Heroes---role models

At the same time, I want to share an experience I had while watching the arrival of these heroes as they returned back to Bangladesh. It offered me an insight into what youth today needs and maybe sincerely yearns for! I believe they need heroes and others to whom they can look up to as positive Role Models for them in life. This tragic event has given us some heroes who can be role models who have shown us how to give everything. They did not plan the tragic crash but they had gone as peacekeepers not knowing what might happen to them. Their role was to be prepared for the ultimate sacrifice.

As I watched the events taking place on TV, I decided to share this experience with the recovering drug addict residents here at APON. It was an inspiring experience and gave me food for deep reflection. There were well over 100 recovering drug addicts of all ages from 11 to over 40. They watched and I am sure many others in Bangladesh did---in silent reverence for these Bangladeshi heroes. Some had tear filled eyes.

It is my hope and prayer that the tragic death of these 15 heroic Bangladeshis will inspire more of the youth in Bangladesh to seek the ideal and to prepare for the ultimate sacrifice. We all have the duty to motivate and inspire youth to seek the ideal even while we realise that all may not be able to achieve this. If we only motivate youth for a safe convenient life they may not have the opportunity to be the heroes that we so very much need as role models for us today.

My plea is that we do not allow this tragic event to slip away but that we focus on the heroic sacrifice these men offered. That we turn this sad event into an inspiration for the youth of today, tomorrow and forever, so that these heroes become role models for future heroic men and women. In this way there will be a living memorial to the supreme sacrifice these men made and it will be clear that they have not died in vain.