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haracter, it has been said, “is who you are when nobody’s looking.”1 I don’t know about     you, but I’m tired of reading and hearing about the absence of character in the world today. It seems like the mainstream media has come to idolize stories revealing the lack of character. As I wander around life, I hear plenty of stories about the presence of character in the lives of our residents.  This got me thinking: “How do folks know that character counts, if it’s who you are when nobody’s looking…if nobody’s counting?”  So, I decided to recount a story about a young man to prove my point. Character counts! Let me explain.

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is name is Terry Miller.  He’s 17 years old and a junior at a local High School. If you passed Terry on the sidewalk, you wouldn’t notice anything special. There’s absolutely nothing unique about his external appearance. He’s co-captain of the varsity soccer team at RHS. He’s earned a cumulative 3.6 GPA. He lives with his younger brother Matt, dad and mom (Blake and Cathy), two black labs, two cats and a couple of horses. He wants to go to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland after graduation from high school. Both mom and dad are retired naval officers.

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fter try-outs with the Oregon United Soccer Team in Eugene, Oregon on Tuesday November 21st, Terry was exhausted. His ankle was the size of a balloon, injured by a slide-tackle, midway through the try-out. He couldn’t even get his shoe on afterwards. He was sopping wet after practicing in a torrential rain for several hours in Eugene. The try-out had gone “Okay.” He returned to his car for the long drive back to Redmond, Oregon…alone. About a half hour out of Eugene he gazed at the fuel gage. “I’ll never make it!” he said to himself. He turned around and headed back to Eugene for gas, disappointed with himself for overlooking such a fundamental necessity.

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efueled, Terry headed out of Eugene toward Redmond. He had on a pair of sandals due to the swelling in his ankle. “It was throbbing. I was beat.” As he sipped his Gatorade, he wondered if his parents and brother were having a good time on their Thanksgiving holiday Caribbean cruise. “I wish I would have gone with them,” he said to himself. He thought about calling them for a moment, but he had no cell phone signal on the western slopes of the Cascades.

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scending Santiam Pass, the snow really started coming down. It was after midnight now. He slowed down as the driving became increasingly treacherous. As he came around a curve, Terry saw a pick-up truck sideways in the road with the headlights pointing off into the trees. The driver and his wife jumped out of their truck as Terry approached in his vehicle. Terry had a choice: “Should I just keep on driving or stop?” Terry pulled over to the shoulder.

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ourage, according to Senator John McCain, “is that rare moment of unity between conscience, fear, and action, when something deep within us strikes the flint of love, of honor, of duty, to make the spark that fires our resolve.”2 The next several minutes of Terry Miller’s life would demonstrate just that.

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hey’ve gone off the road!” the driver of the pick-up shouted frantically to Terry, pointing wildly to the skid marks that disappeared over the edge of embankment. Terry ran to the edge of the highway. The truck driver exclaimed, “It’s my brother and his two children! They’re trapped!” The driver of the truck was handicapped and unable to scale the slippery embankment to get to his brother’s vehicle that had careened down into the culvert. The vehicle had plunged into the ravine on its side, passenger door jammed into the snow, with the undercarriage of the vehicle facing the highway. “All I could think about was the distinct smell of gas…and those two kids,” Terry said.

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asing his way down the embankment, Terry crawled out onto the driver’s side of the vehicle. He pried the rear passenger door of the truck open and slid down into the passenger compartment. The vehicle was filling with run-off from the snowmelt in the bottom of the culvert that was coming into the truck through the shattered rear window. “The look on those two little girl’s faces (ages 4 and 6) just tore me up. They were unable to get out of their seatbelts. They were scared to death. The smell of gasoline was intense.” Terry unfastened and lifted the two girls out of the vehicle. Their father followed. The father’s brother and wife quickly put everyone in their truck. They thanked Terry who they followed to the local Ranger Station. “I got a handshake, a hug and a thank you. I never even got their names. That was good enough for me,” Terry recounted.

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ecounting this story from Terry Miller’s life reminded me of the importance of telling our stories. The mainstream media spends an awful lot of energy recounting the stories of all sorts of strange characters. In my opinion, they’re counting the wrong stuff. Terry Miller reminds me that character counts. Character is also a choice. It’s a choice when folks are looking and when they’re not. It’s risky and can be uncomfortable and inconvenient. Heck, it can even be life threatening. Terry is all about the right stuff…It’s the courage, heart and character developed on the inside of folks like Terry that are indispensable to the complexion of any community. When I contemplate the complexion of our nation, it’s the character of people like Terry Miller that count with me. Terry, we’re counting on people like you. If you need a letter of recommendation for The Naval Academy, count me in!

References:

1 George Barna A Fish Out of Water, Copyright © 2002, Integrity Publishers Brentwood, TN p. 95.

2 McCain, John In Search of Courage, Fast Company Magazine, Issue Number 86, September 2004, Copyright © 2004 by Gruner + Jahr USA Publishing p.54-56.