Captain America is not a real person. But there are lots of heroes all around us.
A colleague of mine misses having heroes.
Starting out the year, business writer Rod Walton would have put Gen. David Petraeus and cyclist Lance Armstrong on that list.
“Goes to show maybe we shouldn’t have heroes,” he said to me this morning.
We all know the gritty details of how Armstrong cheated his way to his Tour de France victories.
Personally, I questioned his moral compass after he left his three children and wife, who stood with him during the dark days of recovering from cancer, to date rock stars and movie starlets.
Now, in a scandal rivaling any episode of the “Real Housewives” franchise,
Petraeus stepped down as CIA director after admitting to an affair with his biographer, who may have gained secret information through the liaison.
The affair was discovered after the mistress allegedly sent threatening email to a perceived romantic rival, who is now implicated in a possible “inappropriate” relationship with
Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.
It makes your head spin.
It’s also an old, sad story.
Sex, lies, a cover-up and the eventual downfall.
But I disagree with not having heroes.
They just aren’t always found in our newspaper.
Our heroes are people on the front lines of life.
They teach children and keep them safe from abusers.
They help the unemployed find work.
They offer services to the homeless to find shelter and self-worth.
They fight fires, catch crooks, drive our buses and pick up our trash.
They do the little, everything things that perk us up -- from opening store doors to giving a compliment.
Petreus was never my hero, though he represented them.
My hero is the father of my son’s classmate who has been deployed as a reservist twice overseas, missing many assemblies, games and birthday parties.
The hero list includes a high school friend, also a husband and father, serving in every U.S. conflict or war beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
There are thousands of stories like those, soldiers making sacrifices while knowing they may not return.
As a society, we give a lot of credit, influence and pay to the top dogs in organizations, whether that is the military, government agencies, schools, nonprofits or companies.
The real credit should go to those closest to the work being accomplished.
Those are the heroes.
Also, Rod Walton is a father of four, married to his wife for 23 years.
He has volunteered to coach about 50 different youth teams, led Sunday school classes and mission trips and is one of the most respected reporters in our newsroom.
If he’s looking for a hero, he just needs to find a mirror.
