What Makes a Hero?
With all the news of Jessica Lynch's return home and her being called a "War Hero", I have to wonder why she is getting that title? How is it exactly that someone who got lost, injured in a vehicular accident, taken prisoner and then "rescued" form a civilian hospital a hero? By the same rationale, a mountain climber who breaks a leg on a ridge somewhere and has to be airlifted out is just as deserving of the "hero" tag (obviously not the war part). I think we give out these title a bit too easely. Is the hiker who got pinned by a boulder and amputated his own arm a hero? No, I do not belive so. Is he an extraordinarily brave individual, with brass balls the size of footballs? Yes, yes he is.
Weathering adverse conditions is not heroism, it is merely survival. We should call these people Survivors and not in the cheezy "reality TV" sense, but in the primal sense of not giving up in the fight for your life.
With all the news of Jessica Lynch's return home and her being called a "War Hero", I have to wonder why she is getting that title? How is it exactly that someone who got lost, injured in a vehicular accident, taken prisoner and then "rescued" form a civilian hospital a hero? By the same rationale, a mountain climber who breaks a leg on a ridge somewhere and has to be airlifted out is just as deserving of the "hero" tag (obviously not the war part). I think we give out these title a bit too easely. Is the hiker who got pinned by a boulder and amputated his own arm a hero? No, I do not belive so. Is he an extraordinarily brave individual, with brass balls the size of footballs? Yes, yes he is.
Weathering adverse conditions is not heroism, it is merely survival. We should call these people Survivors and not in the cheezy "reality TV" sense, but in the primal sense of not giving up in the fight for your life.
