Tuesday - November 11, 2003

Category Image Heroes are Supposed to be Winners


The reasoning for naming heroes has changed. Heroes were once the men who won battles. Later heroes were the people who rescued the wounded. We used to call Alvin York and Audie Murphy heroes. Now we call Jessica Lynch a hero.

(major revisions made on 11/12/03)

Jessica Lynch is often called a hero because of what happened to her in Iraq. She was in a car wreck, had a poorly maintained rifle, and was taken prisoner. She was a victim of a major screw up, not a hero. Her senior officers left her section of the convoy behind. The guides directing traffic left their posts because they assumed all vehicles had passed. The officer in her immediate charge was using an incorrectly penciled map, and not reading his instructions. Because of this blunder, Lynch and several other poorly armed vehicles drove into a large city occupied by heavily armed and untouched enemy forces. Oops. It was a classic blunder of careless leaders not keeping track of their people, and low ranking officers not using their head. I'll refrain from further criticism because I wasn't there, but I'll say that poorly trained troops with dirty rifles who are led into heavily armed enemy cities are not well led. So why is she a hero?

When the USS Cole was attacked by Al Qaeda and had a big hole punched in it, one of the female sailors was shipped home locally and heralded as a hero. She even claimed to be a hero in the excitement of having a lot of cameras and microphones being thrust at her. No one seemed to question why an uninjured woman was sent home when the rest of the crew was still on the ship fighting to keep it afloat. Does anyone else see a trend? Let me start at the beginning again.

Alvin York was a hero when he single handedly captured a German machine gun company in the Great War. It's true that again a map error caused his squad to be behind enemy lines, but he became a hero by winning, not by being captured.

Audie Murphy is the most decorated American in our history. His exploits during the Second World War are too numerous to relate, but they all involved courage in the face of the enemy and most definitely involved winning.

Even in Korea, heros recognized publicly were winners. But a shift seems to have begun. A shift that became most apparent in Viet Nam.

I can't give statistics. My old boss, Col. Wesley Fox, was awarded the Medal of Honor for distinctly brave actions in the A Shau valley. But his example is unusual from what I normally see from that war and since. In Viet Nam, probably because of the unpopularity of the war, the most public heros weren't those who killed the most enemy soldiers. Watch, and you'll see that when heroes from that war are mentioned, it's almost always from life saving actions, for brave medevac actions, mostly. It's not a new reason for giving out medals, it just seems more frequently the cited reason.

What happened to the heroes that won battles? The ones that through their bold action turned potential disaster into a great victory? They were there, and they are honored, but not as publicly. Our public taste in heroes has changed. Politics and trendy social agendas affect what we call heroes.

Now back to the present. Who are our heroes? Have you heard of Capt. Hornbuckle? I'll bet not. He was awarded a Bronze Star with V for valor during the assault on Baghdad. His story is compelling and he led his soldiers in an eight hour battle, badly outnumbered. And he won. And I think there are many others who probably were even more courageous. I'd rather have a man like Hornbuckle in my list of personal heroes than a Jessica Lynch. He was a winner, she was a victim. Her actions are blameless, but I'm sorry, I can't call her one of the great heroes (and her own statements agree with that sentiment). My standards for heroism are higher than getting in a vehicle accident, passing out, and being rescued in a hospital.

So why is the American public fixated on her story, why is she the only famous hero from this war? One reason is that having women in combat is a novelty, and so it's new to us. But the biggest reason is a result of social policy agendas, there are a lot of people who want to believe women should be equal to men in combat and to them this symbolizes that equality.

It's part of a perverse logic. It is by necessity of mission roles, among other reasons, that it would be hard to find a woman who will lead assaults to victory against overwhelming odds, but it's easy to find women who can be victims. Women are still not in the infantry, so you won't find a female Audie Murphy single-handedly destroying enemy tanks at close range. You won't find women leading attacks on a determined and entrenched enemy. But with women in combat support roles, some of them are going to be killed and captured. It's a variation on another theme: If passing the physical fitness test means you can be a capable soldier, and if women can't pass the test, then if you redefine the test so that women can pass it, they become capable soldiers.

The perverse logic of why Jessica Lynch is a hero goes like this: A woman can be a dramatic victim as well as any man, and if being a victim is considered heroic, then both men and women have the same potential for heroism.

It's not a conspiracy. It's just a popular way of thinking. And I don't like it. My heroes win.

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