Lieutenant Butch And Easy Eddie

Lieutenant Butch and Easy Eddie

The two men couldn’t have been more different. Butch was a World War II fighter pilot who served aboard the USS Lexington in the South Pacific. His squadron was on a mission when he radioed that he was leaking fuel. He was ordered to return immediately to his aircraft carrier.

Reluctantly, Butch broke formation and headed back to the fleet. As he burst through the clouds, his blood ran cold. A squadron of Japanese bombers was headed straight for the Lexington. Lieutenant Butch O’Hare dove straight into the Japanese formation, his wing-mounted .50-caliber guns blazing. With single-minded focus, he fired until his ammo was spent. Butch then began to ram enemy planes, scattering the bewildered Japanese.

After Butch limped back to the carrier, the camera mounted on his plane showed that he had shot down five Japanese bombers. He was the first naval ace in World War II, and the first naval aviator to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. A year later, Butch O’Hare died in aerial combat at age twenty-nine.

There was another man about the same age as Butch. But Easy Eddie was no hero. This crooked lawyer represented Al Capone, manipulating the legal system to keep the mobster out of prison. Big Al made Eddie the highest-paid attorney in America. His estate was so big that it covered an entire Chicago city block. But Easy Eddie couldn’t sleep at night, knowing that he had prostituted himself to the bloodiest mob in gangland history.

Most of all Eddie worried about the legacy he would leave his son. He loved that boy more than life itself, and he wanted him to grow up a better man than he was. But as long as he was associated with Scarface Al Capone, he could never pass on to his son the two most important legacies of all: a good name and a great example. To do that he would have to rectify the crimes he had committed. So he made a courageous decision to walk away from the rackets and testify against Big Al. A year later, Easy Eddie was brutally gunned down by gangsters in Chicago.

The disgraced attorney redeemed a tarnished family name with his final act of heroism. His son grew up proud of the example set by his father, Eddie O’Hare. Maybe it was Eddie’s final act of courage that inspired his son Butch to charge that Japanese squadron on February 20, 1942, and later die a hero’s death in aerial combat. The next time you fly into Chicago, you might land at O’Hare International Airport, named in honor of Easy Eddie’s war-hero son, Lieutenant Commander Butch O’Hare.

Eddie was no saint. Few of us are. But like Easy Eddie, we can work to give our children a good name and a great example. Our sons or daughters may not get an international airport named after them, but we can make it our aim to help them be better than we are. The stories of Easy Eddie and his son, Butch, teach us a great truth:

Our story is the longest-lasting legacy we will leave to our heirs.

The love of the LORD remains forever with those who fear him. His salvation extends to the children’s children.

Psalm 103:17