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

[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