Men whom you respect and/or look up to 100%

For me it would be my big brother.

My story is more than just a little fucked up. Condensed version: I grew up an only child - always just me and my mother. Extremely bad blood between mom and dad. Never met my father until last year because of a very *VERY* strange series of events that happened like dominoes and involved said big rother finally managing to track me down. Met my dad face to face for the first time at the death of a grandmother that I never knew and abruptly discovered that I was #7 of 8 children. Cue a whole bunch of shit that would probably span 3 days worth of journal entries to describe.

At any rate -

Outside of my aging grandfather who also has all of my undying love and respect (grew up hard on the last of the Alabama sharecropper plantations), I've never really had a positive younger male role model in my life. My uncles come close, but I only see them once in a blue moon. When I finally met my big brother, my whole life as well as my outlook on nearly almost everything changed. It's funny - when it comes to how we were raised, we're complete opposites. I'm quiet and softspoken, he's brash and abrasive. But we get along like best friends who've known each other all our lives. He just began work as a firefighter in Newark, takes care of all of his kids and loves them unconditionally, has already taught me a hell of a lot, and is just...a brother to me. Something I've never had the chance to experience before. Plus, he's the only person I know whom I can relate to in this world who knows first hand what it's like to have the father we have. =|

But I digress, the question here is this:

I used to think that finding a guy whom you could respect and look up to was few and far between for most people. Sometimes I still wonder if thats the case, so who do you look up to and respect, and why do you do so?

Jam it back in, in the dark.