this one kindof irritates me
New York Times can't seem to find any heros in the Iraqi war.
I don't buy into the nonsense that everybody over there is somebody special, or some kind of hero, as Ace says. The vast majority are just people doing a job; even dangerous jobs are just a part of a day's work. Only the truly unlucky become real heros.
But it's awfully short-sighted of the NYT to be completely unable to find a single "Hero", a single shining light, in this ongoing war. Every day, Heros, in the true sense of the word, are both made and murdered there.
Ace mentions Timothy Haag. I have a story somewhere around here about a guy who took on a squad-size element of enemy combatants with his freaking pocket knife, and won.
I knew a guy that was killed chasing a shooter in downtown Baghdad into hostile fire. A girl that dragged her gunner's dead body back to their truck, in the face of direct fire. A platoon leader that dodged mortar fire across open desert to try to find an unlocated team.
Not everyone that serves is deserving of the title of "National Hero". What makes someone into a Hero is the way they perform in the face of overwhelming threat. In WWII, it was the guy that singlehandedly charged an enemy pillbox and saved his team; in this war, it is the soldier that pulls a friend out of immemmediate danger. Or a hundred thousand other reasons. Nobody except the foolishly brave goes to war wanting to be a hero; in real life, the Medal of Honor is almost always posthumous. It's the people that, when it comes down to it, are willing to make that jump, to take that monumental risk to save themselves and their team, that are heros. And they should be honored as such.
The NYT should call me. I could give them a list of names of heros from Iraq; people who were demonstrably willing to sacrifice everything they had for their team, their misison, or the survival demands of the moment.
But I personally know a very small percentage of Iraq war veterans; certainly there are people even more deserving of the "Hero" label than I know. To say that you can't find any, a single one, is not only stupid, it's insulting.
