America Still Has Heroes

The Hudson Valley View | 1/19/2005 | BIll Curtiss

[An Old Marine]

Bill Moyer commented during the Iran hostage crisis (brought on by Jimmy Carter considered by American Heritage to be among the ten worst Presidents) that we had entered the age of post-heroic events. However a few years later Ronald Reagan, a considerably more perceptive observer of America, said, “heroes are all around us”. As with so much Reagan said this was a spot on assessment of America.

And I have proof.

I have a friend named Jim Hawkins. He’s a big fellow standing 6 foot 3 and then some. I met Jim when we were in grade school. Ours was a normal childhood of the 1950’s. That is until his parents died within a few months of one another shortly after his 12th birthday. Jim quickly fell into the mess that is our government’s system for taking care of orphans. Somehow the assets of his parents disappeared under the care of government caretakers while he was shuffled through a series of foster homes that ranged from bad to worse to dreadful.

About two years after he fell into the hands of the “caring” bureaucrats he appeared back in school with me. Jim had finally run away from the foster system and was living in the woods near my home. I can only imagine how tough that must have been but Jim Hawkins graduated with our class near the top.

Several days later he (and I) left for Paris Island and the Marine Corps. For the next twelve years he remained with the Marines including three separate tours of Vietnam. In the mid 70’s disgusted with the post Vietnam touchy feely reforms of the military he left the Marines to begin a career in business.

He began a consulting business out of his home that eventually grew to nearly 100 employees. The only comment I ever heard Jim make on his business success was to say with a shrug, “Nothing tricky, its just hard work, that’s all. But I’ll tell you this where else in the world could a slub like me have opportunities like this other than America?”

He’s a good family man too. All of his six kids (two adopted) have earned degrees. One of them is a physician while another graduates from West Point in June.

Nor was he finished with the Marines. In the 80’s when Reagan began the reconstruction of the US Military Jim went back into the Marine Corps for three years to teach young men the nearly lost ethos of the Corps. Ten years later when Saddam overran Kuwait he put on his uniform and was back in uniform for the third time in his life with the Fifth Marines when they entered Kuwait City.

And he took his membership in the community seriously. In the late 80’s Jim Hawkins headed a volunteer committee charged with the construction of a new library. When local politicians reneged on the promised funding for the construction while voting themselves a huge raise Jim went out and found private money to finish the project. Then he ran for Mayor, won the election, and rescinded the politicos self-given largesse.

One night on his way home Hawkins came across a serious accident. He found a woman with a severe cut rapidly bleeding to death. He stopped the bleeding by holding the cut closed until help came. As the paramedics carried the woman safely to the hospital Jim quietly got into his car and headed home without fanfare. Only when his wife found the ruined bloodied shirt did he recount the story, passing it off as something anyone would do.

On September 11, on the way out the door to a business meeting, he saw the same horrors on TV that all of us saw. However Jim’s reaction was to change into sturdy work cloths, throw some tools and water into the back of his pickup truck and take off for the lower end of Manhattan to see if he could “help out a bit”. When Hawkins returned home three days later tired and filthy he kissed his wife then went to the phone. He called old friends in the Marines and asked if the Corps needed any help from an old timer.

While the Marines didn’t call him then they did when it came time to go to Iraq. Today this quiet courageous man is teaching yet another generation of new recruits what it means to be a Marine, a citizen, and an American.

There’s far more I could say about this quiet unassuming American but you get the idea. I will say this though I’m damned proud to say I’m Jim Hawkins friend. Daniel Webster once rhetorically asked what was the state of the nation. As long as America has heroes like Jim Hawkins the answer will be always be standing tall and strong.