No, I am not a hero. That fact has been drummed into me over and over again during the last decade. It used to be when I was young and studied such things in school, that there were traditional notions of a hero: for example, the protagonist in a story; someone like Hercules or Achilles, fabled in myth, characters who rose up out of adversity to achieve something good. The type of character Joseph Campbell wrote about in The Hero with A Thousand Faces. Or personal heroes, like one’s father or a mentor of some sort.
But that isn’t so any longer, not according to the way the word is used in the common culture and in the media, certainly since 9/11. A hero is someone who wears, or has worn, a uniform of some kind. Soon after 9/11, there was a television concert called “A Salute to Heroes,” celebrating the work and sacrifice of the police and firefighters at the site of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Then, this was reinforced for me about three weeks later, when I had to travel to Albuquerque to give a talk to a safety meeting of the Edison Electric Institute. The guy who seemed to be running the presentations (a former Marine, although once a Marine always a Marine) showed a slideshow with music about the events of 9/11, as if anyone needed reminding. Then he followed that with a tape recording of the service songs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard; and enjoined anyone who had served in those organizations to stand when their service’s song came on, to be recognized as a hero. Just to make sure, he also asked anyone who had ever served as a regular or volunteer member of the police or fire department, in any venue, to also stand as a hero.
By the end, I was about the only one still sitting. I was a career Federal employee, not a hero.
The only time I have ever worn a uniform was when I was working at Albany Medical Center Hospital from 1972-74, as a porter (janitor), doing alternate service as a conscientious objector. It was a crappy uniform: boiled and starched dull grey workshirts and trousers issued and laundered with industrial care by the hospital. With a little nameplate that read “Mr. Smith,” so that you could be identified if you were caught goofing off somewhere. That does not count as a hero’s uniform.
Aside from police officers and firefighters and various emergency service people, the uniform that our designated heroes wear is generally the modern computer-designed digital “camouflage” BDUs that practically everybody in the military has been required to wear since 9/11. (If it’s supposed to be “camouflage,” why does it stand out so?) Which brings me to Memorial Day, which is a rightly solemn holiday and remembrance; but I heard in the broadcast media a great deal of the usual emotional calling-out of “heroes,” which for me are only one sort of hero; and many mentions of those who are fighting for our freedom abroad (i.e., in Iraq and Afghanistan).
No one is fighting for my freedom abroad. That is bullshit. I feel deeply, painfully, for every one of the members of the service who are putting their lives and their mental and emotional wellbeing on the line every day, and have done so for repeated long stretches, for whom these stupid wars drag on with no end in sight. It’s been nearly nine years since we went into Afghanistan, over seven since we invaded Iraq. Thousands of people have died, and many thousands more have had their lives ruined, on all sides of these conflicts. None of this has had a positive effect on my freedom, or anyone else in this country. It may have done some good, somewhere, for some people in the countries we invaded—the ones whose lives were not ended or ruined.
After all the thousands of years we have been on this planet, and two thousand since the message of the Prince of Peace, have we learned nothing? Is this the best we can do? Is this the only place to find our heroes?
I admit that I am out of step with my world. No hero of mine bears arms against an enemy.
So I must have it all wrong, and will go back to my unheroic life.
