Quote:
Originally posted by Pathfinder
I agree with [Labret] that the word "hero" is to liberally applied and thus reduces the value of being labled a "hero".
On the other hand I have always had ambivilant feelings about the lable of being a hero.
Today's military is an all volunteer force. Far less than 1% of the US population are active military on any given day. Military personell have to make sacrifices, and live hardships (even in times of peace) that civilians who have never served cannot really comprehend. Are they hero's to make the sacrifice?
In any given conflict approximately 10% of the military forces are actual combatants. In other words, at one point in time in Vietnam we had something in excess of 500,000 troops in country, so only approximately 50,000 were actual combatants that would actively engage the enemy on any given day. Were the non-combatants hero's for being there and supplying the logistics for the combatants?
About 85% of the forces at that point in time were drafted, but for the most part performed whatever job was assigned to them , be it a combat unit or not? Were they hero's?
Within the combat units, were all of those that engaged the enemy hero's, or was it only those that while engaged in a fire fight, performed above and beyond, that were hero's.
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And what about the enemy... those you were shooting at.
Were they heroes?
After all, they were exactly the same... just fighting for the other team.
Hitler was a hero to those who thought he was doing the right thing.