Retired undercover agent Currie Myers (America's Criminologist) says heroism starts as a decision
From a Sharecropper’s Mule to a Federal Stairwell: The Kind of Heroism That Changes a Family Line and Outlasts Violent Days
This one starts with a sharecropper grandfather selling his only mule so his son can get to college, and it ends with a retired undercover agent saying that kind of “small” sacrifice can reroute an entire family line. We talk about a shooting and bombing at a federal building where he decides there’s “no other option” but to climb the stairs and engage the threat.
He keeps talking about the same framework of building up mind, body, spirit, and aims it straight at men and first responders who are doing the hard work we all need.
A grandfather’s mule that changed a family tree
Dr. Currie Myers life didn’t change when drawing his sidearm in a court house, during a bomb threat. He says it starts with his grandfather’s mule.
“It’s my grandfather, the man that I never met,” Myers says. “My grandfather on my dad’s side was a poor sharecropper. This was in the 1930s.”
His father, he says, was “a burgeoning young athlete” with a football scholarship at the beginning of the 1940s, but no way to get there.
“He could not get to college,” Myers says. “He had to be able to afford … to buy a car, to be able to go down and attend college.”
So his grandfather sold what he had.
“My father … sold his only prized possession, which was his mule, and gave that money to my father so he could buy a very rudimentary car,” Myers says. “As a result of that selfless act, by my grandfather, changed our family tree.”
He traces the ripple effect down through generations.
“My dad went on to become … an engineering geologist,” he says, working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a civilian, “and built most of the lakes across the Midwest after the 1951 flood,” helping build dams and reservoirs.
“It may not be an important heroic action in terms of fighting the enemy,” Myers says, “but it … was a decision made … on our entire family that was able to change the direction of who we are and what we are.”
Asked what he takes from it, Myers pivots to a saint.
“I reflect on St. Joseph in this time,” he says. “He was a humble servant that answered God’s call.”
Myers describes Joseph as a man who stayed alert, moved when he had to, and protected Mary and Jesus. “He was situationally aware all the time … to protect them,” Myers says. “These sacrifices can import themselves on many fathers … on making just those little things that can occur, that can change the direction of your family or that can protect your family from harm’s way or evil that’s out there.”
Myers doesn’t sentimentalize his own grandfather. “He was not a religious man at all,” he says. “In fact, wasn’t really that good of a man in terms of loving … being a loving father to my dad.”
Still, he believes the decision came from love, even if it looked different.
“I think he loved his son,” Myers says. “We all love differently. He was a very stoic German figure. So wasn’t necessarily the outwardly going, loving … type person that was there.”
But the choice mattered. “It was definitely difficult,” Myers says. “It was really his only possession and he was using it to help till the soil.”
“The mission was to take out that person”
Myers’ own hero story moves from poverty to violence.
He’s a retired law enforcement officer with 24 years in the profession. “I started out as a state trooper,” he says. “I became a KBI Special Agent … was assigned to DEA … for five years of that. I spent the vast majority of my career working undercover.”
Later came homicide investigations, and then elected office.
“I ended up becoming the sheriff of Johnson County, Kansas,” he says, describing it as a suburb of Kansas City and one of the larger sheriff’s offices in the state.
Then he describes a day in 1993.
“I was in the 1993 federal building shooting and bombing incident and survived that,” Myers says.
He says he chose to move toward the threat.
“The decision to take an active role, not a passive role … made my way up to the stairs and the fourth floor to engage the shooter,” he says.
Myers describes the man as out on bail, building a “large cache of ammunition,” assembling bombs — “pipe bombs and time delay bombs and gravity bombs” — and attacking the federal courthouse. Myers says he was in the U.S. Attorney’s office “by happenstance.”
After sheltering the staff, he went.
“That was the mission,” Myers says when asked if he would’ve climbed the stairs without backup. “There wasn’t really any other option.”
He describes the scene as chaotic, with bombs “all throughout the federal courthouse on that day.” He says the attacker activated a car bomb, entered the courthouse, killed a deputy marshal, and moved upward.
Myers says he remembers asking for protection.
“I was still agnostic at this time,” he says. “It’s interesting, I certainly was … asking God to look over me … asking God to let me see my children again.”
He says two troopers arrived at the right time.
“St. Michael sent me two state troopers that came at the right time,” Myers says. “It’s very lonely if you don’t have that kind of help that’s right there to go with you.”
The threat ended abruptly.
“He had sat down in his duffel bag too hard that had the bombs in it and … basically blew himself up,” Myers says. “It ended the threat at that time.”
Training, then the third door
Myers says he doesn’t chalk his response up to confidence.
“I was very well trained,” he says. “I was a tactical operator for the KBI and we trained often.”
He says he had been in “active shooter situations before,” and “arrest warrants … kidnapping scenarios,” where the goal is “to be able to make people safe.”
“In those times periods, you rely on your training,” Myers says. “The training is what carries you through to be able to do what’s the correct movement is.”
Asked about preparation for men who won’t face gunmen, Myers broadens it.
“I completely 100% agree that I think body, mind and spirit has to be formed and you have to develop that,” he says.
He says his own formation leaned heavily on the first two.
“The thing that lagged for me was the spirit,” Myers says. He describes building the “mind” through education — “ended up getting a doctorate … ended up getting an MBA” — and building the “body” through physical fitness and tactical work.
“If you’re physically fit, you’re emotionally fit more than often,” he says, “because you feel good about what you’ve done.”
But he says the faith side requires the same discipline.
“The faith side of it requires the same type of discipline,” Myers says. “It requires the workout. It requires the need to say your prayers, to do litanies.”
He describes spiritual combat in blunt terms.
“We have to be emotionally and spiritually fit to take on that battle and put on the armor of God,” Myers says, “to be able to protect our families, our wives, our children and ourselves down the road.”
Then he returns to St. Joseph, sharpening the metaphor.
“In many ways, St. Joseph was a special operator,” Myers says. “He was probably the first Delta.”
“What are you waiting for? I’m here.”
Myers says his conversion wasn’t a clean, inspirational montage. It came through exhaustion, money, and humiliation.
He credits his father as “a very, very good man,” but says church fell off as he got older. He married a Catholic woman, and he says she carried his faith through patience.
“She didn’t hound me,” Myers says. “She didn’t prod me or chastise me … She was patient.”
He describes an undercover DEA case that stayed with him.
He worked a source for about nine months, he says, buying “multi ounces of cocaine,” building toward a “final buy bust” meant to reach a cartel supplier for “multi pounds.”
Then, he says, the dealers left him alone with their child.
“They left me there with their four year old little boy,” Myers says. “They were gone for probably 45 minutes or so.”
He had a son the same age.
“I just remember to myself, they have no idea that I’m actually a law enforcement officer, that I’m a caring father of my own,” he says. “Actually, I had a four year old son at home.”
The case ended, the parents were arrested, and the boy was taken by social services.
Driving home later, Myers says he reached a limit.
“I walked in and told her I can’t do this work anymore,” he says. “I actually broke down because it was just like, I keep being put in these situations and it shows the worst of society and it’s like I just can’t deal with it anymore.”
He transferred out, and took a financial hit.
“My promotion … was to the field where I was going to go work homicides,” he says. “I probably took a 10 to $15,000 hit … In 1990 monies, that’s a lot.”
To make ends meet, he worked for cash on his days off.
“I went and palletized rock,” Myers says, “wrapping rock to be put on the trucks.”
He describes the labor as “backbreaking,” building pallets, shrink-wrapping them, loading trucks, then doing it again.
But what he remembers most is lunch.
He forgot to bring food one day, he says, and the crew — men who “basically didn’t speak English” — invited him to eat with them anyway.
“They invited me over to share their meal,” Myers says. “And of course, I didn’t speak the language, but you can show appreciation.”
Then, walking back to work, he says it happened.
“That’s when God said, ‘What are you waiting for? I’m here,’” Myers says. He was staggered by that. Couldn’t get it out of his heart and mind.
He finished the shift. “The very next morning I went to the parish priest,” he says.
Myers says he’d spent 13 years “in the pews just not being Catholic,” involved in parish life anyway. “I coached my kids in CYO,” he says. “Even went through CCD fully, completely and said, ‘No, it’s not for me.’”
Now it was.
Hospitality as the hinge
Myers says the through-line is hospitality.
“Everything that’s happened to me is because of the charism of hospitality,” he says.
He points to the laborers feeding him, his wife’s patience, and a priest who didn’t rush him.
“Father had the charism of hospitality,” Myers says. When Myers told him he was ready, the priest replied: “For the next three weeks … I want to meet with you to help you discern if this is what you truly want to do.”
They talked for hours.
“He was a jovial Irish priest,” Myers says. They would sit on the priest’s deck, talk and discern. “Had the occasional cigar and Irish whiskey.”
Myers entered the church quietly. He didn’t even tell his family.
“I didn’t want to turn it into a big deal,” he says, imagining celebrations he didn’t want. “It just didn’t feel right.”
He says the surprise became part of the gift.
“I would have missed that moment,” Myers says, describing telling them afterward and crying together in the pews. He says his wife then revealed something he hadn’t known: “We’ve been doing prayers to St. Jude … with my children.”
“It was a teaching moment for them,” Myers says. “Look what happens when you believe and you pray for somebody.”
Later, he says, he discovered Catholic roots on his father’s side.
“We were one of the first Catholic families to come to America in 1632,” Myers says. “We arrived on the Ark and the Dove … which was the Catholic boat that arrived in Maryland.”
He says his family helped start a parish with “Bishop Carroll” and that he felt he was “almost finding my heritage” again.
Myers says hospitality matters because people want to be invited, not lectured.
“Everybody wants to be listened to, not talked at,” he says. “We spend most of our time talking at people.”
He says it also pulled him out of a professional echo chamber.
“Most of my friends were within the law enforcement profession,” Myers says. “The absolute worst thing … is to get so hyper-focused that all your friendship … are in the same cognitive biases.”
He offers a blunt statistic from experience.
“We spend 95% of our time dealing with 5% of the population,” Myers says. “So in our minds, we think that 95% of the population is that 5%. And they’re not. 95% of the population are good people.”
The saints he returns to — and who he’s trying to serve
When asked who else he models, Myers names two figures.
“I love St. Augustine,” he says. “He was always battling sin and righteousness … but he never gave up.”
He also names King David.
“I am very fond of King David,” Myers says, pointing to the Psalms. “It’s kind of a great playbook on how to behave … They’ve written about everything.”
In the end, he says his work is aimed at men — especially those who see what most people don’t.
“I want to have a big role with men in particular and first responders,” Myers says. “I know there’s a lot of men out there that were like me … that are lost.”
He returns to his framework: “That resilience of mind, body and spirit.”
That’s what he’s trying to rebuild in others, he says — so they don’t go down, and so they can keep their families intact.
What he practices now
Myers says he keeps it practical.
“Prayer life is extremely important,” he says. He uses the Hallow app, and sets reminders through the day. “I put them at different hours of the day, especially … when I might be tempted.”
He also writes.
“There’s nothing like writing to help you reflect,” Myers says. “When I write about it, I’m speaking about it as well.”
And he says the repetition is not just for other people.
“I write and do these podcasts for not only others,” Myers says. “But I’m doing it for me. I’m doing it to help remind myself that it’s not about me. It’s about others and for us to all grow together in Christ.”