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GROUND ZERO, New York City, July 6--Heroes come and go, swept into history by the winds of time and change. But some stick forever.
The Spartans of Vigilance, 2500 years
ago, live. They guard the pass at Thermopylae against
Terrorism, preserved in a famous Greek poem.
Yesterday, at the River-to-River New York
Pops concert in Battery Park at the tip of Lower Manhattan, Skitch
Henderson led the famous orchestra in a series of patriotic songs.
The emcee was Mark McEwen, weatherman and reporter for CBS Morning show.
In a tribute to what a hero is, he defined one as "the person who is
running into the burning building to save people as others are running
out."
But, in
keeping with his Courage, Conviction and Right Action, Ted Williams walked
into the "Jaws of Death," in both World War II and Korea. He
chose to risk his life to secure the principles of Freedom rather than
hide behind a bat and an athletic career that offered him fame, fortune
and ultimate personal safety.
That was the first time
he ran into a burning building, but not his last.
Ted Williams was much like the FDNY Fire
Lieutenant Bob LaRocco, of Ladder Company 9, who was buried in the
collapse of the first World Trade Center building. As the
building collapsed,
thirty people died around LaRocco. He dug himself out of the rubble.
Instead of protecting himself from more harm, LaRocco bulldogged his
way to the remaining building to help in that battle and barely escaped death
when it also collapsed.
I'm personally not
a baseball fan. My wife is. When she was seven she saw Ted
Williams play at Fenway Park. He could have bought me a cup of
coffee and I'd never recognize him--not for his baseball heroics, that is.
One example
of the blind is the guy
who filed the lawsuit to blast "Under God" as being "unconstitutional."
In America, a person has the right to protest about anything.
But this guy isn't a hero--he's just the opposite. He's selfishly
trying to destroy the principle of the "Higher Order," that which stands
above all men and women, a universal power, a non-religious entity that
represents Good-Orderly-Direction (G-O-D), directing human endeavor toward a goal of
selfless human
compassion. Rather than risk his life to defend the freedoms
of belief in something far greater than ourselves, this man seeks to set fires on the beliefs
which ordain the ideals of "faith" in something larger than man or woman,
in some universal compass that provides the power of good over evil, right
over wrong, just over unjust.
I put Mohammad Ali (Cassius Clay) up in the Ted Williams and Bob LaRocco category. At the peak of his career, Ali chose to be a Warrior of Vigilance and risk everything. He refused to fight in a war he didn't believe in. But he didn't run from the flames. He paid the price. He didn't box in the brightness of his peak years, choosing instead to sacrifice his World Champion Crown for his convictions. He displayed the Courage, Conviction and took the Right Action heroes are made of. Others might have pulled strings or found some safe haven so they could retain both their athletic career as well as appease critics. Ali stood on the high ground, fighting for his beliefs at great risk to himself, just as Ted Williams or Lt. LaRocco did when he crawled from one crumbling building to put himself at risk in yet another.
Men of Vigilance, Women of Vigilance, will
never be lost in the pages of history. Like those
Spartans at Thermopylae some two millenniums ago, they will forever be
remembered not because of the hitting records, or the boxing
championships, or just because of being a fireman--but because they
crawled into the Jaws of Terror, willingly putting their lives on the line for
their beliefs. None of the real heroes of the earth sought
anything from their actions, and all put something higher than themselves
above their own personal security. That "something" is a concept the man
who is trying to destroy the foundations of "In God We Trust" will never
understand.
Go To July 5--Machine Guns, Bomb Dogs & Macy's 4th Of July Fireworks
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