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highwaystar101 on 04 May 2010
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Kasz216 said:
highwaystar101 said:
c03n3nj0 said:
highwaystar101 said:

Very good record breaking shot.

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However, on a personal note. I've never understood the term "hero" being automatically applied to all people who are in the military.

I mean, take the man in this story for example. To take out two people who were attacking your troops under heavy machine gun fire, yes that warrants hero status. This person went above and beyond the call of duty and that warrants the hero stature.

But I don't get the "support our troops, they are all heroes" mindset. To be a hero you really have to go above and beyond the call of duty I believe.

To be a hero is something you have to earn it with bravery and a lot of hard work, not something you are automatically given.

But wouldn't it be required to have bravery and do hard work to join the armed forces?

Unless there's a draft, it's all voluntary. (In the U.S at least)

Well, I guess you could argue it that way. But I think having bravery and earning something with bravery are two different things. I can have bravery to join up, but I have to use it to be called a hero (you know, literally saving another soldier under heavy fir)

I dunno, I think anyone who gets deployed to a war zone counts more or less.

I look at it like this.

If I suddenly started paying superman to "Save the world'.  He's still a hero if he does it.  He's just filling his job description, but I mean, damn. 

Of course I may have that mindset because I am what you would call a coward.  If my country asked me to do my patriotic duty to pick up a rifle and defend this country... i'd move.  Well, unless it was the last decent place to live.

The thing is, and this may sound like an obvious yet dumb dumb definition, I would define hero as someone who does a heroic act.

For example we all have the potential to save a life and be a hero; but unless you act on that potential and actually save a life then you are not a hero.

That reasoning is why we hand out certain medals to people who have achieved incredible things during battle.

But also, by that definition you could argue that pretty much all veterans of conflicts are heroes.

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And I think whether you're paid or not is irrelevant when you have done something heroic, because an heroic act is done more for passion as opposed to money.

A soldier can easily decide that it's more than his jobs worth to run into heavy machine gun fire to save another soldier, I mean what good is money when you're dead? They don't take that kind of action for money, they take that kind of action because they want to save the other soldier, and that's why it's heroic.

But again, by this reasoning you could argue that most veterans of battles are heroes.

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Yeah, I'm a coward too. If the UK ever went to war I would literally be pleading for them to put me in research and development, or something else not on the front line anyway.

To be honest they would be stupid not to put me in R&D, I would be worse than useless on the front line, I'd last two minutes. At least in R&D I can be somewhat effective because I've had experience.