Who's Your Hero?

[Barrett]

* Just saw the 20 August US News & World Report with a cover story on "heroes." We've kicked the subject around quite a bit over the past 2-3 years, and I still say that unless it involves death, dismemberment or torture, it is probably not heroic and needs to be called something else.
* Most americans disagree, witness the follow top 10 list:

1. Jesus Christ
2. Martin luther King Jr
3. Colin Powell
4. JF Kennedy
5. Mother Teresa
6. Ronald Reagan
7. Abraham Lincoln
8. John Wayne *
9. Michael Jordan
10. Bill clinton *

* *Without addressing the top of the list, it occurs to me that only numbers 3 & 4 ever willingly placed themselves in harm's way (in wartime) while 4, 6 & 7 got shot mainly through the negligence of others. *Numbers 2, 4, and 10 were/are consistently unfaithful to their wives, the latter notoriously corrupt. I'm a huge fan of No's 6 and 8 but they only portrayed heroes on screen. No. 9 is merely an ath-a-lete, in no way heroic, but the American public is increasingly unable to distinguish between heroism and celebrity.
* *No. 5 eventually will be a saint, but is that heroic?
* *Obviously, evil people can also be heroes but where do you draw the line? Who's your hero (singular)--and why?
* *Mine's Adolf Galland, who survived extensive combat but even more notably stood up for his pilots against Goering AND Hitler. We still don't have anybody who'll stand up to Patsy Schroeder. *:-[

[WFS]

I will address the top of the list. Jesus Christ was tortured and executed for his beliefs. As a Christian I believe without any duobt that his death and resurection gave all of us the possibility of salvation. However even if you don't believe in his divinity all evedence points to the fact that HE believed it.

He willingly continued his ministry despite his own statements that he would be put to death for his teachings. He went to Jeerusalem and to the temple and refused to back away from his beliefs after being tortured and beaten. As he hung on the cross dying in agony he called on God to forgive his murderers. He sacrificed himself because he was certain that that was the only way to save mankind. I think that more than meets your criteria for a hero.

Wayne

Barrett,

Who's my heroes? Uhhhhhhhhhhhh ...
Frank Luke
Commodore John Paul Jones
Adm. Ray Spruance
Adm. Bull Halsey
Lt. John Bobo
Cdr. Randy 'Duke' Cunningham
George W. Bush Jr.
The Marines of Khe Sahn in '68
Cdr. Waldron (VF-31) at Midway
Maj. 'Red' Edison (Guadalcanal)
The Founding Fathers of America
Patrick Henry
Geo. Washington
Samuel Adams et al.
The Continental Army
King Leonidas and the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae

You get the picture ... people that made a stand for freedom and civilization against tyranny and oppression.

Regards,
Tom Paine

That list of 10 mostly confirms my worst fears about our modern values.

A few of mine, in no particular order:

Samuel Adams
Patrick Henry
"Boom" Trenchard
Douglas Bader
Carlos Hathcock

If I were forced to pick a single personal hero, I'd have to go with T. J. "Stonewall" Jackson. He was an eccentric man and a hypochondriac, but daring, calm, and tactically brilliant in battle. If he had been alive, and at Lee's right hand for the battle of Gettysburg, history may have been very different.

Hello, Barrett!

Well, my country's heroes are all athletes (like Pele or Ayrton Senna), and we don't have great war heroes. And I don't know WWI aces so well to elect one as a hero. I know that some of them were wonderful in the air but hard to live with due to big ego or such things.

Anyway, I agree with almost everything you wrote about this Top 10 list, but let me tell some words about #5, because it's a subject I know very well.

Well, to be a saint, according to the rules of Catholic Church, one must be "heroic". Before beatification and canonization, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints must issue a decree stating that this certain person lived Christian virtues in "heroic state". But it has many different meanings, since there are many different saints, since those who went to war like Ignatius of Loyola and Francis of Assisi to those who spent a whole life in prayer like Therese of Lisieux.

Well, now let's go to Mother Theresa. She left her home country and went to live among the poor and the sick, devoting her life to them in the worst living conditions you can imagine. If it isn't heroic, I don't know what else can be. But it's just MHO.

A little story: once, a journalist visited Mother Theresa and, after seeing her work, said "I wouldn't do this not even for a million dollars!" and she replied "Neither would I".

So, I do believe she deserves a place on this Top 10 list.

All the best from Brazil

Marcio Campos
visit my site: www.modelismo-ww1.cjb.net

[45_Auto]

Robert E. Lee
Stonwall Jackson
George Patton
Alvin York
Eddie Rickenbacker

[Barrett]

I just KNEW you guys couldn't choose just one (the salted peanut syndrome?)
Tom: John Waldron was definitely a hero--disobeyed orders from his idiot air group commander (an incompetent martinet) in order to attack the Jap carriers. He commanded VT-8, though. VF-31 was a 1943-45 fighter squadron, which scored the last aerial kill of WW II.
Ray Spruance has recently been recommended for posthumous promotion to fleet admiral. Considering his strategic effect on the outcome of the war, it's well deserved but probably won't come about because (presumably) then the army & AF would be "entitled" to one more. IMO Halsey is hugely over-rated. He was a fighter, not a thinker, and clearly out of his depth after '43. Apart from his appalling screwup at Leyte Gulf, he ran 3rd Fleet through two hurricanes, costing several ships and hundreds of men. There was major resistence to his fleet admiral status, which was finally granted after the war. But Halsey was an astute PR man while Spruance wouldn't even read the issue of Time Magazine with his picture on the cover!
Red Mike: a Marine's Marine!

[Volker_Nemsch]

Hmmm....

OK, here is the half-yearly "hero-thread".



I remember that I´ve heard most of the names on the last occasion. As usual you can easily see from each list the natioality of the Forumite (sometimes it is possible to see if the guy is living in the South or the North of a special country). I would be the same with me. *I´m not sure if anybody ever tried to write down a list of ANTI-HEROES. Perhaps it would be something new.



Best regards
Volker Nemsch

[gregoire]

I give you mine
Leonidas
Spartacus (the legend the reality was not as nice buit what a legend)
Jeanne d'Arc
Lazard Hoche and the Soldat de l'an II
Danton
Condorcet
Le Poilu de 14
My grand father

[Shooter]

I think that Tom's list is pretty good, but I hold up LtGen Lewis B. Puller USMC as my hero. He was probably the finest regimental commander that the Corps ever had. I feel deprived that I never had the occasion to follow him into battle. Every Marine that I have ever met who actually served with "Chesty" Puller worshipped him.

Semper Fi,

Shooter sends