Where Are The Heroes

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Brad Warthen at the The State.com writes a great article as a footnote to the NYT’s piece a few days ago:

APPARENTLY, there are no war heroes any more. At least, there are none that America feels like lifting up as examples and celebrating.

This was the premise of a piece in The New York Times? Week in Review section Sunday that explained some things to me.

There are, of course, actual heroes in the war on terror. The Times piece gave the names of three of them.

The problem is, I hadn?t heard of them. You probably hadn?t, either. And the contrast between that ignorance on our part, and the way Sgt. Alvin York and Audie Murphy (whose picture, portraying himself in the autobiographical Hollywood movie, ?To Hell and Back,? was the dominant feature of the section?s front page) were lionized during and after their wars, is striking ? and shocking. And stupid, if, as the story suggests, it reflects a deliberate policy decision on the part of our government.

The three mentioned were:

? Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, Congressional Medal of Honor. He fought off scores of elite Iraqi troops to save his outnumbered unit before he was killed.

? Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, Silver Star. She led a team that killed 27 insurgents who had attacked her convoy.

? Sgt. Rafael Peralta received no medal that I?ve been able to trace. After sustaining multiple wounds to the chest and face during the November battle for Fallujah, he grabbed a live enemy grenade and tucked it under his body, sacrificing himself to save a roomful of fellow Marines.

Those who actually read and research what our military is doing over there know all about these 3. But he is right that the MSM really doesn’t pay attention to hero’s. They would rather show cowardly suicide bombers and the carnage they inflict then to show the courage of our hero’s. More newsworthy I guess.

The NYT piece gave the following, admittedly speculative, ?reasons? for this: ?(P)ublic opinion on the Iraq war is split, and drawing attention to it risks fueling opposition; the military is more reluctant than it was in the last century to promote the individual over the group; and the war itself is different, with fewer big battles and more and messier engagements involving smaller units of Americans. Then, too, there is a celebrity culture that seems skewed more to the victim than to the hero.?

Another astute observation. Our culture knows the whole life of Brittney Spears, Brad Pitt, & Angelina Jolie…but God forbid that our magazines and new’s channels would spend a bit of time on people who really matter.

Our leaders fear to confront attitudes such as this one, expressed by one Kevin Canterbury in a letter to The Boston Globe:

?I am disgusted by the American media?s glorification of the blood sport we call war,? he begins (What glorification? Has this guy seen the news?). ?Truly sincere, honorable people like Sergeant Rafael Peralta, who make almost superhuman sacrifices to protect freedom and democracy in America, are used as props to personalize and humanize the big lie that the Iraq debacle is a just and noble endeavor…. There is nothing romantic about this war.?

No war was ever romantic. It is always an unbelievably horrible, nasty, bloody business. Society used to hide that, and do its best to romanticize combat. But to me, heroism means a lot more when depicted against the brutal reality: Are you more impressed by Audie Murphy in the sanitized battle scenes of ?To Hell and Back,? or by the portrayal of Dick Winters? deeds in HBO?s painfully realistic ?Band of Brothers??

Those of us who believe this war is necessary should not flinch from its horrors. We should hold up what heroes manage to accomplish in spite of it all. Are we squeamish about the fact that the heroism of Sgts. Smith and Hester involved killing the enemy? Yes, we are; even I am. But I think most Americans would appreciate what they?ve done, if they knew enough about them.

Confront directly the attitudes of those like Mr. Canterbury who take the untenable stance of ?supporting the troops but not the war.?

As a political tactic, this is a smart improvement over the Vietnam-era practice of spitting (figuratively if not literally) on returning veterans. But when people say ?support the troops by bringing them home,? I see it as spitting on the graves of the 1,800 who have already given their lives. That?s what abandoning Iraq would mean.

Soldiers kill. Soldiers get killed ? and not in pretty ways, keeling over saying ?They got me,? without a trace of blood. They get killed in the manner of Sgt. Peralta, whose remains could only be identified by a tattoo on his shoulder.

If we can?t face that, let?s give up on the whole thing. Let?s disband the military altogether, and just hope the rest of the world decides to show its gratitude by being nice to us from here on.

Or we can face a grim task, and openly respect those who distinguish themselves in performing that task for us while we sit on our broad behinds watching the Michael Jackson trial.

On the day after Sgt. Peralta died, his little brother received the first and last letter the Marine ever wrote to him. ?Be proud of being an American,? he wrote. Young Ricardo Peralta should take that advice. And America, returning the favor, should be proud of his big brother.

These hero’s should not be forgotten. We all need to do our part to talk about and write about hero’s such as these….

Previous:

A True Hero, Update
A True Hero, Update II
A True Hero, Update III
A True Hero, Update IV
A True Hero, Update V
A True Hero, Update VI
A True Hero, Update VII
A True Hero, Update VIII

I also have blogged a bit about another hero, First Sgt Brad Kasal

Previously:

A True Hero – First Sgt Kasal
A True Hero – First Sgt Kasal Part II
A True Hero – First Sgt Kasal Part III