Heroes

While we were waiting in line to talk with Michael Medved on Wednesday, Captain Ed and the Elder and I came upon an interesting point: as a society, we tend to spend a lot more time mourning our dead than revering our heroes (at least, the heroes that live).

The theory is that our enemies - the Islamofascists living in societies that are mired philosophically in the seventh century, like Visigoths with RPG-7s - take this reverence and shared grief as a sign of weakness, and that our allies, the civilians in these same countries, see it as a sign that we as a culture might cut and run out on them.

Maybe we need to do something about this.

We do, of course, have a long tradition of revering and collectively mourning those who make the ultimate sacrifice; our nation's earliest heroes were Crispus Attucks and Nathan Hale, men who were famous more for their deaths than for what they accomplished.

And yet, up through World War Two, everyone could name our heroes, too; during the Civil War the Union had David "Damn The Torpedos" Farragut and Phil Sheridan and Joshua Chamberlain; for the Rebs, John Pelham and Jeb Stuart were household words. In World War One, Alvin York and Eddie Rickenbacker and Charles Whittlesey, and their feats, were well-known.

In World War Two, of course, the heroes came thick and fast; those who died in the line of duty - Colin Kelly, Howard Gilmore, the five Sullivan brothers were inspirational models of sacrifice to a nation not yet inured to being at war - but many more heroes lived; Jimmy Doolittle, George Gay, Joe Foss, Pappy Boyington, Richard Bong, and innumerable Marines, tankers, pilots, paratroopers and grunts had their exploits retold in the papers and at thousands of war-bond rallies from coast to coast.

During Korea, and by Vietnam, though, heroism didn't play so well; war-weariness, moral ambiguity, and a press that saw itself as a counterweight to the war effort all conspired to subdue reporting of heroism; by the end of Vietnam, a generation of the "elite" regarded war heroism as a benighted, obsolete thing.

And they run the media today.

Which leads us to our situation now; the media focuses on coffins and polls and the tragic heroism of the Pat Tillmans of our nation; we have to dig hard to find the stories of our American kids in their tanks and IFVs and squads who are, beyond any doubt, performing every bit as well as their great-grandparents.

So where are the stories?

I don't know. But I want to find out.

If you're in the service, and know of such a story, let me know. If you know of people who know these stories, I'd like to hear about them.

If I get enough, I'll make it into an entire new site.

Since 9/11, we've had a wealth of stories about our sacrifices; of our strength in the face of loss; of our resiliency in the face of tragedy; of the Pat Tillmans and NYPD and FDNY heroes and so many more. God bless them as He has blessed us with that strength and faith and heroism in the first place.

But America - and the world - need to know the other side of the coin; that America produces men and women who not only take it and go on to fight, but issue superhuman smack on those who'd do us ill; that the "rough men [who] stand ready to do violence on [our] behalf" of Orwell's famous quote are cut from the same cloth as those who fought their way home from Chosin and who survived the Bulge; that as Patton said, we don't just die for our country - we make the other poor dumb sonsofbitches die for theirs, and we do it very well.

We have live heroes, too. And I want to get their stories out.

If you know these stories, please lend me a hand with it.

UPDATE: Regular correspondent, pilot and old friend Colonel Fingers writes in the comments:

Today's "live heroes" don't consider themselves as such. In fact, the "dead heroes" probably would tell us "don't call me a hero, I screwed up and let the bastards get me!" Today's "heroes" are men and women who have made the conscious decision to put country before self and join a team of professionals whose "job" it is to stand a post between all that is evil in the world and our free society. These folks don't like to toot their own horns because they're just doing what everybody else in their unit is doing and consider themselves equals and a reflection of our society (if they only new how special they were).

I agree wth everything the Colonel says.

And I stand by my point. I know the heroes of this war wouldn't consider themselves as such. Either did Alvin York or Audie Murphy, when you got right down to it.

It's not about them, really - that doesn't sound right, but work with me, here. It's about the rest of our society.

I'm under no illusions that I'll get a groundswell of contributions on this subject; things don't work that way. But it's something our society - the larger society, the part that still gets its news from Dan Rather and thinks Chris Matthews actually is a hardball smashmouth interviewer - needs to hear, and hear consistently. Even systematically.

Because like Vietnam, this war may be won on the battlefield - but it can be lost here. I have more faith in our people than that - but there's nothing wrong with reinforcing faith.

Posted by Mitch at April 30, 2004 07:15 AM