February 13th, 2026
I’ve been sick the last few days. It’s been just a cold, cough, and sinus infection, but it’s been enough to keep me down. My wife, Karin, has taken on the duties of caring for our little grandson, Asher. We watch over the boy fulltime, and it is difficult for just one of us to handle him. Karin is just now getting over the same virus that I have. She got it from Asher. His kindergarten class is a petri dish for growing germs and exchanging them among the students. Asher’s immune system has had a workout this winter. So has Karin’s and so has mine.
While I have spent more than the usual amount of time lying around in bed, I have been reading. I dug out a used book from my shelf that I bought a while ago but never felt the urge open up, until a couple days ago. I am of the belief that a book comes into the hands of a specific reader at the just the right time. Now is the time for this book and me to come together.
The book is titled Three Cups of Tea and is written by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. The book is about the life and adventures of Greg Mortensen. His story is inspiring, and it is meant to be. The authors describe Mortenson as a daring mountaineer and a selfless humanitarian. Mortenson comes across as a hero. In fact, in his book he is described by others specifically as a “hero”.
So, was he a hero?
Well, we have to define what a hero is. The person who probably best able to say who qualifies as a hero was Joseph Campbell. In his books, The Power of Myth and The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell delved deeply into that topic. In The Power of Myth, Campbell says this:
“Even in popular novels, the main character is a hero or heroine who has found or done something beyond the normal range of achievement and experience. A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something greater than oneself.”
Did Mortenson give his life for something greater? It would appear so. He spent most of his adult life building schools for impoverished children in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan. In his book, it says that “As of 2009, he had established eighty-one schools, including fifteen new schools in Afghanistan.” I am certain that Mortenson was a hero to the families he helped. He made a difference.
Campbell maintained that hero stories are universal. They exist in all cultures at all times throughout the world. The variety of narratives is endless, but they all share common traits. A hero often has a miraculous birth or at least an unusual childhood. Mortenson grew up in a missionary family in Tanzania. He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro at age eleven. He was fluent in Swahili. That qualifies as unusual.
A hero goes through a series of trials and failures. Mortenson started his career as a school builder after failing to scale K2 in Karakoram Range of Pakistan. He struggled mightily to finds funding to build his first school. He knew next to nothing about the culture and politics of Pakistan when he set out to build a school in the mountain village of Korphe in the region of Baltistan. Mortenson faced obstacle after obstacle while trying to build schools, including a fatwa from a local mullah. Somehow, he eventually succeeded.
In the hero myths the hero struggling hero often receives a “boon”, a gift or some important wisdom from an elder or a supernatural being. Mortenson received sage advice from the village chief, Haji Ali. He received funding from an unexpected source, which allowed him to start the Central Asia Institute (CAI) to do his work. Mortenson got his boons.
I was impressed by Mortenson’s tale. I have some personal reasons for that. I knew people who ran a group called Voices for Creative Nonviolence who did educational work similar to that of Mortenson. Brian, Kathy, and Sarah made extraordinary efforts on behalf of young people in Kabul, especially girls. Mortenson emphasized the education of women. I was slightly involved in helping the people I know to resettle Afghans after the Taliban overran Afghanistan again 2021. I have stayed in touch with at least one Afghan refugee.
I was also impressed by the fact that after 9/11 Mortenson spoke out publicly in defense of Muslims. He insisted on reminding Americans that not all Muslims were terrorists. For his efforts Mortenson received piles of hate mail. At that I published numerous articles similar to what Mortenson said. I too got plenty of angry responses in the mail. I know how he felt.
After I read the book, I went on Wikipedia to find out what happened after he told his story. What I learned was unsettling, but somehow not surprising.
In the hero mythology, the hero is usually flawed and he often overreaches. Hubris takes its toll and the hero meets his downfall. The examples are countless: Oedipus, Achilles, Samson, David, etc. Sometimes, the hero makes a course correction. Sometimes not.
In Mortenson’s own book there is a telling quote from one of his associates. It is as follows:
“Let’s be honest, says Tom Vaughan. “The fact is that the CAI is Greg. I didn’t mind rubber-stamping whatever it was he wanted to work on. But without Greg, the CAI is finished. The risks he takes in that part of the world I understand-that’s part of the job. But I began to get angry about the terrible way he took care of himself. He stropped climbing and exercising. He stopped sleeping. He began to gain so much weight that he didn’t even look like a mountaineer anymore. I understand that he decided to pour everything into his work”, Vaughan says, “But if he drops dead of a heart attack, what’s the point.”
Despite rapid the growth of his operation, Mortenson kept it a one-man show. Apparently, he attitude was “I got this”. He didn’t. In April of 2012, the Montana AG found that he had mishandled six million dollars of the CAI’s money. Mortenson agreed to pay back one million dollars. No criminal charges were filed.
According to Wikipedia, the state attorney general at the time, Steve Bullock, wrote,
“Mr. Mortenson may not have intentionally deceived the board or his employees, but his disregard for and attitude about basic record-keeping and accounting for his activities essentially had the same effect.”
That’s a hard fall. Mortenson died in October of 2024.
So, once again, was he a hero? To the kids in Pakistan, certainly. To the donors to the CAI, not so much.
Heroes are often tragic figures. They have flaws.
We can identify with that.
Frank is Emptiness 