HERO is word that too-often is used to describe those whose work, though noble – and in some cases, brave – is not what (in the purest sense of the word), I would consider to be heroic.
Celebrities and sports figures, for instance, are often referred to as heroes. It sounds good, and it’s a lofty superlative for people who often do incredible work sometimes requiring a level of courage. But how many times have we heard the term, “gridiron heroes,” to simply describe star football players?
Trust me: I’m not knocking ballplayers –I am after all a sports fan – I’m also not saying there aren’t celebrities who aren’t individually heroes for whatever reason. There are.
But I also believe “hero,” in the absolute definition of the word as I understand it to be, is overused in its description of entire groups of people.
We hear that every soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine who puts on a uniform and deploys to Iraq or Afghanistan is a hero.
They are noble and brave patriots to be sure, and no one but the good Lord above knows how much I love and respect each and every one of them.
But is serving one’s country – which is a duty in my opinion – necessarily heroic?
If every soldier is a hero, then how do we describe those soldiers who go far beyond what would ever be expected of any soldier?
Ladies and gentlemen, heroes and heroines are men and women who go to the absolute extremes during moments of terror and the most challenging circumstances – risking life and limb, sometimes running up against the cores of their very souls – to do what’s right … and what no one else will do.
Though they almost-always consider themselves ordinary, they are far from it.
Just because you have been in a combat situation – and many of us in here have been – does not mean you are necessarily heroic for simply having been in that situation. It’s what you do in that situation, individually – the risk, the sacrifice, the performance of an unimaginable task, the negotiation of an obstacle that to even the very best of soldiers would seem insurmountable.
It’s doing the thing that would seem physically, mentally and emotionally impossible.
Yet that is the environment of heroes. And there aren’t but a very few who have ever breached the wall of ordinary courage, nobility, and duty to enter that environment.
When we think of Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg, for instance, we often loosely refer to those men – both Confederate and Union – as heroes.
There were heroes there to be sure, but not every one attacking was a hero, nor was every defending soldier.
The soldiers were brave no doubt – and scared – but they were following orders.
They were fulfilling their duty– as both sides believed – to God, country, and Corps, and especially to that man on their left and their right.
And when it became clear that the Confederates were not going to be able to break the Union lines, don’t think for one second if the order had been given for the Confederates to retreat even if they were a mere 100 yards from their objective, that they wouldn’t have followed that order. They would have … because they were soldiers obeying orders.
But the heroes of that battle would have been men like Confederate Gen. Lew Armistead:
He knew that he was attacking a probably impregnable position. And it was.
He knew he had a far better chancing of dying than living.
He knew he had to set the example of courage for his men.
He knew he had to lead from the front.
He knew he had to do everything humanly possible to keep his brigade moving forward in the face of what must have been a terrifying hailstorm of lead and jagged pieces of hot metal.
Entire squads, even companies, were disintegrating in the attack. The field was littered with soldiers who had been disemboweled, ripped to pieces, yet were still alive and screaming.
But Armistead kept shouting to his boys to keep moving.
And where was he positioned?
In the front of his troops as they advanced toward the enemy’s defenses. And he knew the enemy could see him out in front, with his sword in hand, held above his head, with his hat on the tip of the sword so that all the men in his brigade might be able to see that their commander was out in front, still alive, and attacking.
That, my friends, is heroic.
Armistead, as we know was mortally wounded. What was left of his brigade did reach the objective, but was quickly overwhelmed.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have heroes like that here among us today in our Medal of Honor recipients.
Now, as a military analyst – whose concerns today are more focused on national security issues and countering global terrorism – some might ask why am I here today talking about heroes.
I am because it is all connected.
Folks, we cannot fight terrorists or effectively wage an asymmetrical war against terrorism without heroes. And heroes are born, not only of courage and doing what’s right, but of tradition and a sense of – and an appreciation for – our greatness as a nation of warriors.
Our nation must appreciate and herald heroes above all others. We must remember that our nation exists only because we have always produced men such as these. And we must understand that young men and women now serving our nation on the ends of the earth are the products of these men and what these men have sacrificed, not only for our country, but for our esteemed military tradition.
We cannot take this tradition – including these heroes – for granted if we hope to continue producing the kinds of Americans who will forever take the fight to those who seek to destroy us.
There is simply too much at stake. We must support our Medal of Honor recipients – our heroes in the purest sense of the word – and in-so-doing our unique American military tradition and our national greatness.
Thank you.
