Remembering a Hero

He was the party animal. The guy who would be likely to cheer with cheerleaders one minute, and play a sport the next. He was the beer-meister, the tap-man, the guy you hoped remembered your name. He was the wild man.

In his final minutes, he was a hero.

After years of being labeled as "party animal", he was turning his life around. He was going back to college. He was working. He was sober. He was a loyal friend. He would help anyone in a pinch. That's just the way he was. And it's how he was that fateful day in the mountains of Colorado.

He went up to a popular mountain spot to do some target shooting with four other friends. They went a lot. This time an undercover park ranger came up to the spot. He told them they shouldn't be up there. He had to confiscate their guns. They were law abiding so they did what they were told.

The ranger wasn't a ranger.

He was a murderer who had escaped from prison the day before. He loved to kill. His appetite needed to be satisfied.

He shot the first in the head, it was the Tap-man's best friend. The other three ran. But Chris, his real name, fought back. He grabbed the rifle. He played a deadly game of tug of war with the killer. He knew he was most probably doomed. He had to hang on to save the rest of his friends. He could feel his grip loosening, slipping, finger by finger. He lost his grip on the barrel and felt the surge of terror and anguish hit him just as the shotgun blast did.

He was dead.

The killer shot at the other three running down the mountain, wounding one. But they got away thanks to Chris and his heroic stand.

The killer was arrested a week later after one of the largest manhunts in Colorado history. He pled guilty and will spend the rest of his life in prison. Hopefully one from which he can't escape.

Heroes are all around us. They give us hope. Hope that when put into a situation similar to theirs we will act as bravely. The give us comfort. We know, deep within ourselves, they will help us if we need them. They give us pride. We are able to count them among our friends and families. We hear their stories and know. Know that we are in the company of greatness.

In the company of heroes.

Comments

[diller]

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[naomi]

I know how you feel.I also lost a friend because he was trying to save me my husband and his entire family from a man who had killed before.The man that killed my friend had been in prison in 1981 for murder and got out in just 3 years.Years after that he was tried for another murder but they declared it a mistrial with not enough evidense.Then he held my husband,sister and law,my heroic friend and I hostage.He held us for a long while and was threatening to kill my friends entire family in search for his estranged wife he was wanting to kill.My friend got between the man and the gun and got him to leave but he headed for my friends family.My friend went to warn them but the man was shortly behind him.They locked the doors and the man was trying to break in so my friend went out the back to stop him and he was then shot.The man came in and shot another lady and he did all this in front of several very young children.His wife was not even in the home.He just wanted to kill and it didn't matter who.If the justice system had done there job this man would have never been able to do this.

[tod]

And had we executed thirteen men on death row in Illinois, we would have killed the wrong men. Just the tip of the iceberg regarding the most flawed form of punishment in human history. But I suppose you death penalty advocates would say that was acceptable collateral damage.

[Interested-Participant]

Death Penalty opponents contend that executing murderers doesn't deter crime. In this case, had the murderer been executed, he wouldn't have escaped to kill again. Obviously, I look at things differently from opponents of capital punishment.

[tod]

Amen.