I hate the word hero. It's tossed around today at all the wrong times, at all the wrong people. It's used as this big broad sweeping thing. Sure sure, they'll tell you that "all the troops are heroes", but really the ones they mean it about are the darlings. Jessica Lynch is a darling, but somehow Shoshana Johnson is less of one, and more lost in the "Saving Pvt. Lynch" feeding frenzy were thoughts about the men and women down in the trenches taking live fire while looking out for one another, and following orders handed down from their superiors. But I digress.
Sure, it's a nice thing to toss the word around. It's an easy way to honor the people who suit up in a pair of cammies, lace up boots, strap on a pack, pick up a rifle, and head out to pursue America's interests and goals. But I still hate it. Despite that, I find it entirely acceptable to use about a man who walked away from the N freaking FL, the salary that went along with that, the prestige, the lifestyle, all of it, and decided not only to enlist, but to make a point to sign with an elite fighting unit. Here's a guy who clearly felt like he could stand in there with other men and women and make a difference, and didn't care that not only was there no guarantee that he'd ever be able to return to his NFL career and lifestyle, but that it was pretty unlikely he would. Obviously I don't know the circumstances in which he was killed. I don't know what he did or didn't do during his time as a Ranger. I do know, as everyone does at this point that he was in the line of fire in Afghanistan. So sure, here's a case where I won't clench my jaw when the word hero gets tossed around. But the problem there is that if he's a hero, then the guy next to him in the trench doing the same exact thing in the same exact place has to be a hero too. Because you can't be more than the guys in your squad. One squad can't be more than another, so you've got the platoon. Company from the platoon, battalion from the company, across the services from there. Is Jessica less a hero because her brush with death came because someone made a wrong turn? Is Pat more of one because he's dead, or because he walked away from a $3.6 million contract? I mean, I don't know. In the end I guess it's more about how you define the word, than it is about how the media tells you to.
I've got buddies over there. They're flying a CH-53 as a Marine Captain, intercepting communications as agents for one company or another, interrogating persons of interest as linguists -- hell, those are just the ones I've had direct or indirect contact with. They don't think they're heroes, lol, the thought is absurd to them. I seriously doubt Pat Tillman did either. Yet sitting here, back in the almost entirely safe and secure limits of the continental United States, it's easy to think each and every single one of them is.
Simeon Rice? lol. Whether or not we feel it reasonable to apply the term 'hero' to Pat Tillman, I think one concrete truth is that Simeon Rice is not one. He didn't understand or appreciate what Pat was doing then, he probably still doesn't now.