Courage of Conviction

Today my wife and I attended the funeral of Scott R. Ball.  Scott was a Pennsylvania State Trooper and Master Seargent with the National Guard.  He was killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan on Aug. 27th.  It was a moving funeral - more moving than I thought it would be.  I’m not going take this opportunity to talk about the funeral - you can get the coverage from the news.  What I want to take a few minutes to do is write a few words about Scott.  I had the privledge of meeting Scott a few times over the last few years.  His wife has worked for several years for my father-in-law at this flower shop. 

My impression of Scott can be summed up in a short phrase - gentle humility.  Here was a guy who was a state trooper and national guardsman and yet he made everyone around him feel comfortable.  Here was a guy who died in the line of duty attempting to save the lives of fellow soldiers.  I didn’t know Scott very well since I had only met him a handful of times, but even in those few times, I could tell how devoted he was to his family and his wife. 

Another way to sum up who Scott was would be in the phrase “quiet courage.”  People are passing away each day on this earth, but this is the first person I’ve taken time to write about on this blog.  Scott exemplifies what courage is all about.  Courage to face danger head on, courage to risk your life for your fellow man, courage to be comfortable in your own skin and be comfortable with who you are and make others around you feel comfortable.  I could tell that Scott was all these things just from the few opportunities I had encounters with him.  Here truly was a hero. 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 at 10:03 pm and is filed under What's it all mean?, Courage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.