It’s funny to think, more than the story itself, the most thought I’ve put into writing this was trying to remember exactly when the hell I originally wrote “Hero,” although I remember the circumstances.

It was early during my time at The Bronx High School of Science, of that I can be sure.

The class was given an assignment to write a short story during the second half of the school year, with plenty of time to work on it as well. Therein lay the problem – time. I was (and ashamedly still am) a procrastinator – except for this one project. I worked on it as often as I could, perhaps as English was not one of my favorite subjects (or one I did particularly well in, always achieving mediocre grades), I needed to use that time. I spent more time on this project than on work from classes I did like. Perhaps too much time.

My original “short” story was based on Ian Fleming’s 007, complete with schematics and drawings, when necessary. Over the weeks, it no longer resembled a short story, growing to somewhere near twenty hand written pages near the end. While still a short story, it was not what my teacher had in mind for the project.

At intervals, we would exchange our stories with fellow students – a peer review of sorts. The final such review was right after we had read a published short story, in which a character, a child, would eat paper just to get attention. It was during this final review, Mr. Horvath – the teacher, noticed the length of my story, and instructed me that it was not what he meant by a short story.

I took the story back from my classmate.

I tore it up, right there in front of the teacher.

Some of my fellow students were shocked – not that the story was great – just that someone would make such a public display. One, who always felt the need to criticize others, said I was just like the kid who ate paper to get attention. Me made fun of me for it, declaring I was begging for attention. I wasn’t. I was angry, and embarrassed.

I never gave the assignment another thought after that, until I had that “oh, shit!” moment the day before the story was due. What the hell was I going to write? If remember correctly, I was helping my father outside with some work, and said I had to go to the bathroom. I turned on the computer and started up Microsoft Write (this was a 486 with Windows 3.1 for the computer history buffs out there). I sat down and stared at the screen.

An idea finally popped into my mind. Up until my later high school years, I was a fan of fighter jets: I read as much as I could, I drew them everywhere. I remember sitting in my fathers office during the summer or after school when I met him there, and just took paper out of the copiers, drawing jets on the paper. This lasted until the Navy called my senior year, and upon hearing I was an asthmatic and wore glasses told me I’d be unable to fly. That fascination with fighter jets then died pretty damned quickly.

I decided the story would focus on a fighter pilot. Great, now that I had an idea now I had to write a story. This pilot would come to be known as Mike Williams , and he would save some city from some great disaster (I was never good at coming up with names, so this was likely the best I could come up with. I never gave him a call sign either. Also, maybe not so interesting to the reader, as a New York City Subway conductor many years later I would work with a motorman named Mike Williams). Once I had decided on these details, I wrote the double-spaced two and a half page story within ten minutes, give or take.

Amazingly, when I received my story back with a grade, I got an “A”.

The original story is now long lost. I still, however, remember Mr. Horvath’s comment, as it was the best I had ever received in relation to my work in any English class. It went something along the lines of: “I was concerned when you tore your original story up, but I see now that I did not need be. This story shows you have a grip on writing a short story – the quick set-up, the climax and resolution.” I was relieved at first, and when it fully hit me I was extremely proud of myself – I did well on an English assignment!

So proud, that sometime during the move to college,or my return, I lost story forever.

What you read here is a recreation, the best I could do from what I remember. Some details have stayed the same. Interestingly enough, the aggressor in the original story was North Korea. Given the current world climate, I find this a bit uncanny. Other details have changed, as I have taken the liberty to make a few changes and corrections (Running against deadlines always leads to inaccuracies – ask the media!). In the original both Mike and Jake (Jake is new, the character originally was unnamed) flew single seat F-18C Hornet fighter, and they communicate over a private frequency. Looking back, it is just plain impossible that two jets would manage a launch after the mission being scrapped. The two planes were airborne as a consequence of what would be considered a miracle. As a result, both Mike and Jake now fly in the same F-18D dual seat fighter, and communicate through their helmet radios. An accidental firing of the catapult sends the single fighter into the air (or perhaps not so accidental – maybe the deck crew assisting Mike in his “mission”). That second plane was insignificant anyway as it played no role in the events other than being an outlet for Mike to speak his mind.

The rest of the story remains the same, to the best of my memory.