When referring to a cop or a troop who has been killed, they are said to be “fallen”. Other uses of the same word tend to be negative, such as “fallen angel”, or “fallen sinner” etc.
Peace,
mangeorge
When I hear it referring to someone killed in Iraq, I always think, “He didn’t fall, he was pushed.”
Really? I usually hear it when emphasis is due or grandeur is wanted. An angel has fallen, a hero is fallen, a warrior is felled. None of these are ordinary, they are special beings/people as measured by culture.
Cops are heroes in the mindset of most and so they are not murdered nor do they die, but they fall. At l;east they do when the story is being told in a non clinical/facts only sort of way. At the funeral he is fallen, on the 1st page editorial he is as well.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/occido
Latin occido means both to fall and to die.
Occident is where the sun sets (west).
“Casuality” comes from a Latin word meaning “fall” as well.
When a man falls, he’s a hero.
When a woman falls, she’s a whore.
It’s the same thing in Hebrew, too. The phrasing goes all the way back to the Book of Samuel:
*19 The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!
20 Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
21 Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain, upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil.
22 From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty.
23 Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.
24 Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights, who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel.
25 How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places.*
(2 Samuel, Chapter 1. It loses a lot in the translation.)
I think it’s just a use of more flowery language to express the thought that this is more than an ordinary death. You also get a lot of “Officer Smith was slain” rather than murdered, killed, shot, etc, which strikes me as the same sort of thing.
I guess I’m hard-hearted. To me, the only ordinary death comes with old age.
I’m 64, by the way. Knockin’ at heaven’s door, eh.