Defining a hero
The last couple days, we’ve been hearing a lot about heroes. But I’m not sure that the word’s significance hasn’t gotten diluted the last few years. It seems to have become an all-purpose label to honor the tragically killed.
For instance, the firefighters and police officers who rushed into New York's ground zero after the 9/11 attacks were heroes. The hundreds building employees and visitors who died in the disaster are not heroes — they are victims.
Nor are all firefighters, police officers and EMTs (aka: first responders) heroes simply because they wear the uniform. They are public servants — some of whom perform valiant deeds.
In Huntington Canyon, a monument is being built the coal miners killed in the Crandall Canyon disaster last summer. Six miners were trapped in cave ins caused by a seismic heave – what miners call a “bump”. Three more miners were killed in the attempt to save them, when another bump collapsed their rescue tunnel.
The monument to the nine is called “Heros Among Us,” complete with sculptures of the dead miner's faces. Are these men who died in Crandall Canyon heroes?
Six of them were working in what the mine’s owners and federal regulators assured them was a safe workplace. They were earning wages, for the most part doing what they loved, with every expectation of coming out alive. Their deaths were a tragedy and perhaps will bring about changes in the way mines are inspected and regulated, but they are not heroes. Not unless every man and women killed on their everyday job – the farmer who falls into the grain auger, the construction worker backed over by a backhoe, the refinery worker who is overcome by toxic fumes – is also a hero.
On the other hand, the three rescue miners who rushed into what they knew was a deadly situation to save the six trapped men are heroes. They knew the risks, but they went in anyway.
That said, if the six entombed miners’ families, friends and allies manage to somehow bring about better training and safer mines – I think we should expand the "Heroes Among Us" monument to include their names for perpetuity.
For instance, the firefighters and police officers who rushed into New York's ground zero after the 9/11 attacks were heroes. The hundreds building employees and visitors who died in the disaster are not heroes — they are victims.
Nor are all firefighters, police officers and EMTs (aka: first responders) heroes simply because they wear the uniform. They are public servants — some of whom perform valiant deeds.
In Huntington Canyon, a monument is being built the coal miners killed in the Crandall Canyon disaster last summer. Six miners were trapped in cave ins caused by a seismic heave – what miners call a “bump”. Three more miners were killed in the attempt to save them, when another bump collapsed their rescue tunnel.
The monument to the nine is called “Heros Among Us,” complete with sculptures of the dead miner's faces. Are these men who died in Crandall Canyon heroes?
Six of them were working in what the mine’s owners and federal regulators assured them was a safe workplace. They were earning wages, for the most part doing what they loved, with every expectation of coming out alive. Their deaths were a tragedy and perhaps will bring about changes in the way mines are inspected and regulated, but they are not heroes. Not unless every man and women killed on their everyday job – the farmer who falls into the grain auger, the construction worker backed over by a backhoe, the refinery worker who is overcome by toxic fumes – is also a hero.
On the other hand, the three rescue miners who rushed into what they knew was a deadly situation to save the six trapped men are heroes. They knew the risks, but they went in anyway.
That said, if the six entombed miners’ families, friends and allies manage to somehow bring about better training and safer mines – I think we should expand the "Heroes Among Us" monument to include their names for perpetuity.
2 Comments:
Couldn't agree more, Glen. I ruminated over the meaning of hero last night as I watched the news and saw the proposal for the shrine.
My girlfriend told me I was being too cynical, that since the faces of the six were on one side and the faces of the three rescuers on the other, they were probably saying that it was the rescuers who were the "heroes". But who knows.
Over use of a descriptive term like "Hero" whittles away its meaningfulness. Hyperbole seems to be the order of the day, particularly if it sells papers, etc.
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