Congratulations CAPT. Swenson. Your country is forever grateful for your service and is inspired by your courage and personal example.
A military combat hero is easy to recognize. In the community of arms, your accomplishments in this regard are public and easy to see. Respect and even adulation follows you. In many cases, military heroes become celebrities. Their faces become known outside the military community and sometimes they gain a national reputation.
Even today, the name of Audie Murphy is well known outside of military circles. As the most highly decorated soldier of WWII he was well known in his time. After the war he became famous in the movies. His autobiography "To Hell and Back" became a movie where he played himself. It's still one of my favorite war movies. Mr. Murphy also made a host of other movies. He was best known for westerns.
Our society is ripe with military heroes and I salute each of them. I've said before that I consider several members of my family to be Military Heroes.
I would like to talk about another kind of hero today. Heroes who walk among us each and every day but go unnoticed for the most part. I'm speaking of victims of Bullies.
As adults, we can look at bullies and dismiss them quickly as insecure people who prey on the weaker among us in order to make themselves seem stronger or more confident. We have all encountered bullies. Many of us may have fallen victim of bullying at some point in our lives.
If I were to discuss bullying with my father, I'm sure he would say that "Boys will be boys." or some equally useless cliché. I remember being bullied as a child. My father's response was exactly as I have just stated. However, the times have changed.
Although many people believe that being a bully is unacceptable, there are still many who have not gotten the message. Here is an example that appalled me.
My oldest son is nearly 30 and he is Autistic. School was a great struggle for him. In the lower school grades, he was picked on and had difficulty making friends. The extent of his bullying at that stage of his life was mostly verbal. School officials did nothing to stop the verbal abuse.
By the time middle school came around, my son had begun to experience the verbal abuse in a stepped up fashion. There was also occasional physical altercations. These altercations were mostly confined to pushing and shoving. Once again, the "Boys will be boys." phrase was used along with "Children can be so cruel." Believe me, at that point in my son's young life, the cliches were not comforting in the least.
If middle school was difficult for my son, high school was down right torturous. My son's anxiety grew to such a level that an incident of acting out caused him to be "home bound" for a short period of time. It would be an entire school year before he would be permitted to return to the "mainstream" school environment again.
In another incident, my son had been picked on so mercilessly that when a student finally just said hello to him, without being mean, my son punched him in the face. He didn't hear what the child had said to him. He just assumed that it was another attack so, he attacked back quickly.
Throughout all of this, the bullies were not punished. My son was constantly taken out of class and sometimes school as this was the path of least resistance. After all, "Boys will be boys." At one point, my son was in a class, minding his own business and the picking began. Was the bully sent to the office? No! My son was.
One day, my son walked the dog after school. This was one of his chores and his routine. He loved walking Buttons. When he came home, he was very quiet and it was obvious that he had been crying. He was not a little kid any more. He was around 16. I asked what was wrong. He told me that he can't even walk his dog any more because some of the kids (he used another descriptive word which I won't repeat) who bully him at school were outside, picking on him. He told me that even at home, he was not safe!
At that moment, my heart broke and my self-control was lost. I looked outside and saw the group of teenagers in the street, laughing and pointing. I grabbed a baseball bat and went outside. When I challenged the biggest of the bullies to come pick on me or leave, he informed me that he was in a public street and I could not run him off. I got quiet for a moment. Anyone who knows me knows, this is not a good sign. I walked up to the street and informed the urchin; very quietly that, he can leave under his own power or in an ambulance. His choice.
Well, this young sea lawyer tried to argue that he could call the police and have me charged with making a threat. I offered him a phone and informed him that it was not a threat it was a promise. Further, I asked him how he thought he would come off in court when his bullying was exposed in open court. I further informed him that I was not afraid to go to jail, was he?
Of course, since I exposed the bully as the coward that he was, he and his cohorts left with the requisite grumbles and profanities. They never returned.
My son did indeed graduate from that high school. It took him 8 years. He was 23. He hated going to school every day of those 8 years. To this day, we can not drive past that building without sending my son into a tail spin of horrid memories. It takes hours to calm him down. But, when he does calm down he announces that even though he hated going to "that place", he DID go. He graduated. He never quit.
He could have dropped out when he reached his 18th birthday. He didn't.
My son is doing fine now. He is well liked by our neighbors and friends. He earns money by doing yard work for the folks in our neighborhood. I receive many compliments about his conduct and good manners. He has several elderly "clients" whom he "checks on" regularly, even when he doesn't have work to do for them.
It breaks my heart to think of how he suffered in school. This is why I can't stand bullies.
Yes, we see the military heroes all the time. They are easy to spot. For my money, my son is a hero every single day.
This one's for you Buddy.
As always...
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