"I wish we could have a hero, but we don't seem to be able to have any anymore."

-Matt Speers

Are There Heroes?

Matt Speers is a Captain in the United States Marine Corps.  He commands more than one hundred men.  I say command, but that's wrong in a way.  I should say he leads them.

"Their parents lend them to me and it's my job to make sure they become men of honor.  It's amazing to see some of the decisions a boy of 18 will make.  I don't know why I'm surprised.  I made the some of the same silly choices when I was that age.  It's my responsibility to demonstrate the right path so I can send them back to their families as great men when they leave the service."

When I was listening to Captain Speers speak to me I found it difficult at times to pay attention to my driving.  He was sitting in the seat next to me and there were times when all I wanted to do was stare at him.  Can such men still be walking amongst us?

He has served at two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.  He's also getting himself and his men ready to be deployed again for another tour.  I know how hard he's working to be prepared.  He spends weeks in the deserts of California without communication to the world you and I live in.  He's totally immersed in training and caring about the men he lives his life with.  I felt honored that he was spending time with me searching for a home in the mountains of Utah.

On one misty, cool spring day we walked along a street between homes and I asked him what he thought about one particular history-making-general.

"I wish we could have a hero, but we don't seem to be able to have any anymore." He said.

I can understand why he said what he said. 

I looked over through the mist and to my right to look at him as he spoke to me; the cool breeze brushing lightly across my face.  And, what I saw was a real hero.  He isn't some myth created by a popular culture.  He isn't a self absorbed, self promoting person working to build himself up in the eyes of everyone in the world!  He's a man of principle.

A hero is someone who has recognized true principles and is willing to live in conformity.  They're a person who goes out and does the right thing every day even though nobody else will ever know what's being done.  It's someone who gives their life to the benefit of others to nurture them and guide them to the best of their ability; someone who's willing to live out in the middle of nowhere in order to be in a position to teach lessons that can't be learned in the "center of it all."  Perhaps most of all, it's someone who will just go out and do the right thing when it's hard, uncomfortable or unpopular.

I continued walking on a sidewalk in a popular Mountain Resort Town in Utah on a cool, misty day.  When I looked to my right again, I was finding it harder and harder to see the hero at my side.  The weather wasn't worsening.  The increasing mist was in my eyes as a result of the opportunity to be walking with a truly great man.