I had idols growing up as most boys do. I dreamed of playing baseball like Mickey Mantle or maybe even being President someday but family heroes were few and far between. I had a relative that was in the Air Force, a military officer. What boy is not mesmerized by seeing a man in a uniform with ribbons and shining brass? I held him higher than I should have and lately have come to understand once again that heroes are human too. They have their frailties and weak spots, as did this one. My sadness is not in revering him as much as I did but not understanding that there really are no heroes only people who look like them.
Death of a Hero
Childhood days are spent in wonder
As we grow along each day
And heroes pull our world asunder
As we travel on the way.
Heroes are the glue that makes us
Dream and hope for bigger things
But when they die by lies, mistrust
Pain lasts longer than the sting.
My hero was a military man
He stood so straight and tall
But underneath his kindly gaze
He cast a frightening pall.
A family man was he to all
Who saw, admired as he went
Into our lives he came to call
Into his family, came to rent.
For anger caused him to display
A justice harsh and somewhat scary
And children feared in great dismay
And wept at loveless acts that varied.
He meted justice harsh and swift
Loveless all within his plan
Laid waste to all touched by his “gift”
The thunder rained from his right hand.
A childlike look has now been changed
But to the right it seems
My thoughts and praise now rearranged
The ceasing of my childlike dream.
A hero’s death is most times sadness
To gather to my in most being
But reverence not to one so callous
The pain now know was in the seeing.
For to his pain he knows no glory
But ill repute of harms he casts
His death a welcome end of story
His death erases from my past.
