Tapper is a true believer in something, but I think he's having trouble deciding what it is. Sometimes his earnestness would be precious if he were five years old, but here again, he is assuming that people are just mean and unreasonable toward this nurse. As though it were part of the nature of Americans to be nasty to so-called "heroes" for some mysterious, latent cause that he can't figure.
Well, Jake, we have high standards for heroism and one of them is to bear it well, with stoic grace and thankfulness that oneself is alive to complain about it.