War Heroes
"People would cry if they'd seen what we've done
But we'll be war heroes when we get home."
-- IQ, War Heroes
We all know what a war hero is, right? John McCain, spending 5 years in a P.O.W. camp. Max Cleland getting three of his limbs blown off. Maybe you carry your wounded buddy out of the firing zone and save his life, like Forrest Gump. I guess a great general like Patton or McArthur could be a war hero. There doesn't seem to really be a definition of "war hero", but most people have pretty much agreed that they know it when they see it.
My grandfather won a Purple Heart and a Distinguished Service Cross for valor in World War I. I don't know exactly what he did to earn those, but I do know he was hit by German mustard gas and was blind for about 8 months in a V.A. hospital. He had been a minor league pitcher in the Yankees farm system before the war, but afterwards he seems to have made a career change from baseball to drinking. Still, when he died in 1954, his obituary was a full quarter page in the NY Times (I have a printout from the microfiche). His uncle (my great-great-great-uncle) had been a U.S. Senator, and his roots in this country went back to approximately 1590, as do mine, which I guess rates you some ink in the paper of record.
I don't think he was a war hero, though. I don't think anyone who is traditionally considered a war hero is a hero of any sort. Certainly not those who come back in body bags and have their names inscribed on some wall or other. The word "victims" gets a bum rap, but I think that's exactly what they are. Victims. But there are war heroes. Here are four war heroes that I admire. There are plenty more, but trying to make an all-inclusive list is silly.
Eugene Debs
In a speech in 1917, called the current war "a crime against the people of the United States."
The United States Supreme Court decided unanimously that his speech had violated the Espionage Act. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Muhammad Ali
Refused to report for the draft, stating that "no Vietcong ever called me nigger." Ali was stripped of his title by the professional boxing commission and would not be allowed to fight professionally for more than three years. He was also convicted for refusing induction into the U.S. Army.
Father Daniel Berrigan
Daniel and his brother Philip performed non-violent actions against war and were for a time on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. During the Vietnam War, nine activists (later known as the Catonsville Nine), including Father Berrigan and his brother Philip walked into the draft board of Catonsville, Maryland, and removed 378 draft files, which they brought outside and burned.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
On April 4, 1967, King spoke out strongly against the US's role in the war, insisting that the US was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American colony" and calling the US government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."