What defines a Hero? What is your definition of a hero? As a member of the younger generation, I look up at all these vets and see them as heroes even if they may deny it. As far as I'm concerned vets, fire fighters, police officers, soldiers, doctors/nurses and teachers are all heroes so long as they love what they are doing and do it honorably. If anyone has a different opinion or a similar on just post. I'm open to all ideas.

My basic definition is someone who steps above everything that is normail in ww2 terms = A soldier going to fight for his country willing to die for someone else is a hero.

I cant remember where this quote is from but
Quote: It takes a brave man to stand up for himself
But it takes a braver man to stand up for someone else

Well if that is not exactly how it goes please feel free to correct me.

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They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them. Lest We Forget

My own definition of a hero ?

Someone who knowingly recognises the risk that he or she faces in carrying out a certain course of action but still goes ahead and does it, purely for the common good.

Included in this category will be all those who gave succour, at the risk of their own lives, to any civilian or service man/woman who was fleeing from the enemy.

Many such heros have been recognised as "Righteous Gentiles" at Yad Vashem.

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During the period October 1942 to January 1947 my wartime "Cook's Tour" took me to the following places:
North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Austria, Egypt & Germany.
My units were the: 49th Light Ack Ack Rgt.RA and
The 4th Queen's Own Hussars.

I am not a veteran like Ron Goldstien so I can't say for sure.

My neighbor is a Vietnam Vet willing to be interviewed; I'll ask for his opinion.

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"Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts." - Cicero

anyone who:
1. Stands up for/protects/saves other people from discimination/fire/criminals.....
2. Stands up for what they believe
3. Fights for thier respective countries and endures the horors of war.

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"When war does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." -General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
"The conqueror is always a lover of peace; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed."-Karl von Clausewitz

Well, if you knew my grandfather, then you would have known a hero.

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Best Regards,
JW

Those who give their lifes for a losing-case.

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Someone who sees what needs to be done and willingly does what others will not while expecting nothing in return.

If you ask me, the cemetaries are full of them......

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Would any vet out there classify yourself as a hero?

Who is a hero...those who kill 400 people or shot down 300 planes....those are not for sure. I think the many of the real heros are those who never fought, those who saved Jews hiding them from the Nazis suffering real danger, those who opposed a cruel regime, those who fight for a cause not for simple survival...Maybe an SS who opposes his superiors and helps his enemies. Dying in combat does not mean necessarily to be a hero.

Heroes ? though they themselves may not think so, but you have them right here on this very forum, their own names are specially marked in thick blue letters ........

Well said E, Churchill nor I, could have said it better.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

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Anothony 'Swoff ' Swofford : A story: A man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war. And afterward he turns the rifle in at the armory, and he believes he's finished with the rifle. But no matter what else he might do with his hands, love a woman, build a house, change his son's diaper; his hands remember the rifle.

sorry even on the cylcing circuit which I have done for years, Lance is NOT a good example of a hero. sure with testicular cancer I would be fighting dang nam hard like he did and I am with my own cancer battle, but to come out even publically which he has done more than once saying I did it myself is a total load of crock. His bod was at the mercy of the doctors and the table and he bloody knows it. He's a fighter and if anything in the positive that is going for him

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Anothony 'Swoff ' Swofford : A story: A man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war. And afterward he turns the rifle in at the armory, and he believes he's finished with the rifle. But no matter what else he might do with his hands, love a woman, build a house, change his son's diaper; his hands remember the rifle.

I agree Carl, nicely put E.

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This is a pair of Dutch resistance crystal radios, built into a small metal can, and a matchbox. The image is from a postcard bought at a Dutch Resistance Museum in Amsterdam. The matchbox is marked in Swedish, but Swedish matches were sold in Holland for many years..
Scott

Today is the first anniversary of the Enterprise, Alabama tornado. On Mar 1, 2007 a EF4 tornado hit Enterprise High School, killing 8 students there. One young man, Andrew J. Jackson I think was his name, held up a collapsing wall long enough to allow another young lady to escape. He died as the force of the winds drove the concrete block wall down onto the students seeking shelter next to it, killing him and 7 others, with many more injured, some badly.

This young man was hero. He stood up to the challenge facing him and thought of others before thinking of himself. That is a hero. He didn't go seeking honor, he already had it.

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Best Regards,
JW

I like this definition as well. I especially I like "He didn't go seeking honor, he already had it." Perhaps, that is why our heroes so often don't know they are heroes. They don't aim for heroism, they live - and sometimes die - with honour.

Michelle

I completely agree with this view. Heroes are honest human beings who didn't intend to be heroes but even without thinking about it, just take action for others when it's needed. The boy who repeatedly moved in and out of a collapsed school building to pull out his trapped classmates during an earthquake in 1990 in the Philippines is a hero. That boy died when the classroom finally collapsed but he did save many of his classmates. So is the soldier who keeps on fighting against odds to save his buddies is a hero. They are all around us.

Someone that's in the wrong place for a minute too long......