American Hero ...

There are those who complain that the term "hero" is overused and thus has lost some of its meaning. In fact, we don't use the word nearly enough. Part of that it because you can never have too many heroes these days, but another part is that many who do heroic things in this culture go unnoticed. Of course there are heroes putting their lives on the line in Iraq and such right now. There were heroes on 9/11, heroes currently working on our local police and fire departments. You would hope that every mother and father would be a hero to their kids, and a few still are, I guess. And then there are heroes like Hugh Thompson, who do the right thing and pay the wrong kind of price for it.

Hugh Thompson died yesterday at the age of 62. Sad to say, I didn't know who he was until the obits started rolling on Friday. Click on the subject line above to learn about another side of heroism.