We Could Be Heroes

On this Veteran's Day, we remember those who have fought for our country. I honor my mother's father, Benjamin Diamond, who I didn't have the privilege to meet, as he died several years before I was born. My grandfather received the Silver Star citation March 1, 1920: "Private Diamond distinguished himself by gallantry in action while serving with Medical Department, 320th Machine-Gun Battalion, 82nd Division, American Expeditionary Forces, in action during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, France, 16 October 1918, in going to the aid of a wounded man during which act he was injured by a bursting shell."

My grandpa was 14 when he emigrated with his family from Odessa, Russia to the United States, and was in his late teens when he served in the U.S. Army during World War I. In a battlefied in France, where chaos reigned, he 'did the right thing', leaving the trenches to venture into the open field, to aid a wounded soldier, and in turn was injured by a bursting shell.

Doing the right thing is heroic when it entails, or possibly entails, great sacrifice. How we act or fail to act under pressure defines our character and how we are remembered.

Something to think about as 'doing the right thing' -- in legal and moral terms -- is the focus of discussion since a Pennyslvania Grand Jury conducted an investigation into reported sexual assaults of minor male children over a period of years by a football coach while he was at Penn State University and after he retired.