Human valor wins out
August wasn’t an easy month for our country. First in Charlottesville, then in Berkeley, we saw some pretty disgusting things: racism, anarchism, and mob violence.
And then Hurricane Harvey made landfall. The stories and images that followed once again proved the old maxim: adversity doesn’t teach character, it reveals character. And what it revealed is an American spirit as strong, as brave, and as loving as ever.
Law enforcement and other first responders performed bravely and skillfully, as always — but what was striking was how ordinary citizens answered the call to duty. Jim McIngvale, better known as Mattress
Mack, turned two furniture stores into relief centers and opened his doors to anyone seeking shelter. Jeffrey
Urban went to work at a local Chick-fil-A to make sure everything was all right, received a call from a regular customer needing help, and ultimately arranged a rescue for him and his family.
After weeks of our living rooms being filled with the sounds and imagery of hatred, we were suddenly overcome with stories of bravery and self sacrifice. So many of these images have already become iconic: sheriff’s deputy Rick Johnson carrying two children through the floodwaters, the Cajun Navy from Louisiana lined up on a highway, like soldiers readying for battle. But perhaps the most compelling image of all was the human chain. When Andrea Smith went into labor in her flooded apartment, her neighbors formed a human chain to help her reach a dump truck that had come to take her to the hospital.
You could say that human chain was a symbol — because when you take a step back and soak it all in, you realize that this is America. This is who we are as a nation. Not those ideological zealots, not racists and commu-
nists. Their blinded eyes cannot see the dignity and love in that unbroken human chain.
Though we’ve never lost this spirit of America, we do occasionally lose sight of it, which is why we ought to pay tribute to these normal, public-spirited Americans — the people in that human chain, the people who heeded the call, who put their stranded countrymen first. And they’re the reason we can look to Houston, a city much embattled though not embittered, and take pride in what we see: not human devastation, but human valor.