wants and how they should act; there becomes a screaming need for role models.

Yes I know parents are role models as well but believe me at my kids' age, neither my wife or I qualify as heroes in their eyes. You just got to go with it and one way is to steer their attention toward those outside of the home who embody values that you prize and that you hope one day they will too.

One such man is Rick Rescorla.

I have written about him before. He was one of the many who died on 9/11, in his case rushing back into the south tower to rescue more people. In addition to that he served int he colonial North Rhodesia Police and part of the 7th Calvary in the Battle of Ia Drang that was immortalized in the book When We were Soldiers. Last, but hardly least, he was man who in the final years of his life found true love.

The man's story is breathtaking... if it was submitted as a work of fiction, it would be rejected as
too fantastic.

My oldest boy is still a little young for it, but in about a year or two I'll leave a copy of Rescorla's story, Heart of a Soldier, some place where he'll be bound to pick it up and read it; perhaps by his seat in the car. Better yet since he always procrastinates doing his homework, I'll leave it on his desk.

In the meantime if you have some time, check out the New Yorker article on which the book was based, The Real Heroes are Dead: A Love Story.

You won't be sorry
posted by Anonymous Mike at 7:19 PM