by Ed Flaherty

The loss of two heroes hit hard last week. Several hundred people gathered Jan. 30 in Iowa City to commemorate the life of our local hero, Peggy Stokes, who died Jan. 9. The death Jan. 27 of Howard Zinn, our national and international hero, shocked and saddened hundreds of thousands.

Stokes and Zinn didn't know each other, but they were a lot alike. First off, they both would be saying that there is too much living and work to do to spend much energy mourning.

Stokes took loving care of her own family and spent 23 years at the University of Iowa Pediatric Center for Disabilities and Development helping innumerable families and children. For the last five years, she has led a peace vigil every Friday afternoon at the southeast corner of the Pentacrest in Iowa City.

Zinn, a B-17 bombardier in World War II, was beaten and arrested in the 1960s and 1970s protesting for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. He authored “A People's History of the United States” which has sold nearly 2,000,000 copies, and never stopped applauding the heroism of everyday citizens. (Stokes was one of those “everyday citizens.”)

They were both rather audacious and not easily embarrassed, because they acted not for self-glorification but out of a deep affection for others and an unshakable commitment to peace.