Who is a hero?

[zianuray]

I gotta ask.

There's an article in the local paper about victims of a skywalk collapse 25 years ago not being properly memorialized.

There are still articles about "so-and-so died in 9-11 so he is a hero and should be recognized as such."

I've seen Q&A sessions/interviews with these folks that go something like this (generic, of course): 

*********

What did X do to be a hero?

He died.

Why is he a hero?

He was in the building and he died! Why are you picking on him? He's dead! He's a hero!

Well, was he helping someone else get out?  Was he trying to put out a fire?

No, he just went to work and he was killed so now he's a hero!

********

Hmmm.  So if I go to work and die from a heart attack or bad seafood or because a machine broke and I was in the wrong place, 
I'm a hero.  Cool.

I'll go with the notion that these people were in a bad place at a bad time -- but I happen to believe in reincarnation, so my take is that they had some input (before they got these bodies) on how and where and when and why they would die.  Life lessons, and moving up to the next grade if you will.

I do NOT hold with the idea that a hero is anyone who dies in a politically/religiously motivated attack.

I believe that a HERO is someone who does their level best to help others out of the same situation, especially at a cost to them in pain, inconvenience, or their own life, or puts himself at risk to help.  

It has been suggested to me that LEOs , military, and firefighters as a class should not be counted as heroes, since they take oath to go in harm's way; I disagree with this but do think they should be held to higher standards for this reason.

Comments?

Comments

[reynai.livejournal.com]

To me, a hero is someone who puts something valuable at serious risk to help other people. Delete either quality, and you're not a hero.

Thus, people who just died in whichever terrorist attacks or accidents aren't heroes; they're casualties. People who were in the middle of the accident or attack, and helped their fellow victims, are more heroic. People who weren't at ground zero, and went into the fray: heroes.

And someone's life isn't the only valuable thing. Money, time, and family also work.

[malvito.livejournal.com]

"Hero" seems to be the catch-all honorary, anymore. Regardless of whether they were actually a hero or more like a victim, they become a Hero. I think it's a penis thing; "victim" seems to denote helplessness or passivity, whereas hero denotes someone who comes out punching, and Americans cannot seem to stand to be anything bu tproactive, regardless of the ridiculousness of the situation.

[salix-03.livejournal.com]

YES! They're using 'hero' because 'victim' is too unpaletable. That's damn clever of you.

[malvito.livejournal.com]

Thank you *blush*

[salix-03.livejournal.com]

Np! :D

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Don't blame it on men, now. I've heard plenty of women pull the same thing.

Z, the men and women who charged into the Twin Towers to save lives, knowing what condition the buildings were in, are heros. The people who carried their handicapped fellow office dwellers down the stairs are heros.

The others who simply died under all that fire and heat and rubble? Well, they deserve honor and distinction because their deaths were horrific, though I wouldn't call them heros. I struggle to call them martyrs, either. They did indeed die because of America's cause for democracy et al, but unlike true martyrs, they didn't knowingly chose to be that target.

Have teh best

-=TK

PS: Webster sez...
A. a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability B. an illustrious warrior C. a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities D. one that shows great courage

[marence.livejournal.com]

The (old) definition of hero includes words like trials and valor and sacrifice. IIRC, the new Merriam-Webster says one definition of hero is more or less "someone looked up to, often for physical beauty, see celebrity."
(Yes, I've looked this up. I had a class last spring on anti-heroes in European fiction, and did a number of papers. One compared and contrasted heroes and anti-heroes.)
Someone who dies in an accident, or a war, or just because they were in the wrong place at the right time, is not a hero unless they did something heroic previously. And by heroic, I'm not meaning celebrity.

[salix-03.livejournal.com]

Dying in 9/11 doesn't make you a hero. Dying because you went back in and dragged out someone, then went back in and tried dragging out someone else, but had a building fall on you, that's heroic. Deliberatly risking your own welfare to save someone else. And hell, if someone does that all day, every day, for a living yeah, but risking their lives for compete strangers, that shouldn't count them as LESS of a hero than a mother going and getting her own kid from a fire, once, right? I mean, the mother has a vested interest in her own kid, so of course she's going in after it. But a cop or whoever doesn't know Joe Blogs from a bar of soap, yet still goes in risking his/her own life. And really, fireies, cops etc don't get paid enough to make me wanna risk my life for a stranger, you know? So it can't be about the money.

I think I've stopped making sense now :D

From a historical perspective

[motherpockets.livejournal.com]

I suspect the skywalk collapse they were talking about was when the Hyatt collapsed in KC. I hadn't thought about that for a while. It was a huge deal; it was during a tea dance there, and over 100 people were killed, and many more received life-changing injuries (became quads, lost limbs, etc). It was said that almost everyone in KC knew someone who was there that night. I was supposed to be there, with bountifulpots, so I remember it pretty vividly, plus the aftermath. Perhaps the "hero" thing comes from the fact of the people who were there and not killed tried to help each other in the midst of the gore and broken building stuff and dead bodies of friends they came with for a good time. It was one of those things that pulled people together, much like 9/11. I don't say at all that anyone was a hero just for being there, but there were stories, just like 9/11, where people just tried to help in a horrible situation. Just surviving the emotional repercussions was amazing. I worked at the local mental health center at that time, and we all got very quick special training on crisis counseling! MUCH post traumatic stress disorder! It took a lot just to come out of it, but people were trying to help each other, and that was heroic, I believe. I think the ones who survived were heroes. Don't know about the ones who dies. I'm just grateful for the last minute phone call I got that night that changed my plans for the evening.

[(Anonymous)]

Like the others posting, I feel a hero is someone that thrusts themselves into harms way to help others. Putting on a uniform first doesn't make you a hero, yet it doesn't take away from the status either. It just meand they made the choice to be brave with time to think about it first. Civilians just haven't had the luxury of time first.

-Jeff