Tag Archives: heroes

We Are All In This Together

Posted on by under Critical Thinking

John Glenn. Alan Shepard. Gus Grissom. Wally Schirra.

We all know these names. They were the first Americans in space. They were astronauts and they were heroes.

But getting them into space required the dedication and effort of thousands of people.

Robert Gilruth–does anyone know who he was?

Not me. But today I saw the movie Hidden Figures and started looking into the character of Al Harrison. Obviously, I didn’t know about the three women whose lives are the main focus of the movie–Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson. But according to NASA, there were so many people involved in getting the Mercury astronauts into space that even the white, Anglo-Saxon men are obscure to us today.

Only the names of the heroes have survived.

Yet, for every hero celebrated in the popular imagination, there are the scores and scores of unsung people without whom those acts of heroism would never have happened.

Sir Edmund Hillary had all those Sherpas getting him to the top of Everest.

Jacques Cousteau had all those workers to run the Calypso and keep tabs on things topside when he was underwater.

All the men and women who ever served in the armed forces have to thank the designers and builders of every single ship, aircraft, armored vehicle and piece of weaponry they’ve used from the beginning of history. When the call goes out to celebrate the troops, do we ever hear about those unsung people who’ve made it all happen?

No.

The next time you hear the currently popular rhetoric about how everyone who has served in uniform is automatically a hero, I challenge you to think about the entire community that supports those troops–the supply chains, the families, the employees who pick up the slack when the soldiers deploy.

Because it is time to set aside the rock star mentality and realize that, to be a nation, to be a community, we are all in this together.

When Purpose Came to Luke Skywalker

Posted on by under Family, Purpose

I remember seeing Star Wars six or seven times in the theaters from the point it was released in May 1977 into the following year.

It made a huge impression on me, probably in part because, being 10 years old, I was at an impressionable age. But lately I’ve been thinking maybe there’s more to it than that.

It is now well known that, when writing his screenplay, one of George Lucas’ many inspirations was the concept of the hero’s journey, as documented through the work of Joseph Campbell. In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker goes from feeling useless and unknown to being the key to saving the galaxy. That’s quite a journey! But it is one that all boys aspire to in various small ways.

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(c) Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

Every boy wants to feel purposeful. Many boys play at being a hero, whether it is as a knight, a cowboy, a policeman, a fireman, or something else. The story of being a key player in the lives of others–that resonates.

At some point during their teens, boys are expected to find that place where they feel necessary. For some it is on a sports team, for others it is the military or other uniformed service. But for many, that purpose never arrives.

It’s been said that we all must seek our purpose. But for Luke Skywalker, it is important to point out that his purpose came to him. He was ready for it, of course, but had circumstances been different–if R2-D2 did not land on Tatooine, if Princess Leia had failed to load the Death Star plans into the droid, if the plot to steal the Death Star plans had been intercepted–Luke’s Uncle Owen would’ve been happy to hide Luke from the Jedi and continue to interfere with his desires until one or both of them was dead.

Purpose came to Luke, and Luke recognized it when it arrived.

I worry about my children. I fear that they may never find that purpose. It is not so much that they are not looking. Instead, it’s that the purpose may not be there at all.

In a world of seven billion people, it is just not possible for all of us to be key players. And still we crave the fulfillment that only the feeling of being necessary can provide.

The glaze is not as smooth as I once thought. The cracks are beginning to show, the pieces are beginning to fall around. As we commute to the office day after day and drink our coffee, we crave heroism.