I would argue that I'm a recovering Catholic, not a lapsed one.... but in truth I'm too apathetic to be recovering. I never really had a "bad" catholic experiences, never had a priest molest me, never had a nun try to break my knuckles, or anything of that nature. I pretty much just accepted the whole church thing as a bizarre accident of history, but then my Mom went to church primarily to watch babies.

In any case, I did have an interesting exchange recently that I felt was... thought provoking, for me at least. This all happened on myspace, and I won't name names....but it essentially went down like this:

One individual, an alum of VT, was complaining about how much attention the VT football season opener was focused on the tragic events of this past spring. Furthermore, they spent a great deal of time discussing the actions of one young man who put himself in harms way to barricade a door against the gunman. These actions apparently saved his life, and many others. That poster was upset because she felt the young man was simply trying to save his own ass:
here is the post:

So right now, I'm watching the VT vs. ECU game...and a few minutes ago, Erin Andrews (who's a stupid whore anyway) was interviewing a VT student who was wounded during the shootings back in April. She said to him, "You were one of the heroes who was wounded during your German class...and then you sacrificed yourself and barricaded the door. Thank you."

I'm sorry, but the people who were wounded and shot were not heroes. They were victims...of a tragic event...but that's it. And hearing this over and over and over again, while our soldiers are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan each day...does nothing more but make me resentful and hateful towards Virginia Tech and a lot of other people.

Heroes are the people who have CHOSEN to join our military...knowing full well that at any moment, they could be called to leave their families and loved ones for over a year...and spend that time in a combat zone...sleeping on the ground, avoiding IEDs, eating shit for dinner, etc. etc. etc.

They are the ones who have SACRIFICED their time and lives to save others -- even if they're not helping rid this country of terrorists and attacks, they ARE serving so that the rest of you don't have to. They're allowing YOU to go out to dinner...to sleep in a comfy bed...to go out to the bars for happy hour. Yet not once during this entire game has there been ANY mention of the sacrifices of our servicemen and women.

I love football, but I feel such hatred towards these people right now...because, win or lose, they get to go home to their loved ones and have a drink...while the rest of us are stuck here for months on end, waiting for those we love to come home to us. So don't fucking talk to me about the sacrifices other people are making...none of you has any clue about the true meaning of that word.

Umm.... okay. Now here was the response of my lovely wife to be:

I disagree with you here. This kid was just a college student (no basic training to prepare him to go into battle), yet he put himself on the line to barricade the door, allowing other kids to freak out and focus on saving their own hide... Not that others had a whole lot of options, but I do see a huge difference between those victims who sought to save their own lives by finding a better hiding spot or jumping out of windows or whatever and those heroes who put their own lives on the line to allow those others more time to save their own hides.

I think you're being pretty one sided here -- this kid did what you praise our soldiers for doing (put his life on the line to protect others), but without having had the chance to choose whether or not to sign up to go into a battle zone and without having special training to prepare him to react effectively in such a situation. How is that not a hero?

I agree that media coverage of the war has been pretty crappy. Most news outlets in the US are sickenly biased and hardly ever show any important news (unless you count Paris Hilton's latest zit as more important than the current death toll of US soldiers in Iraq). But I also think it's pretty asinine to suggest that someone has to join the military and leave their loved ones sitting at home for months or years to be worthy of being praised for doing something heroic.

Now to put things into context, the first poster is a cultural anthropologist, someone trained in cultural sensitivity.....in theory. The second is also a cultural anthropologist, one I'm quite fond of , disagreeing but trying to be respectful to her friend. Now the first poster has a boyfriend who is currently serving in Iraq. That individual posted this response:

That guy was obviously protecting his own ass. Heroes in the classroom..... we are all over here laughing at that situation. Ive never heard so much whining and bitching and "we are all hokies" bullshit in my life. People in africa have their entire village wiped out by rebels on a daily basis. There are constant terrorist attacks on those that live in Isreal, and we are supposed to call this guy a hero. Grow up people and get out of your bubble

Ok, now...this man is a soldier, in Iraq at the moment. I thought about it for a while and wrote the following response myself:

Well, what it comes down to is how one defines a hero. I would argue that someone who tries to keep his head together in a disaster and tries to help the people around him is a hero. The cops, firemen, and simple civilians running into the World Trade Center were heroes by any sane definition. People diving into the river and pulling an entire bus load of children out of the river in Minneapolis are heroes. Every last one of them. Soldiers defending their country are heroes. Its not a matter of being in a bubble, nor is it in any way a comment on any aspect of the trials and conditions of American Soldiers in Iraq, the people in Darfur just trying to survive, or anyone else.

Hero is a very subjective term. The fact that at least some of the people at VT put themselves in the line of fire to help save people does earn them the label of being a hero. Yes situations in Iraq an Afghanistan forces many people to be heroes, because they are nations in turmoil. No, the kid in question has not, as far as I know, joined the military. So what. Maybe on a scale of heroism he isn't the greatest hero mankind has ever seen. So what.

A hero might be a Palestinian woman trying to get food to her children through a Lebanese blockade, an Israeli soldier throwing themselves over a child to protect her from a car bomb. But at least in a small way, the ambulance drivers who drive into blinding snowstorms to help save lives are also heroes.

This in no way denigrates our soldiers, like you, who have volunteered to serve our country over seas in a time of conflict. If nothing else it raises the bar and shows the true selfless spirit of the American Soldiers, that they choose to put themselves into harms way.

The world is filled with heroes of all sorts. I for one am glad of that. This is not living in a bubble, it is seeing the range of good that the human spirit can attain, if for no other reason than to balance the evil.

That being said, the media has not done a good job informing Americans of the true range of information of the War. But I feel that is a completely different discussion.

Now there hasn't been any kind of reply to my post, I don't think there will be. Now I was trying very hard to be respectful, but the question remains, how do you approach a discussion like this? This exchange bothered me. It bothered me that someone would find the label of someone reacting, and probably saving many lives, not in the least his own, to be insulting. Why would this be? I have not seen any kind of social backlash to recent veterans simply commentary on the war. I realize I am not a soldier,but is this becoming one of those untouchable things? When did calling someone a hero cast doubt on soldiers in the field?

For all my problems with Bush, the administration, the excuses used to promote the war, the conduct of the war, and etc. none of this has anything to do with the men and women in our armed forces. Failure in Iraq will be due to the failure to create a stable government, not because our forces were unsuccessful. The problem I see is the inability to see context. Maybe as an anthropologist I've spent too much time in my own little world but how hard is it to see that perspective is an important thing, to see that one man's hero may not be another's. I question the presumption that there is only one path to take in order to be a hero.
--Alex