Uncle Thomas

Sgt. Tom at work in Iraq (CD)

My local hero is my Uncle Tom or the name his mom gave him, Thomas. He grew up in Warm Springs where my papa worked for the fish and game. He grew up and graduated from Anaconda High School. He married his high school sweet heart, Aunt Kristi, and they both went to Western Montana College to become teachers. Now they live in Libby, Montana, where they have two girls, Devon and Shayla.

The reason he is my hero is because he left his family to fight in Iraq. He went over with his unit from Libby in the National Guard. When he got back, he sent the solders in Iraq in the area survival packs they had in each back pack one teddy bear, a box of pop tarts, huge suckers, clothes, and some other fun stuff.

My uncle isn’t anything special, he’s just an ordinary person doing extraordinary things. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes and my uncle is the biggest one ever. My uncle used to tell me, “Nurture your mind with great thought; to believe in the heroic makes heroes,” a quote from Benjamin Disraeli. I believe that anyone can be a hero, if they're given a chance to be one by their peers.

When my Uncle Tom came home, we had a party to celebrate his homecoming. We let family members and friends tell Tom what they thought of the heroes. I told them, “Not everyone can be heroes, because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by,” a quote by Will Rogers. But it's true we stood on the curb and clapped as they drove by. Life is too short not to have a hero but, hey, life is the longest thing in the world.