Let me tell you a tale of my hero:

Sometime over 100 years ago, in a community in Ohio whose exact location is in dispute (funny story about that...but for another time), a man was born that would silently make his mark on the world, yet no history books would tell his tale. On that night in June, the doctor didn't give much hope for his survival. If he lived through the night, the doctor said, that would in itself be a miracle.

The year was 1900, and the young man grew, to set out on his own at the ripe old age of twelve to work in the mills in his hometown. At sixteen years old, he went into an Army recruiting office. World War I was on the horizon, and he wanted to be a part of it. He lied about his age, a deception that would follow him beyond the grave. Whether it was out of a sense of machismo or patriotic duty, I don't think we'll ever know; I'd like to think it was the latter, but in all probabiliy it may have been a little of both. At any rate, he went and proudly served; his exploits are more those of family legend than of actual fact as he never boasted of his service to his family.

In the last half of July, 1918, a newly 18 year old soldier faced one of the most massive onslaughts of German troops in the history of the war. In a last, desperate move, the Germans pushed their way through a soft spot in the Allied line in the Marne valley in the north of France. This man was initially counted among the dead, but was discovered alive as they were loading him onto a funeral wagon. He had a shell fragment lodged 1/8 inch from his spinal column, and it would remain there until his dying day.

Once again, he stared death in the face, and won. Once again, the Reaper would have to wait to claim his prize. It would be more than six decades before this man would fall into the clutches of the death angel that stalked him literally from the very first night of his birth.

He returned home to settle in Indiana, where he farmed and owned a mill. In the 1930's, he stared down the tough economic times of the Depression, taking various jobs by his sheer force of will and persistence, including a job as a carpenter which he obtained after spending the last of the family's money on tools. He got the job over about 500 other men with no experience but simply because he had the tools and was ready to work.

In 1980 this man finally met his end, some decades after he was left for dead in an Ohio home, and some 62 years after he was left for dead on a battlefield in France. He was, and is, one of my biggest heroes for everything he gave, and for the model of persistence he set out for me and others to follow.

Yet as I discovered this man, I discovered there was so much more. He was my hero, but he was a hard man. He faced hard times, and he stared death in the fact on numerous occasions. And as hard as his life was on him, he was on his children and those around him.

Some would even go so far as to call the man abusive. And they might be right. But the legacy of the man was so much more complex, so much more three dimensional than a simple explanation could ever make him out to be.

Was he a hero or a villain? Short answer: yes. He was a little of both. But to me, he was always Grandpa. And I never got to know him well enough.