For every story of a brave firefighter or an amazing astronaut, there are countless everyday heroes. They don’t get their own days of honor, but their actions still change the world. They are the people who make you believe in humanity — and sometimes even yourself.
For example, a Seattle Pacific University student named Jon Meis is described as private and gentle, but he acted immediately when he saw a gunman firing in the hotel where he worked Thursday, tackling him to subdue him before other students took on the task of holding him down until police arrived. He is just one of many ordinary people whose heroism was born of necessity, an instinctual reaction to something terrible that they couldn’t ignore.
Whether it’s a woman in pajamas and flip-flops running into the burning building of her home to rescue her family or a man who jumped 30 feet into the St. Croix River to save a drowning child, they are the quiet heroism that surrounds us. They don’t scream or demand attention; they just act.
Their courage is part of what makes us human, both culturally and evolutionarily. And when they act, they join a long history of heroes — including Harriet Tubman and those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the aftermath of September 11. They remind us that there are still ordinary people willing to rise up and save the day for their fellow humans. Hear their stories on Maximum Metallica (Ch. 42) and in the new movie “Hotel Mumbai.”