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June 24, 2009

Soldiers are the real heroes

Shirley Caudill

A friend sent me a copy of Ben Steins’ column talking about his change of values.

Like myself, he has written for more years than he can remember. His column was called “Monday Night at Morton’s.” It was about the celebrities who eat at the famous chain of steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars around the world.

Suddenly, his values have changed and he no longer feels that those people should covet the spotlight. Nor does he feel that they deserve it.

Have you noticed that people get excited when a celebrity comes to town? They want to rush and see the star. Ben Stein asked himself the question: “How can someone who lives in insane luxury be a star in today’s world? Although Morton’s Steakhouse no longer attracts as many movie stars, it still attracts the extremely rich.”

He said, “Morton’s is not the star galaxy it once was...”

Like myself, he wonders why a person who memorizes lines and recites them in front of a camera deserves to be treated like a shining star for people to idolize; making eight figure wages, riding in limousines or Porsches. Stein says that although they are interesting, nice people, they are no longer his heroes. Nor mine!

The real star, the real hero, is the American soldier who gives up his young life for our freedom — the soldier who disarms a bomb in Baghdad and is killed in the process; the young father/soldier who leaves his family behind worrying day and night about his safety and whether he will ever return to his homeland.

Stein says, and I say as well: “The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV... but the ones who patrol the streets of a foreign city even after two of their buddies are found murdered and their bodies stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.”

We put couples on the covers of magazines with $100 million incomes and they bask in the starlight on television. The military men and their families — who barely scrape by on military pay but stand guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines near the Artic Circle — are anonymous... as they live and die.

My own husband has been there and done that for 22 years of his life, and destroyed his health. Willingly!

I agree with Ben Stein; Something is wrong with that picture!

Shirley Caudill of London is a former newspaper editor/publisher and longtime freelance columnist. She is a Nashville native who has lived in Kentucky 40 years. She has six children, 11 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren and is married to a retired Army First Sergeant. She can be reached at shirleycaudill@windstream.net

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