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Why It's Wrong to Equate Military Service With Heroism

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Post by Guest Thu Jul 22, 2010 11:41 am

When I was a kid in the 1970s, I loved reading accounts of American heroism from World War II. I remember being riveted by a book about the staunch Marine defenders of Wake Island and inspired by John F. Kennedy’s exploits saving the sailors he commanded on PT-109. Closer to home, I had an uncle -- like so many vets of that war, relatively silent on his own experiences -- who had been at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941, and then fought them in a brutal campaign on Guadalcanal, where he earned a Bronze Star. Such men seemed like heroes to me, so it came as something of a shock when, in 1980, I first heard Yoda’s summary of war in The Empire Strikes Back. Luke Skywalker, if you remember, tells the wizened Jedi master that he seeks “a great warrior.” “Wars not make one great,” Yoda replies.

Okay, it was George Lucas talking, I suppose, but I was struck by the truth of that statement. Of course, my little epiphany didn’t come just because of Yoda or Lucas. By my late teens, even as I was gearing up for a career in the military, I had already begun to wonder about the common ethos that linked heroism to military service and war. Certainly, military service (especially the life-and-death struggles of combat) provides an occasion for the exercise of heroism, but even then I instinctively knew that it didn’t constitute heroism.

Ever since the events of 9/11, there’s been an almost religious veneration of U.S. service members as “Our American Heroes” (as a well-intentioned sign puts it at my local post office). That a snappy uniform or even intense combat in far-off countries don’t magically transform troops into heroes seems a simple point to make, but it’s one worth making again and again, and not only to impressionable, military-worshipping teenagers.

Here, then, is what I mean by “hero”: someone who behaves selflessly, usually at considerable personal risk and sacrifice, to comfort or empower others and to make the world a better place. Heroes, of course, come in all sizes, shapes, ages, and colors, most of them looking nothing like John Wayne or John Rambo or GI Joe (or Jane).

“Hero,” sadly, is now used far too cavalierly. Sportscasters, for example, routinely refer to highly paid jocks who hit walk-off home runs or score game-winning touchdowns as heroes. Even though I come from a family of firefighters (and one police officer), the most heroic person I’ve ever known was neither a firefighter nor a cop nor a jock: She was my mother, a homemaker who raised five kids and endured without complaint the ravages of cancer in the 1970s, with its then crude chemotherapy regimen, its painful cobalt treatments, the collateral damage of loss of hair, vitality, and lucidity. In refusing to rail against her fate or to take her pain out on others, she set an example of selfless courage and heroism I'll never forget.

Hometown Heroes in Uniform

In local post offices, as well as on local city streets here in central Pennsylvania, I see many reminders that our troops are “hometown heroes.” Official military photos of these young enlistees catch my eye, a few smiling, most looking into the camera with faces of grim resolve tinged with pride at having completed basic training. Once upon a time, as the military dean of students at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, I looked into such faces in the flesh, congratulating young service members for their effort and spirit.

I was proud of them then; I still am. But here’s a fact I suspect our troops might be among the first to embrace: the act of joining the military does not make you a hero, nor does the act of serving in combat. Whether in the military or in civilian life, heroes are rare -- indeed, all-too-rare. Heck, that’s the reason we celebrate them. They’re the very best of us, which means they can’t be all of us.
Still, even if elevating our troops to hero status has become something of a national mania, is there really any harm done? What’s wrong with praising our troops to the rafters? What’s wrong with adding them to our pantheon of heroes?

The short answer is: There’s a good deal wrong, and a good deal of harm done, not so much to them as to us.

To wit:
*By making our military a league of heroes, we ensure that the brutalizing aspects and effects of war will be played down. In celebrating isolated heroic feats, we often forget that war is guaranteed to degrade humanity. “War,” as writer and cultural historian Louis Menand noted, “is specially terrible not because it destroys human beings, who can be destroyed in plenty of other ways, but because it turns human beings into destroyers.”
When we create a legion of heroes in our minds, we blind ourselves to evidence of their destructive, sometimes atrocious, behavior. Heroes, after all, don’t commit atrocities. They don’t, for instance, dig bullets out of pregnant women’s bodies in an attempt to cover up deadly mistakes. They don’t fire on a good Samaritan and his two children as he attempts to aid a grievously wounded civilian. Such atrocities and murderous blunders, so common to war’s brutal chaos, produce cognitive dissonance in the minds of many Americans who simply can’t imagine their “heroes” killing innocents. How much easier it is to see the acts of violence of our troops as necessary, admirable, even noble.

*By making our military generically heroic, we act to prolong our wars. By seeing war as essentially heroic theater, we esteem it even as we excuse it. Consider, for example, Germany during World War I, a subject I’ve studied and written about. Now, as then, and here, as there, the notion of war as heroic theater became common. And when that happens, war’s worst excesses are conveniently softened on the “home front,” which only contributes to more war-making. As the historian Robert Weldon Whalen noted of those German soldiers of nearly a century ago, “The young men in field-grey were, first of all, not just soldiers, but young heroes, Junge Helden. They fought in the heroes’ zone, Heldenzone, and performed heroic deeds, Heldentaten. Wounded, they shed hero's blood, Heldenblut, and if they died, they suffered a hero’s death, Heldentod, and were buried in a hero’s grave, Heldengrab.” The overuse of helden as a modifier to ennoble German militarism during World War I may prove grating to our ears today, but honestly, is it that much different from America’s own celebration of our troops as young heroes (with all the attendant rites)?

*By insisting programmatically on American military heroism, we also lay a firm foundation for potentially dangerous post-war myths, especially of the blame-mongering “stab-in-the-back” variety. After all, once you have a league of heroes, how can you assign responsibility for costly, debilitating, perhaps even lost wars to them? It’s just a fact that heroes don’t lose. And if they’re not responsible, and their brilliant, super-competent leaders (General “King David” Petraeus springs to mind) aren’t responsible -- then it’s only a small step to assigning blame to weak-willed civilians and so-called unpatriotic elements on the “home front,” especially since we’re not likely to credit our enemies for much. By definition, cravenly hiding among civilians as they do, our enemies are just about incapable of behaving heroically.

Of Young Heroes and Front Pigs

In rejecting the “heroic” label, don’t think we’d be insulting our troops. Quite the opposite: we’d be making common cause with them, for most of our troops undoubtedly already reject the “hero” label, just as the young “heroes” of Germany did in 1917-18. With the typical sardonic humor of front-line soldiers, they preferred the less comforting, if far more realistically descriptive label (given their grim situation in the trenches) of “front pigs.”

Whatever nationality they may be, troops at the front know the score. Even as our media and our culture seek to elevate our troops into the pantheon of demi-gods, our “front pigs” carry on, plying an ancient and brutal trade. Most simply want to survive and come home with their bodies, their minds, and their buddies intact. Part of the world’s deadliest war machine, they are naturally concerned first about saving their own skins, and only secondarily worried about the lives of others. This is not beastliness. Nor is it heroism. It’s simply a front pig’s nature.

So, next time you talk to our soldiers, Marines, sailors, or airmen, do them (and your country) a small favor. Thank them for their service. Let them know that you appreciate them. Just don’t call them heroes.

William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and TomDispatch regular, teaches History at the Pennsylvania College of Technology.

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Post by Guest Thu Jul 22, 2010 11:47 am

I could not agree more with the tone of this article. My father and all of my uncles fought in WW II. One of my uncles died fighting in Sicily. My late brother-in-law received a purple heart and silver star for his efforts in Korea. Still, I think that the term "hero" has been bandied about so much as to become almost meaningless, and those who use it often disregard the everyday efforts of civilians quietly going about their lives and doing their jobs, who improve the lives of others in many tangible ways.

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Post by The_Amber_Spyglass Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:04 pm

I agree to an extent, and I truly think that some people only sign up for military service because they are bullies and want to wave guns and push people around. Grubber on SP was the perfect example of that. And like him, they tend to end up with a chip on their shoulder about how they "served their country... have you, you stinkin' good for nuthin' liberal?".

No offence to the Americans here, but there is a perception that your military goes out of its way to attract those sorts of people. People who have no education and no prospects, basically people you do not know what to do with are being fired up into some jingoistic attitude that America reigns supreme and they are to be the strong arm to prove that.

Adverts like this don't help.



Whereas adverts for the Royal Marines are always keen to stress what a tough job it is and ask the question "are you really up to it?"



I don't doubt for one moment that there are people like that in our armed forces too, but I don't get the impression that the MOD seeks to attract them.

I currently work for the MOD (Ministry of Defence) and talk to and meet British soldiers and officers every single day. I am very respectful of the job that they do, so please nobody take that as meaning that I am anti-military, because I am not. I feel that war and invasion ought to be a last resort, when there are no other choices left. Nobody should want to go to war while always understanding that it is sometimes necessary.
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Post by BubbleBliss Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:27 pm


A lot of my friends joined the military for their benefits. Signing bonuses of up to $25,000, tuition expenses covered, etc. For some people here that's the only way to even go to College because they can't get a scholarship and don't want to graduate with $50,000 worth of debt.

I think being a hero is not only limited to the military, it stretches into all areas of everyday life. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, etc. were all heroes IMO.

Another couple of people worthy of the term "hero" are featured in this....

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Post by Guest Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:36 pm

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:I agree to an extent, and I truly think that some people only sign up for military service because they are bullies and want to wave guns and push people around. Grubber on SP was the perfect example of that. And like him, they tend to end up with a chip on their shoulder about how they "served their country... have you, you stinkin' good for nuthin' liberal?".


I've known a fair amount of people who've been in the military (in Canada, the US and UK) and I never got the impression that they were the stereotypical "gung-ho" types. But they do exist, and unfortunately we hear of incidents like Abu Ghraib and US servicemen raping women and children abroad more often than we hear about them handing out MREs to Iraqi and Afghani kids.

On a radio show recently I heard an interview with a Iraqi war veteran who told the host that it's guys like him whom Americans owe their freedom. The host politely reminded him that in fact they owe their freedom to The Bill of Rights, not the military. I thought that was beautiful.

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Post by The_Amber_Spyglass Thu Jul 22, 2010 1:03 pm

This is the other issue, doing it for the glory, that would also lead me to question their motives for signing up. The officers I have met so far (some of them very high ranking) have been so humble that it surprised me.
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Post by TexasBlue Thu Jul 22, 2010 4:13 pm

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:I agree to an extent, and I truly think that some people only sign up for military service because they are bullies and want to wave guns and push people around. Grubber on SP was the perfect example of that. And like him, they tend to end up with a chip on their shoulder about how they "served their country... have you, you stinkin' good for nuthin' liberal?".

No offence to the Americans here, but there is a perception that your military goes out of its way to attract those sorts of people. People who have no education and no prospects, basically people you do not know what to do with are being fired up into some jingoistic attitude that America reigns supreme and they are to be the strong arm to prove that.

I served. I don't think of myself as a hero. A hero is someone who does something above and beyond the call of duty... no matter what the profession.

That being said, the Marines here (as yours probably are) are a very elite part of our military. I know for a fact that i never would've made it all the way thru boot camp. But yeah, there's always the few who are the arrogant assholes in any branch of the military. Also, before this latest war (since 9-11), our military was very picky on who could join. They lowered that bar since this war started and it's showing.

Btw, that was a corny ad for our Marines. There's much better ones out there but i'm not going looking for them either.
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Post by TexasBlue Thu Jul 22, 2010 4:14 pm

alland wrote:The host politely reminded him that in fact they owe their freedom to The Bill of Rights, not the military. I thought that was beautiful.

He was 100% correct.
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Post by TexasBlue Thu Jul 22, 2010 4:18 pm

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:This is the other issue, doing it for the glory, that would also lead me to question their motives for signing up. The officers I have met so far (some of them very high ranking) have been so humble that it surprised me.

I met a fellow when i got station in Germany back in 1982. He told me that the reason he joined was that he wanted to go kick some Iranian ass. When he joined was a few months after the hostage taking occurred. I guess he thought we were going to war. He was a real prick too. I'll never forget the fist fight we got into one day in our barracks room. He had me at the end but i buried a fist into the side of his head so hard that i though t i broke my hand. He couldn't hear for two days after that. ROFL Gotta remember, i was about 19 at the time.
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Post by The_Amber_Spyglass Fri Jul 23, 2010 10:44 am

lol, Tex you rebel.
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Post by TexasBlue Fri Jul 23, 2010 11:24 am

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:lol, Tex you rebel.

lol

Back then i didn't give a shit. I had the world by the balls, you know. Very Happy
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