America lost two heroes over the Christmas holiday.

Richard Overton, the oldest living man in the U.S., lost his battle with pneumonia and passed away at the age of 112 last Thursday at a rehab facility in Austin, Texas.

Calling Overton an American icon and Texas legend, Gov. Greg Abbott said he was honored to have known the man who touched so many lives with his quick wit and kind spirit.

Overton made us proud to be Texans and proud to be Americans, the governor stated, adding that he can never repay him for his service to our nation. The U.S. Army also sent a tweet about Overton, who was the oldest surviving U.S. veteran of World War II.

“Today we mourn not just a hero, but a legend,” it said.

Overton was in an all-black Army unit in the South Pacific from 1940 through 1945, serving in Hawaii, Guam, Palau and Iwo Jima. He left the Army in October 1945 as a technician fifth grade.

While Overton became a state and national icon, our second American hero, California police officer Ronil Singh, died at the young age of 33.

Singh was doing a traffic stop for a suspected DUI investigation when he was gunned down by an illegal immigrant the day after Christmas. He leaves behind a 5-month-old son and a wife.

Born in Fiji, Singh came to America as a legal immigrant in pursuit of his dream of becoming a police officer. Newman Police Chief Randy Richardson called him an American patriot who came to America with one purpose — to serve this country.

An uncle, Ugesh Yogi Singh, called the slain officer “my adventurous nephew” and “my family’s action hero” who was “a great role model for our next generation of Indo-Americans.” He said his nephew had been working overtime on Christmas night to provide the best for his family.

Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson stated after the shooting he felt that Singh’s death could have been preventable. The sheriff blamed California’s sanctuary law for preventing local authorities from reporting the shooting suspect, Gustavo Perez Arriaga, to U.S. immigration officials for two previous drunken driving arrests.

Arriaga was captured Friday as he tried to flee back to Mexico, where he lived before illegally crossing into the U.S.

As we watched Singh family members weeping over the death of the slain officer, we heard a report that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was vacationing at a four-diamond oceanfront resort in Hawaii.

Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Schumer issued a joint statement on Christmas Eve, accusing President Trump of “plunging the country into chaos,” and holding the president solely responsible for the shutdown over border wall funding. When it comes to causing chaos over the illegal immigration/border issue, Pelosi, Schumer and their Democratic cohorts on the left better look in the mirror. Why do they, along with California Gov. Jerry Brown, continue to favor local laws that provide sanctuary for criminals and gang members?

Sheriff Christianson is correct. The tragic shooting of Officer Ronil Singh in California was preventable.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com