Bring them back

I want my heroes back. I want to see real men that do things the way "The Duke" used to. I don't want people who simply do their jobs and put in a day's work being touted as "heroes".

A hero is something that one has to be by action,  not just something that happens by doing one's job. An Air Force aviator shot down and held captive for 65 days before being rescued is not  a hero. I'm sorry, but unless that individual did something heroic, they don't get the title. The fictional Forrest Gump running into the front lines to carry out, bodily, each member of his company is a hero. The grunt that lays down machine-gun fire to cover the retreat of his platoon without regard for his own life is a hero.

Such deeds are so heroic that our government allows for the awarding of very important medals and other acknowledgements posthumously in the event that said heroes do not survive their acts of bravery, over and above the call of duty.

I used to have "real men" I could look up to. Most of these guys were WWII vets and had some stories to tell. Some of them like "The Duke" and others played fictional men of valor. Some of the real ones had stories so painful that they wouldn't tell; so gut-wrenching that they should never be told; so horrifying that just thinking about them was too much. I see these men on TV now--they're old and they're being interviewed and they all say the same thing when someone tries to call them heroes, they just scoff and say: "I'm no hero, we were just doing a job....the guys who didn't make it....the guys who gave it all....there's your heroes."


Just like the guys before us who gave it all in Iwo Jima, France, Dunkirk, Casablanca, Rome, Corregidor, Leyte Gulf, and on and on....all deserve our utter respect for the liberty and rejection of tyrrany they bought for the world and for all of us in the free world.

"There's your heroes."