Never forget our American hereos-----An ‘ornery boy’ from Oklahoma made the greatest sacrifice

Fitzgerald: An ‘ornery boy’ from Oklahoma made the greatest sacrifice | Boston Herald
Rummaging through wires conveying the latest up-to-date news, nothing jumped out as fodder for this morning’s column until the name Josh Wheeler appeared.
He was a soldier killed while battling ISIS forces in Iraq two days ago.
It was the first recorded incident of an American soldier confronting ISIS fighters on the ground in accordance with President Obama’s mission to “train and advise” local military units.
Wheeler, 39, a consummate soldier, perished while storming an ISIS prison in Kirkuk, where 70 hostages were facing an imminent mass execution.
The wire report noted he came from Oklahoma.
Oklahoma?
Isn’t that where “the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye” and “the waving wheat can sure smell sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain?”
It’s a long way from Boston.
Then this quote popped out from an Oklahoma school superintendent who remembered Wheeler as a high school student more than 20 years ago.
“He was just a good kid,” Ron Flanagan reminisced. “I mean, he was an ornery boy, but a good boy.”
Suddenly the story became personal.
Don’t we all remember that “ornery boy” from our own school days, the one whose outrageous antics are rollickingly recalled at reunions?
It makes you feel you knew him, doesn’t it?
That’s because Master Sgt. Wheeler was an American boy, too, a brother to generations of American soldiers who left high school days behind and donned this nation’s colors to confront its enemies, even at the cost of their last full measure of devotion.
By the time he died, this Okie had been the recipient of multiple Bronze Stars. 
This “ornery boy” had received a combat infantryman badge, an expert infantryman badge, a master parachutist badge.
He had been a rifle team leader, a squad leader, a weapons squad leader and an anti-tank section leader.
His was a life of valor, ending on his 11th deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Imagine if you were a captive of merciless ISIS madmen, feverishly wondering what they were going to do to you next, when an “ornery boy” from Oklahoma suddenly shows up, all guns blazing, willing to trade his life for yours.
“Greater love hath no man than this,” Scripture proclaims, “that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
But Master Sgt. Wheeler, in the name of America, laid his down for strangers in peril.
No longer just a kid from Oklahoma, he was one of us as well.
God bless you, sir.