Hero's journey should inspire us

By any Webster's definition, Jason Caudle is a hero: A protector, a person of great strength, courage and resolve, someone with noble aims.

And he's only getting started.

Staff writer Larissa Chinwah wrote about Caudle for Monday's paper. He's a freshly sworn-in Carpentersville cop who is still in the police academy. So it's not his exploits as a police officer that we celebrate but his journey to get to this point.

Fourteen months ago, Caudle was a community service officer for Carpentersville. CSO's aren't sworn officers and don't carry guns, but they perform support tasks that are integral to the operation of many police departments. Many of their tasks are not particularly thrilling or heroic. But it's how many cops-to-be cut their teeth on police work.

Caudle, then 22, was putting out road flares in the early hours of Aug. 5, 2008, after a bad storm darkened streetlights and traffic signals on Carpentersville's east side. An unlicensed 16-year-old Carpentersville girl driving a small SUV disregarded the stop sign that had been put up in lieu of the traffic light and plowed into Caudle.

It crushed both long bones in his right leg and broke his left ankle.

It's at that point that many on his career path might think of doing something different. But Caudle was determined to protect and serve. And he wasn't going to let injuries - as serious as they were - stop him.

It took screws and metal rods and blood and sweat and tears to recover from those devastating injuries.

"I was really discouraged for a while because all I have ever wanted to be is a police officer, and if I couldn't run I wouldn't be able to pass the test," he told Chinwah. "But it did make me more determined."

So determined that he endured painful physical therapy for two hours a day, four days a week for six months to learn how to use his legs again and, eventually, run.

Police officers must be able to run 1½ miles in 1½ minutes. And he did it in about 11.

He, of course, credits his parents, those who provided help and inspiration.

Those overseeing his development in the academy are impressed.

"His injuries haven't slowed him down one bit," Douglas Giertz said. "My hat goes off to him. He's got drive and passion."

Heroes inspire, and Caudle has inspired us and probably many others.

When life hits you broadside, as it has so many people during the last few troubling economic years, you can either give up or push forward. Adversity can inspire you to be better than you thought you could be.

At the risk of sounding like a Sunday morning parable, be like Caudle and use life's curveballs to find the hero in you.