It was just two days ago I wrote about avoiding victimhood by counting your blessings and finding heroes. I closed with a postscript about there being heroes all around us, easy to find if we pay attention.

Last night our Boy Scout Troop did a timely service project at a local cemetery, clearing overgrowth and cleaning up around the headstones in the small veterans’ section of the graveyard. These were old graves, mainly from WWI, and even a couple from the Spanish-American War. They were badly unkempt, except for the smart new American flags at each one. The boys did a beautiful job tidying them up.

Our contact at the cemetery was a friendly older gentleman. I chatted with him a bit during a break, and he shared that his son was buried nearby.

When we were all through, he thanked the group profusely, choking up a bit as he did so. He explained why: his son, while not buried in that section, is a vet too, and was killed in action in Iraq thirteen years ago. He told us where and invited us to visit with him before we left.

At his son’s grave later, then, I got to know two heroes: Army Specialist Eric Burri, who “gave the last full measure of devotion” to his country, and his dad John, who along with the rest of their family has had to come to terms with a terrible sacrifice most of us never even have to contemplate. What a wonderful if sobering Memorial Day lesson for my son and me, and all the Scouts and their parents.

Then this morning I opened my e-mail and had a message from Mr. Robert Dent, who wrote to thank me for another post I wrote a few months ago about two other heroes, Colonel Mitchell Paige and FBI Special Agent Tom Cottone Jr. Mr. Dent is a friend of Agent Cottone’s, which is why he wrote – and he’s a hero himself, retired from a career with the Oregon State Police and now a founder and leader of the Constable Public Safety Memorial Foundation, which helps the families of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, and also helping the families of critically injured soldiers.

So I met two new heroes, was reminded of two heroes I’d previously written about, and am now acquainted with yet another hero.

It’s getting increasingly difficult for me to play victim, what with the heroes all around who are busy setting such remarkable examples for me and for everybody else.