READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.
“An anti-hero is someone who doesn’t fit neatly into the archetype of a traditional hero, but still manages to overcome their flaws and make a difference.” —Anonymous
Real heroes are never meant to be. Their intent was only to survive. They are ordinary people whose extraordinary efforts to keep body and soul together impacted others in a heroic way. Heroes are everywhere. They are everyday people who find the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. Without making a big deal about it, they understand the responsibility that comes with freedom. Heroism is not black and white. Acts of heroism are often found in shades of gray.
My dad was a hero. He just never looked like one. He grew up in an alcoholic family. His dad was a mean drunk who tried more than once to kill my dad’s mom who was a zealot Christian. At best, they existed with my dad fearing that he would come home to find his mom dead. He never did. My grandparents never divorced but his dad died of alcohol liver disease the year I was born.
When my dad was in 8th grade, he quit school and got a job to help support my grandma. He married my mom when he was 21 and she was 16 while she was barnstorming playing baseball across the midwest. And so it was.
My dad had a lot of flaws. He raised me in a religious cult and remained in the cult even after learning that the pastor of the cult had sexually molested me, my brother, and other young boys in the church. Even after the church blamed my brother for defiling the pastor, and the church shunned my parents for several months for being a troublemaker for reporting the abuse to officials, my dad remained committed to the cult till he died years later.
I watched when he once gave one of my brothers a beatdown for disrespecting my mom and challenging him. Another time, much later, he drug my oldest sister out of a truck stop by the hair because she was having an affair with a local guy who was my dad’s age. I don’t know why he wasn’t arrested! There were a few other times etched in my mind that my dad’s anger scared the shit out of me. He didn’t lose it often but when he did it wasn’t pretty. Mostly, he tamped down rage and anger with religion. It seemed to work most of the time but then there were these episodes.
Like many in his time, my dad served in the military in World War II. He was a private in the first platoon of Company K of the 117th Infantry Regiment which was part of the 30th Infantry Division referenced as “Old Hickory”. Eisenhower referenced the 30th Division as the most fierce infantry in the European theater. My dad was given a Purple Heart, two Bronze Stars, and four Oak Leaf Clusters for surviving World War II. On Christmas Eve 1944, everyone in his platoon was killed except him. Lucky me! I wouldn’t be able to share this blog with you had he not survived.
My dad never told me any of this stuff. He never talked about his war experience. The only thing he would share was how he learned to sleep “spoonfuls” with another soldier in his foxhole in an attempt to keep from freezing to death during the Battle of the Bulge. He also taught me to wrap newspaper around my feet to act as an insulator to keep from getting frostbite. I tried that and it never worked. I got frostbite anyway trying to deliver newspapers during a blizzard as a kid! Kind of a stupid thing to do if you ask me.
He also brought home German bayonets, helmets, and a couple of huge Nazi flags that my mom used to cut and make school clothes from. My older brothers complained about having to wear that stuff to school!
When my brother Jimmy joined the Marine Corps because he had a low lottery number in 1967, he was sent to Vietnam immediately. I remember the morning he left my dad said he would never come back. He did but was jeered and spit at when he returned to Lambert Airport in St. Louis. He went to the men’s bathroom ripped off his blue dress uniform and donned his street clothes to complete his trip home. He later died from Agent Orange.
My dad and brother never stood when asked to identify themselves as veterans at sporting events or any other public event. My brother who was in combat said he was not proud to have fought in Viet Nam and my dad once quietly admitted that he never felt like a hero killing people. For him, it was solely about survival. To that, I am glad he did.
I learned about my dad’s combat experience after he died. In his war chest were all the medals, letters of commendation, and personal diaries that he had written. I also learned from the National Archives about his war experience.
When my dad got home from World War II he went to work. He was strictly union blue-collar. Eventually, he raised 12 kids. He worked 2 – 3 jobs at the same time my entire life. I didn’t see him much. He didn’t know how to play with kids and seldom did. He missed most of my ball games but never church. He really screwed that one up! He taught me to grind, never back off, and never let illness or injury keep me from working. To him work was of paramount importance, more important than education and everything else except church.
Looking back, I worked at one place as a therapist for 27 years and never missed a day of work except for 1 day of COVID! It wasn’t that I never got sick or hurt. it was just that my dad role-modeled that you grind it out no matter what. Embarrassingly, he taught me well.
Here’s how my hero impacted me:
1. Do the next right thing even if nobody notices it. There are people you love depending upon your right choice.
2. The work camps my dad helped to free after the war ended taught him great compassion for those who suffer. His experience of compassion has impacted me to this very day to treat others with dignity and respect.
3. My dad never knew anything about Post Traumatic Stress. Leaving it unaddressed teaches me to scrub the wounds deeply from my childhood trauma and stop the passage of suffering from one generation to the next. It is a lifelong journey.
4. Heroes are not meant to be pedestalized. Their lives are not all white or black. Most heroes can be found in shades of gray. Learn to love yourself and accept who you are in the gray.
Recovery is about finding the unvarnished hero in you. Excavate it. Don’t put it on a pedestal. Realize that you and only you are the leader you have been looking for.
