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According to Webster's Neew 20th Century Dictionary, 2nd Edition, page 852, heroism is:
1. the qualities and actions of a hero or heroine.
2. brave, noble action or trait.
The components of heroism are:
Courage: fearlessness of danger
Fortitude: passive courage, the habit of bearing up nobly under trials, dangers and sufferings
Bravery and valor: courage in battle or other 9onfllicts with living opponents
Intrepidity: firm courage which does not shrink from the most appalling dangers
Gallantry: adventurous courage, dashing into the thickest of the fight.
Heroism may call into exercise all these modifications of courage
The same dictionary defines, on page 713, the word foolhardy:
1. foolishly bold and venturesome 2. daring without judgment 3. rash 4. precipitate 5. reckless 6. incautious 7. headlong
Now the the component hardy is defined on page 826 as: 1. bold, brave, daring, resolute 2. stlong, firm, compact 3. too bold, rash; full of temerity 4. inurred to fatigue or exposure, robust, vigorous.
Now in all the threads called "Heroism vs Foolhardiness" are we really defining opposite characteristics (love vs hate, brave vs cowardly, night vs day)? Or is the dictionary telling us that foolhardiness is a characteristic of heroism; not a negation of heroism?
Was it foolhardy for Voss to take on McCudden's flight?
Was it foolhardy for Luke to knock down two balloons and three EAs in ten minutes? Or to take down those three balloons at Murvaux?
Was it foolhardy for those early pilots to get in those machines in the first place?
To do something foolhardy still means that you have to be brave to fight against the odds, and further that many so called foolhardy acts are forced on the flyers by orders, or just being part of a scenario they were forced into. In my old outfit the 8th Fighter Wing, by New Year's Eve, they were down to one plane, but orders were for the pilot to go up to Mig Alley against 300 or so Migs. That was a foolhardy order and the pillot did a foolhardy thing: he went up there, and got him a Mig, and he did a victory roll over the runway that popped the doors on quarters.
And wasn't Doolittle's Raid on Tokio a foolhardy operation? And the fight the Marines made on Guadalcanal?
There is no word in the dictionary such as foolcowardly because cowards would never be so foolish as to do something foolhardy.
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