Tuesday, January 03, 2006

What does it take to be a "hero"?


A lot of people have linked to this piece in the Washington Post by the father of a soldier recently killed in Iraq. What's particularly grating is how, according to the writer, so many people are trying to rationalize his son's death by describing him as a "hero." But what on earth does that mean?

What do you have to do to die "heroically"? Consider the hypothetical case of a, say, a young soldier, just posted to Iraq. He hasn't been there long, he's scared as hell and, before he even goes out on his first mission, a mortar round fired by an insurgent hits his tent in the Green Zone and blows him to pieces.

What do you tell his family? That he died a "hero?" In what way? Does accidentally stepping on a concealed IED make you a hero? What about having your Humvee roll over on top of you? Hero? Or bad driver?

But I guess there's really no other choice, is there? What else would you tell the grieving family members? "I'm so sorry but, Jesus, your boy was a terrible driver. I mean, you really have to work to roll one of those suckers, if you know what I mean."

So they're all heroes, those U.S. soldiers. Every one of them. And anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan, who wants to bring them all home before more of them die? Ah, she's just a loud-mouthed, treasonous, shrieking moonbat.

It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it?

1 comment:

M@ said...

I was at the WTC site on Christmas. The dead are honoured there as "the heroes of September 11".

Frankly, the word "hero" implies some sort of choice. Being at work on a Tuesday morning just doesn't qualify. "Honoured Dead", great. "Hero", I'm afraid not.

But this ground is tread quite well by Dwight MacDonald in his 1944 essay "The Responsibility of Peoples". Determining the guilt -- and the obverse, honour -- of a large collection is impossible and quite meaningless.

MacDonald's essays are no longer in print, as far as I can tell, but they're readily available from Alibris and in used bookstores (not to mention most university libraries). I recommend this one especially -- it deals quite nicely with the twisted, immoral pseudo-logic of ideas that lead to, oh, say, invading Iraq.