What do today’s Americans hold dear?

Famous basketball player Kobe Bryant’s tragic death in a helicopter crash has generated nationwide mourning. It is very interesting that a man who once faced sexual assault charges and even admitted to an “adulterous” relationship with the 19-year-old hotel employee accuser, is now being nearly beatified by fawning sports fans. In ordinary times I don’t think I would have a second thought about a sports hero with a shady past being lionized by his fans but we don’t live in ordinary times. In the hours before and after Bryant’s death, 11 Americans were killed in the service to our country, do you know that, let alone the names of these actual American heroes? Here are two of them: killed serving in Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Ian Paul McLaughlin of Newport News, Virginia, and Pfc. Miguel Angel Villalon of Joliet, Illinois. The two paratroopers were assigned to Company B, 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, according to a news release. I’m ok with celebrating sports figures lives AND these heroes, but not celebrating one to the exclusion of others. God bless them all and their families.