More about heroes

I’ve been reading Anton Myrer’s Once An Eagle . I loved The Last Convertible and I thought I’d read this one years ago but apparently not. Anyway, it follows U.S. military and social history of the twentieth century through the eyes of an Army officer.

Myrer was a fine writer and a great storyteller.  More than that, he clearly gave a lot of thought to the whole idea of human conflict. Since we’re currently engaged in a major conflict of what I consider questionable legitimacy, reading this book has given rise to a welter of thoughts and feelings.

One of the central themes of this book is the nature of heroism. It’s a subject we could spend hours discussing and never come close to consensus as to what it means. Heroism, that is.

 The word is overworked of late. Professional athletes are heroes. People who do good works are heroes. Folks whose approach to life we admire are heroes. It seems that heroes may be found in all walks of life, seemingly everywhere we look. And that bothers me.

A hero, for me, is a person who has done something heroic. Beyond the pale goodness displayed at some significant risk to self.

Salman Khan is a brilliant guy and a top notch visionary. It’s likely the Khan Academy will lead the charge in re-forming our collective educational enterprise and just might finally – FINALLY – make stellar educational opportunities accessible to everyone. I’m working with a group applying his principles to adult learning and his simple but brilliant reconsideration of pedagogical approaches is changing my world for the better. But is he a hero? Hmm, maybe not.  I’d give anything to have dinner with Khan and I’m fascinated by and beholden to his vision but that doesn’t make him a hero.

Malala Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban for daring to go to school and then encouraging other girls to do the same. Recovered from her head wound, she is back in school and even more vocal than ever about the importance of access to education for girls. Now, Malala - she’s definitely a hero.

We refer to our uniformed military as heroes whether or not the individual in question has ever done anything heroic. The folks who wear their country’s uniform deserve our appreciation and respect. And some of them are indeed heroic. But still…

When we use too wide a brush in painting our heroes, we cheapen the term. And I think it’s a term that deserves to be preserved in its original meaning and import.

Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was fascinated from an early age with the lives of missionaries. She gave her life to the “poorest of the poor,” exposing herself and her sister nuns to poverty, malnutrition and truly horrible diseases. The world came to know her as Mother Teresa of Calcutta. For me, she defines the term ‘hero.’

Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening opposed passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and they were widely censured for being the sole standouts against sending our troops into a conflict in which we had no legitimate interest except in the minds of Domino Theory adherents.  58,000 American deaths later, they were proven right. They were heroes.

 Gerald Ford was one of my heroes. He had to know that in pardoning Nixon he was signing his own political death warrant. And that pardon was necessary if the country was to start to move on from the toxic political climate that Nixon and his evil crones created. Ford didn’t do it for Nixon, he did it for all of us. And it cost him dearly.

Elie Wiesel – at a time when so many acted as bystanders to the holocaust – devoted his life to explicating the nature and ever ready presence of evil among us. While others assigned the blame entirely to the evils and excesses of the Nazis, Wiesel correctly and courageously pointed the finger at those who knew or should have known of the mounting horror and did nothing.  He’s one of my heroes.

There are folks out there, or at least I hope there are, who will help us find a way to resolve conflict without killing people and blowing things up. It’s the only way the human race will survive.