Thank you for not having the same knee-jerk reaction to my original statement as many others. I have a cable news channel on in the background all day, everyday, and I hear the word 'hero' so many times, you cease to stop and listen. Kinda like 'news alerts' don't really get my attention anymore because it is usually a report on Brittany or something equally as trivial. Another word that has become some commonplace that I ignore it these days is 'outrage'. All somebody has to do is disagree with something these days and it is reported as 'outrage'. There is an overuse of some words that used to have a meaning that made it stand out.
I never stated that what this lady did was commonplace or that she shouldn't be held up for doing a very good thing. To be perfectly honest, if I had taken my gun to guard some folks that were expecting trouble, and trouble actually happened, I would not expect to be heralded as a hero. Guess it's just me.
I agree with you - to an extent. I think there are degrees of “heroism”.
E.g., the only true, pure, top-tier heroes of 9/11 were those that we know helped deflect United 93 from evil intentions.
We can only speculate about all of the passengers there, and about passengers on the other planes or within the WTC/Pentagon. Undoubtedly in there were some pure heroes - regular people not expecting to get in any trouble, not expecting to face evil.
The 2nd-tier I guess are the firefighters, police, etc - indeed, people whose job it is to face these things, and should expect to face them sometimes.
I’d suggest too, there is the hero that faces a human threat, and the hero that faces a “natural”, incidental threat. Facing the human threat (or even animal, I suppose) is the worst of all, especially when you’re dealing with the ROP. Facing a fire - well, let’s just say if you’re lucky, it’s not going to turn around and shoot at you. The ROP will keep at you.
“To be perfectly honest, if I had taken my gun to guard some folks that were expecting trouble, and trouble actually happened, I would not expect to be heralded as a hero. Guess it’s just me.”
And there you have the definition of the word. I doubt she expected to either.
As you said some of these words are bandied about so much that they lose their meaning.
But in becoming insensible to its over use we are in danger of not recognizing when it is deserved.
The odds were not is this woman’s favor. In fact, they were stacked heavily against her. A lot of people owe her their lives today. Of that there is no doubt.
“Real valor consists not in being insensible to danger, but in being prompt to confront and disarm it.” - Sir Walter Scott.