First responders are definitely brave but they take calculated risks, which in some way must give them a sort of return on what they’re doing.
Heroes, to me, would seem to be ordinary people who don’t have time to calculate risks involved but somehow rise above the ordinary without ever thinking about it, almost as if they were posessed with action despite themselves.
…I’m not sure if that makes any sense.
I don’t consider people that die doing what they are trained for to be heros, necessarily. Not that there deaths are tragic, but that doesn’t make them a hero. Is a nurse that contracted HIV from a needle stick while treating a person dying of AIDS a hero? To me, not really. They were doing their job, which they got paid for and adequately trained on, but something went wrong. However if this was someone that had spent years working in Africa with AIDS patients, and contracted it there, but continued to help as long as they were able, I might see that a little differently. I feel much the same way about police and firefighters. If they die in the line of duty, are they heros, no, not necessarily. Are they not, no, not always. I’m sure that some of the people that died on September 11th did heroic things, but that doesn’t make them all heros.
I think a much better example of heroism on 9/11 was in another story I saw on the news back them. Sorry that I can’t remember many details, but there was a man in a wheel chair that worked high up in one of the towers. Several people, whom if I recall, didn’t know him, decided that they weren’t going to let him die up there, so they carried him down the stairs, dozens of stories. This clearly slowed them down which could have killed them, but they didn’t care. They did it because they felt they had to. To me, this is much more heroic than people with oxygen tanks and heat protective gear running into a fire, not that this isn’t noble, it just doesn’t make a hero in my book.
I think that, in general, most people would view those as heroic jobs. I wouldn’t say that all people in those professions are heroes. The cop who spent his whole career working a desk isn’t really a hero, nor is the soldier convicted of war crimes. But yeah, I’d say that all of those professions have an above-average share of heroes in them.
Just playing Devil’s Advocate, but they weren’t “dead either way.” As I understand it, they were hoping to take the cockpit and safely land the plane, which could be viewed as an act of self preservation, not heroism. But that goes to the motivations of the people who stormed the cockpit, which we can’t know with certainty at this point. Certainly, the results were heroic, so I’m comfortable with that label.
To me, a hero is an ordinary person who performs an extraordinary deed, risking their own life and limb in an attempt to preserve the life and limb of another person, while considering their own safety a little less than the safety of the other. A hero is not fearless, but does not allow his fear to prevent him from doing what he feels he need to do.
I do not consider all firefighters heroes, but certainly some of them have performed heroic deeds and can be considered such.
Unfortunately, the term “hero” has become very diluted over the last few years, and is used to describe people whose professions often put them into harms way. Maybe these people should be considered heros also. I won’t argue it with someone who feels that way. But the word shouldn’t become cheapened through improper overuse.
It was only a couple of years ago that a regional supermarket chain was promoting shoppers at their stores as being “heroes” for shopping there. By buying your groceries at their store, and presumably saving money, a shopper was a “hero”. “Go home a hero” was written on the plastic takeout bags. How sad is that?
Next thing you know, they’ll be calling even ordinary sandwiches heroes. The shame.
Sailboat
I like Paul in Saudi’s definition. As to firefighters, I would say that there is nothing particularly heroic about aiming a hose at a fire, but entering a burning building is inherently life-threatening and at least approaches the heroic.
For me, a great example of a hero is Lenny Skutnik, who dove into the icy Potomac River to assist a victim of a plane crash. The person he assisted may have survived without his help, since another hero, Melvin Windsor, dropped into the water from a helicopter to attach a line to the victim, but Mr. Skutnik risked his life in a way most of us would never consider.
According to my Cub Scout waterbottle, All American Heroes are - Abe Lincoln, a guy in buckskin, a dog, a cop, and an astronaut. No firefighters, I’m afraid.
BTW - searching “all american heroes” on google images will bring up some NSFW pictures.
People who go out of their way to save another life when it’s not their job.
[i read a quote somewhere that in the old days a hero was someone who launched a solo attack on a machine gun bunker armed only with a pistol and a grenade ,but nowdays a hero is anyone who joined the armed forces for any reason and has been ordered to a war zone wether or not they want to go !
I disagree with this; if someone dashes into the proverbial burning building full of orphans, and dies in the attempt without managing to get anyone else out, I’d still say that was a pretty heroic thing to do.
I confess, I really don’t see the logic behind this. Why does risking your life to save somebody become less heroic when it’s part of your job? Crotalus linked to the story of Lenny Skutnik, indubitably a hero by anyone’s standard. But if he’d done exactly the same thing while being employed by the Coast Guard, suddenly his actions aren’t heroic? A person who, once in their lifetime, rescues someone from a burning building, is more heroic than someone who does it dozens of times a year? The arithmetic here completely escapes me.
Not just ordinary sandwiches, only those sandwiches that prove their mettle by being on an elongated roll.
A hero kills people, people that wish him harm. A hero is part human and part supernatural. A hero is born out of a childhood trauma, or out of a disaster, and must be avenged.
Homer : Yeah, that Timmy O’Tool is a real hero.
Lisa : How so dad?
Homer : Well… he fell in a well… and he can’t get out.
Lisa : How does that make him a hero?
Homer : Well it’s more then you’ve done.