Sunday, March 07, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

STEVE SEBELIUS: The death of a hero

Former Gov. Mike O'Callaghan was the kind of man who commanded respect just by entering a room.

And when you got to know him, that respect only grew.

It was my privilege to know O'Callaghan when I worked at the Las Vegas Sun, where O'Callaghan had settled as executive editor after serving as governor, teacher, probation officer and soldier. I would soon come to learn that behind his public resume was a heart full of compassion that drove him his entire life.

Mike O'Callaghan died Friday, at age 74, at St. Viator Catholic Church, where he attended daily Mass. The news sent shock and grief through the city. Stories of his exploits as governor, as solider and friend were told and re-told among those who were fortunate enough to have known him.

O'Callaghan used his position as a columinst at the Sun to expose injustice. One of the stories he pursued with passion was the case of a soldier who the Army claimed had committed suicide. O'Callaghan didn't buy it; he investigated and wrote about the case for years, taking on the military in the process.

O'Callaghan hardly ever boasted about his military service, but he would occasionally tell stories about it, like the way French soldiers in Korea would be rewarded with cognac after successful missions. He had a look of regret the day he told the story of winning a firefight with a Chinese patrol and finding pictures of children in the pockets of one of the dead soldiers. And I won't forget the day I finally read the citation that accompanied O'Callaghan's Silver Star, thinking no fictional soldier could ever compete with what O'Callaghan had done as the real thing.

Even after I left the Sun, working at CityLife and finally at the Sun's much-hated rival, the Review-Journal, O'Callaghan would often call to compliment me on a column.

Once, he told me he was about to embark on a trip to Israel, and I asked him who he thought would make a better prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu or Ariel Sharon? O'Callaghan regaled me with stories of his personal meetings with both men, their backgrounds and respective strengths.

On another occasion, we talked about the disastrous 2003 Legislature, and the role of a governor in such battles. Although it would have been easy for him to do (we were speaking off the record), he refused to criticize Gov. Kenny Guinn. None of O'Callaghan's predecessors had criticized him, he told me, and he wouldn't criticize a man who held his old office.

Another time, he called me and we talked about flag burning, an issue upon which we disagreed. (He favored a constitutional amendment banning it, I opposed it.) I, quite unnecessarily, suggested to him that men in battle don't fight for the flag or freedom, but for each other. He agreed, telling me that in combat, he worried most about being too slow about a decision, and losing one of his men.

But, he told me, when he awoke in a military hospital after losing his leg to an artillery shell and saw Old Glory outside his window, it meant the world to him.

I learned something that day, as I did on almost every occasion I talked to O'Callaghan.

If any man had a right to complain, it was him. He'd given more to his country than many of us ever will. But I never -- ever -- heard him utter a word of complaint. In fact, whenever he was asked how he was, his reply was "can't complain," accompanied by his trademark smile.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands more O'Callaghan stories, each a profile in leadership, compassion, heroism, friendliness, piety or political savvy. Although the word "hero" is tossed about lightly these days, I can honestly say that Mike O'Callaghan is the only true hero I've ever met, and I count myself fortunate for the honor.

As Hamlet says of his father, so we can say of O'Callaghan: "He was a man, take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again."

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.