Welcome to “Tuesday Morning”—a great read on any day you choose to read it.

 

Ordinarily I use this space to introduce whatever is behind Door Number One. Today’s piece needs no introduction. It is entitled “New Heroes.” It is attached below. Continue reading below whenever you are ready. Be prepared to have your sights raised.

 

Tom Barnard

Editor, “Tuesday Morning”

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New Heroes

Tom Barnard

 

t a ceremony commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, June 6, 1984, President Ronald Reagan quoted from Stephen Spender’s classic poem, “The Truly Great.” Here are Reagan’s words, with Spender’s thoughts underlined:

 

“Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender’s poem. You are

 men who in your lives ‘fought for life…and left the vivid air signed with your honor.’”

 

Spender was not a veteran of World War II, although he lived during both world wars, the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, and the Persian Gulf War (“Desert Storm”). He was a poet, and a liberal one at that. Politically, he was an idealist who gravitated toward socialism and was, briefly (in the early 1930s), a member of the Communist Party. But he understood greatness when he saw it. He saw it in the lives of those who went to war, those “who wore at their hearts the fire’s center.” Reagan agreed!

 

Louis Untermeyer, another poet and political critic of the 20^th Century, agreed with Spender:

 

“Greatness has always been a mark to aim at. In these rudderless days, when we are misguided by small and fumbling minds, it is not only inspiring but imperative to ‘think continually of those who were truly great.’ Soldiers on forgotten fields of battle, scientists in make-shift laboratories, stubborn idealists fighting to save a lost cause, teachers who would not be intimidated, tireless doctors, the anonymous army of dreamers and doers—all these by their very living fought for everyone. They sacrificed hours of ease for our casual comforts; they gave up safety for our security. Glorifying the heroic spirit of man, they added to our stature.”

 

In a speech last Veterans Day at Harvard University, President Drew Gilpin Faust paid tribute to sixteen Harvard graduates that had brought honor to their university through their courage, service, and sacrifice. Here is the closing paragraph of President Faust’s tribute:

 

“We at Harvard are proud to have been a part of the lives of these remarkable Americans, proud to recognize and claim them as our own…As current and future students enter Harvard’s gate to grow in wisdom, let us work to ensure that it be not just the wisdom of the mind, but also the wisdom of the heart—the courage, the character, and that profound sense of obligation, service, and citizenship so powerfully represented by the men we honor today.”

 

The world has given birth to a new generation of champions—women and men of courage, unsung heroes, inflamed, as Untermeyer described them, “with a burning belief in humanity.” Some of them serve 24/7 in harm’s way, facing life-and-death issues every day, in a barren land and among a people about whom much of the world has little or no knowledge.

 

Not all the free world’s new heroes are military personnel, although the military outnumber any other single group of champions. Physicians, aide workers, nurses, psychologists, construction workers, embassy personnel in hundreds of world areas, teachers, musicians, missionaries, security personnel, and electronic technicians make up the hundreds of thousands of our citizens serving in paid and un-paid assignments around the world. Add to this enormous group the parents, siblings, and children of these heroes who remain at home, and the sheer number of history-making individuals is mind-boggling.

 

Untermeyer, writing perhaps 75 years ago, could have been writing about the events of this past decade. “In these rudderless days, when we are misguided by small and fumbling minds, it is not only inspiring but imperative to think continually of those who were truly great.” The world desperately needs leaders to step forward and become like the “truly great” leaders of the past. As author and explorer Roy Chapman Andrews said about his times, “Each one of us is a trustee of the past; we have the task of living up to our heritage—and adding something to it.” We are trustees of our past! We, too, have a task before us: living up to our heritage! What a great time for someone to do this. Someone like you and me. Now.