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Every soldier a not a hero, says veteran
Saluting Troops
By William J. Astore in the LA Times
When I was a kid in the 1970s, I loved reading accounts of American bravery during World War II. And I was proud that my uncle had earned a Bronze Star for his service on Guadalcanal. So it came as something of a shock when, in 1980, I first heard Yoda’s summary of warriors and war in “The Empire Strikes Back.”
Luke Skywalker, if you remember, tells the wizened Jedi master that he seeks “a great warrior.”
“Wars not make one great,” Yoda replies.
I was struck by the truth of that statement even then, as I was preparing for a career in the military. Certainly, military service (especially the life-and-death struggles of combat) can provide an occasion for the exercise of heroism, but simply joining the armed services does not make you a hero, nor does the act of serving in combat.
A hero is someone who behaves selflessly, usually at considerable personal risk and sacrifice, to comfort or empower others and to make the world a better place. Heroes, of course, come in all sizes, shapes, ages and colors, most of them looking nothing like John Wayne or John Rambo or GI Joe (or Jane).
I come from a family of firefighters, yet our hero was my mother, a homemaker who raised five kids and endured without complaint the ravages of cancer in the 1970s, with its then crude chemotherapy regimen, its painful cobalt treatments and the collateral damage of loss of hair, vitality and lucidity. In refusing to rail against her fate, she set an example of selfless courage and heroism I shall never forget.
Whether in civilian life or in the military, heroes are rare — indeed, all too rare. Heck, that’s the reason we celebrate them. They’re the very best of us, which means they can’t be all of us.
But does elevating our troops to hero status really cause any harm? What’s wrong with praising our troops to the rafters and adding them to our pantheon of heroes?
A lot.
By making our military a league of heroes, we ensure that the brutalizing aspects and effects of war will be played down. In celebrating isolated heroic feats, we often forget that war is guaranteed to degrade humanity as well.
“War,” as writer and cultural historian Louis Menand noted, “is specially terrible not because it destroys human beings, who can be destroyed in plenty of other ways, but because it turns human beings into destroyers.”
When we create a legion of heroes in our minds, we blind ourselves to evidence of destructive, sometimes atrocious, behavior. Heroes, after all, don’t commit atrocities. They don’t, for instance, dig bullets out of pregnant women’s bodies in an attempt to cover up deadly mistakes, as the Times of London recently reported may have happened in Gardez, Afghanistan. Such atrocities, so common to war’s brutal chaos, produce cognitive dissonance in the minds of many Americans, who simply can’t imagine their “heroes” killing innocents and then covering up the evidence. How much easier it is to see the acts of violence of our troops as necessary, admirable, even noble.
Even worse, seeing the military as universally heroic can serve to prolong wars. Consider, for example, Germany during World War I, a subject I’ve studied and written about. As the historian Robert Weldon Whalen noted of those German soldiers of nearly a century ago: “The young men in field-grey were, first of all, not just soldiers, but young heroes, Junge Helden. They fought in the heroes’ zone, Heldenzone, and performed heroic deeds, Heldentaten. Wounded, they shed hero’s blood, Heldenblut, and if they died, they suffered a hero’s death, Heldentod, and were buried in a hero’s grave, Heldengrab.” The overuse of “Helden” as a modifier to ennoble German militarism during World War I undoubtedly prolonged the war, for how could the government make peace with the villains who had killed these heroes? Wouldn’t their deaths then have been in vain?
In rejecting blanket “hero” labels today, we would not be insulting our troops. Quite the opposite: We’d be making common cause with them. Most of them already know the difference between real heroism and everyday military service. Even the young “Helden” of Wilhelmine Germany knew that service alone didn’t make them heroic. With the typical sardonic humor of front-line soldiers, they preferred the less comforting but more descriptive label (given their grim situation in the trenches) of “front pigs.”
Whatever nationality they may be, troops at the front know the score. Even as our media and our culture seek to elevate them into the pantheon of demigods, the men and women at the front are focused on doing their jobs and returning home with their bodies, their minds and their buddies intact.
So, next time you talk to our soldiers, Marines, sailors or airmen, do them (and your country) a small favor. Thank them for their service. Let them know you appreciate them. Just don’t call them heroes.
William J. Astore, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, teaches history at the Pennsylvania College of Technology. A longer version of this piece can be found at TomDispatch.com.
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Posted by Yanira Farray on Jul 22 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Heroes, Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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I totally disagree with you. A person that has children and spends a year or more away from home is a hero to me. These men and women do this on more than one occasion as many of them serve multiple tours in the 2 wars that are on going. When these people volunteer and stay away from home for months and years, they are my heros.
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Many of those who have served in the present two wars are national guardsmen or reservists. They lifted their hands and swore an oath. They serve six months, eight months or a year and return home then are activated six months or so later. During this time some or many of them are emailing their loved ones and crying on their families shoulders,…..wrong! All this does is take their concentration off of what they are supposed to be doing. It also causes their loved ones, in their emails, to make it harder on them also.
During WWII, men, for the most part, had to serve one and a half to sometimes three years overseas either in the Pacific or Europe. Letters to loved one were screened and crying to relatives was not kindly looked at. After serving in Vietnam and the Gulfwar, I do not feel sorry for the length of time served in the present wars
I also agree with the author,….only a few are heros,…not all.
Your comments are off base and cowardly. I have two sons and two son-in-laws. Three of them are National Guard. Of the three, one served a four year tour on CG-66 the USS Hue City, Deck Divison. Another served a four year tour with the United States Air Force. My othe son-in-law was regular Army with the 10th Mountain Dvision. All have served over seas. To say “… crying on their families shoulders …” mirrors the LTC author of the above article and his contempt for the troops. Of the four sons and son-in-laws two have been medically retired from the Army. They were WIA one in Iraq, the other in Afganistan. When they were wounded, their service affifliation was to the United States of America – not to an active or reserve component. Two of these family members (who for some reason do not cry on family shoulders – probably becasue they are MEN) face additional deployments to a war zone. They will go, again. They will deploy again because it is their duty and they are soliders. It does not matter if the are part time or full time. Walk around Walter Reed. Maybe SMaj can tell the difference between the reserve and active amputees?
In disgust:
Dale R. Suiter
CPT USA (ret)
I have to agree with the author. It seems today everyone is a hero and I can’t agree with that. Even in civilian life all firefighters are heroes for doing their job. No again, as it is their job. Now if a firefighter goes into a burning building and gets one of his crew that was about to burn up, I can see that is heroic. When on line in a firefight one of the trooper run in and knocks out a machinegun nest w/o regard for his on safety or life. In doing this he is a hero by saving a lot of his men. Bronze or Silver star reward. If you see an enemy sneaking up on your buddy you warn him and shoot and kill the enemy, that is not hero stuff. I have seen a lot of that type things in Korea. The medics are called heroes even if they don’t save a soldier and never saw much combat. The two that attended me were not heroes, even though they patched me up and out of the range of enemy troops. Damn glad to have them and I would like to call them heroes, but not in my opinion. After 9/11 Bush called everyone a hero that fought the fires and other jobs to be done. When a fireman goes into a burning building it is part of their job. When my Brother and I was both wounded and back to Stateside the papers called us heroes. BS. We were some glad to get away with our lives. This is my opinion and the way I feel about it. I have only given a small amount of times to be a hero or not to be. Damn sure my brother and I was not. Today we would be, as the word is used too much and the word says that most in combat are heroes SEEVIEW
Not long ago I read where a retired Marine Corps E 8 or E 9 said of Dan Daily a two time medal of honor winner Marine Corps hero from WW 1 in today Marine Corp would not have rated a high ranking medal.
After spending months in Russia and the Ukraine and talking to former Soviet Union veterans of WW 2 I wonder if any of today’s soldiers would have made the grade. To those that do not know Russians lost more soldiers in the week or so before the fall of Berlin then Americans have in all their wars combined.
I agree sometimes Americans throw around the hero thing a little too much. I have been around many Marine Corp heroes in my life.
I think my mother with all us children to raise rates being called one too, based on doing more then what was humanly possible or expected under the circumstances.
Gawd i must be getting old. In the past when i lived in the big cities, I saw a lot of accidents kinda like up close. Every time i was close by and I could help, I did (hey, I know what it’s like waiting forever for the ambulance, i used to ride motorcycles until… and the tension letdown afterward was ‘the pits’. Anyway this time I was in a car lot buying something and lo and & behold about 50 ft away, TWO Halliburtin semi trucks rear ended each other at a stoplight. Pushed one half way into the intersection, parts everywhere, antifreeze boiling out the side, rear axle bent, it was a mess. Instant decision time 1.) I’m buying something 2.) I have to cross traffic on foot to get to a driver 3.) they both look, aside from the shock, all right (no blood). So I went back to what I was doing. Guess I had enough of saving lives, losing sleep over it and possibly getting hurt doing it. Yeah i am getting old. I let the ambulance do it.
I agree with the author completely. I am in the military myself and have been for 6 years. Ive been deployed twice, to Iraq and Afghanistan. My fiance is in the military as well, as an infantryman. He has been in for half the time i have, deployed just as much, and seen so much more. The military is not all one and the same. There are those who provide support and those who put their lives on the line literally every second of the day for 12 months at a time. Yes unfortunately there are sacrafices to be made by all. Leaving your famiy and the luxuries of a normal life in the US isnt easy for anyone and those who do should be commended in some way, but there are some in the military who give alot more than others. My deployments i was on a FOB. I had running water, AC, regular access to internet, etc. Where as some have wait for a week to shower because they’re on mission for so long. Eating nothing but MRE’s for lack of a chow hall and talking to their families only in letters they receive once or twice a month at best. But its not only physical comforts these soldiers give up. Have you ever had your best friend bleed to death right next to you but not be able to help him because youre being shot at? Or had to attend three different memorial services in one week for soliders your unit has lost? Not every soldier faces the same realities. And saying that anyone who wears a uniform is a hero takes away from the ones who give almost everything, if not all. I have spent two years away from my 3 yr old son, served my time in the military as honorably as i could, but im not a hero. The ones who live and die as i have described are the heros. Dont trivialize their sacrafices.
Thank you for your service. Troops that drive cargo vehicles in Iraq and Afganistan face many dangers. Many so called support troops face and perform quite well in combat. So few serve in the military today. The author denigrates them. He refers to them as “…pig fronts.” Anyone who has been in infantry combat knows that is is awful. Crawling “forward” under fire is a very intense experince. I doubt that LTC (ret) Astore has ever had to “cook and deliver” a hand grenade. He has probable not had to change magazines in a fire fight. From my background, he has the lawful right to make like of the combat vet – but he does not have the moral right.Again, thank you for your service and your sacrifice. (Oh, by the way, I am not and have never been a war hero.)
Dale R. Suiter
Men in battle do what they have to do. What sets them apart is they are willing to engage is combat while so many cower. Few real combat vets consider themselves heroic. Most simply want to survive. LTC (ret) Astore denigrates the Soldier, Sailor, Marine, Airman and Coast Guardsman that faces our enemy up close and personal. Has he ever walked up a hill following a battle in a line of men wore out from the day’s efforts and then manned a machine gun all night? Probalby not. Such an experience may change his view of those who have had the experience.
Dale R. Suiter
CPT USA (ret)