In this day and age being heralded as an everyday plain ol’ ordinary Superstar Hero is a “mixed” bag, at best. In particular if it is the media that’s doing the heralding. One only has to recall the initial stories on Iraq Hero Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch and Afghanistan/football Hero Pat Tillman . The hero status given to these two young people was somewhat reworked by the facts and their initially reported heroics were long ago toned down; for Lynch, because the original heroic notion didn’t stand the test of the facts , and for Tillman, because what made him an hero became overshadowed by a possible cover up with his death while serving in Afghanistan. We should remember that Pat Tillman’s earned hero status because he freely chose to join the Armed Forces although he could have earned star status as a pro on a football field and gotten big bucks instead. However, disputed controversies does not a Hero make, and Pat Tillman heroic act was layed to rest as to not bring attention to nefarious governmental actions. In any case, it cannot be disputed that for different reasons, both Lynch's and Tillman's “hero” status were repackaged to simply --Two young brave people no longer talked about as the paragon of glorified hero-hood.
The media currently has three high profiled “heroes” that they showcase consistently. Coincidently these “heroes” just all happen to be rumored or confirmed candidates in the quickly approaching 2008 presidential race. All have had the hero label surgically implanted by the corporate media as though it is part of their names; POW War Hero Sen. John McCain , 9/11 NY Mayor Hero Rudi Giuliani , and Common/Poor Man’s Hero John Edwards who's legendary feat in the name of poverty are still "a work in progress".
These notables' are fortunate that the media is heralding them as "special", but my questions is, are they really heroes, or are they just wearing the label gifted them by the media or bolder still, that they have crafted themselves?
I’m one who looks beyond the labels to the facts surrounding the pronouncements and since Hero Rudi’s profile in courage has come under scrutiny as of late , I”m wondering how much longer he will be allowed to keep his title?
In reference to McCain, I believe that his profile in courage as a POW has been questioned for many years, althought the media has yet questioned their gift to him. There are those souls who would prefer to simply calling John McCain a “survivor” rather than a Hero.
In terms of concrete actions for the poor, prior to his 4 years run for the presidency, I can’t locate anything in John Edwards' 6 years legislative record worth mentioning in reference to the direct issue of his assisting the poor. Certainly Edwards’ has made many laudable statements in reference to poverty since late 2003, and effectively gained himself a short lived gig at a poverty center as proof which isn’t a bad thing, but Heroics are based on much more than what comes out of someone’s mouth when they speak, or situations created after the fact of making their grand aspirations known. Heroes are about action; actions performed while incurring personal risk. In the three men I have listed and who have been lauded as heroes, I find no such documented chosen risks.
In fact, what exactly is a Hero defined, and what does the word really mean?
he·ro (hîr'ōo) Pronunciation Key , n. pl. he·roes
1. In mythology and legend, a man, often of divine ancestry, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits, and favored by the gods.
2. A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life: soldiers and nurses who were heroes in an unpopular war.
3. A person noted for special achievement in a particular field: the heroes of medicine. See Synonyms at celebrity.
4. The principal male character in a novel, poem, or dramatic presentation.
5. Chiefly New York City See submarine. See Regional Note at submarine.
I personally choose the number 2 definition of the meaning; “A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of p urpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life”.....and I would add one additional phrase.... and sacrificed personal comfort. In searching for profiles of heroes, I find a couple, but not the ones heralded and labeled so by the media.
John Kerry really was a bonafide hero of presidential timber, from all that I see. Not so much for his (now controversial and unfairly disputed) stunt in the military as so much what he did when he returned from serving his country. John Kerry took risk, layed aside personal comfort, and testified and agitated against a controversial war in 1971. That was 35 years ago, but John Kerry is still a hero specifically for this act, to this day. Certainly if the John Kerry that was so ready to sacrifice himself for a cause he believed in had manifested in a forceful form in 2004, John Kerry should and could have been president...which goes to confirm my suspicion of the media; one who was hero yesterday, may not be tomorrow's.
A personal favorite hero of mine is Gen. Wesley Clark. His is a story that repeats Hero several time over a life span. Certainly Clark was a Hero based on his Vietnam valor, having been shot 4 times and still managing to lead his platoon to safety.
So what has Wes Clark done to deserve my Hero label? Well, there are several things, which is why this is a multiple part series. I'll start with this story here written up in an Esquire article, based on Richard Holbrook’s book, “To End a War”.
In August 1995, the general—three stars, working as J-5 for the Joint Chiefs—went to Bosnia as part of the negotiating team Ambassador Richard Holbrooke had put together to end the civil war that had resulted in the massacre of as many as eight thousand Muslim men and boys at the town of Srebrenica the month before. In Belgrade, Clark had met for the first time Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, who was sponsoring the Bosnian Serbs. Now the team had to travel to Sarajevo. Told that the airport in Sarajevo was too dangerous to fly into, the team decided to drive and asked Milosevic to guarantee its safety on a road held by Bosnian Serbs. Milosevic did not, and so the team wound up taking a fortified Humvee and an armored personnel carrier on a pitched, narrow, winding mountain road notoriously vulnerable to Serb machine-gun fire. Clark and Holbrooke went in the Humvee, the rest in the APC. In his book, the general describes what happened this way: "At the end of the first week we had a tragic accident on Mount Igman, near Sarajevo. [Three members of the team] were killed when the French armored personnel carrier in which they were riding broke through the shoulder of the road and tumbled several hundred meters down a steep hillside." It is not until one reads Holbrooke's book, To End a War, that one finds out that after the APC went off the road, Clark grabbed a rope, anchored it to a tree stump, and rappelled down the mountainside after it, despite the gunfire that the explosion of the APC set off, despite the warnings that the mountainside was heavily mined, despite the rain and the mud, and despite Holbrooke yelling that he couldn't go. It is not until one brings the incident up to the general that one finds out that the burning APC had turned into a kiln, and that Clark stayed with it and aided in the extraction of the bodies; it is not until one meets Wesley Clark that one understands the degree to which he held Milosevic accountable.
I encourage all reading this to go read the actual chapter
in Richard Holbrook’s book, “To End a War”.
