Heroes

Author Ben Stein wrote a column in 2006 praising all members of the armed forces, firefighters, and EMTs. He profusely called all of them heroes. http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9633 Stein refers to all 1.4 million people in the military as heroes. The rest of us civilians he refers to with boring disdain as we go through our boring and meaningless lives.

I think the esteemed author should refer to the dictionary and read the definition of hero.
1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. 2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal.

It seems the word hero has been defined downward in our everyday usage to mean approval for anyone who has the same political agenda as we have. If someone agrees with you on global warming and participates in a public protest you will likely call them heroes. This praise will help keep them contributing money and support for your agenda. Likewise if you approve of the war you will reap praise on any person serving, even if they are a prison guard that tortures prisoners, or if they are a cowardly clerk that will never approach hero status. This demeans the real heroes, but it encourages recruitment.

All of the American military heroes of the past 195 years won their hero status fighting in a foreign country, not defending America from an invasion by a foreign enemy. Since WWII the United States has attacked 65 foreign countries which created many heroes.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/glaser2.html
Are military personnel who refuse to serve in an illegal war heroes?

Most all young males want to be heroes. It helps them find a mate. They have thick skulls to protect their brain from injury. The thick skull will not protect them from words and ideas of prevaricators and evil despots.

When I was a young man looking for adventure and travel, and a place to sleep and eat, I joined the U.S. Army. I did not consider myself a hero just for being in uniform. I knew at a young age to be a hero one must do something above the normal duty. I thought the girls would like men in uniform. Women find men who wear a uniform to be reliable, disciplined, and willing to take risk. But that does not mean all men, and women, in uniform are heroes.

Since everyone uses the term hero so loosely, let me describe some of my heroes. One was a young Mexican woman who was delivering newspapers in the dawn hours. She jumps out of her car and runs up to the second floor landing to deliver the paper, then runs back to the car and is off in a hurry. I wonder about her day. Was she hurrying home to get a child ready for school?

Other heroes of mine are commercial fishermen who like the military, volunteer. The fishermen volunteer for the duty of providing us with food for our survival. They are truly brave, working in the most dangerous U. S. occupation. The commercial fisherman have the highest fatality rate of any other occupation, even higher than police officers.

Other heroes are plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, assembly line workers, and small business owners. They are all producers and creators, not destroyers.

Bilbo Baggins