HEROES?

The headline in today’s Daily Telegraph reads – ‘OUR ASHES HEROES’. Apparently the Australian cricket team have regained the Ashes, a minute trophy held in high esteem by those who crave it.
Faan-tastic – that cricket rates right up there with watching paint dry is neither here nor there. Fact is, I would really like to know exactly what it is that makes a team of grown men playing sport, (a sport may I add, that has virtually no risk of even remotely close to serious injury), heroes.

I’m getting really tired at the frequency with which the word ‘hero’ is tossed around these days. And it’s not just cricket. From all sportsmen (and women) to… bloody cooks almost –everyone’s a hero. Hero this and hero that. Is there an ordinary Joe around anymore? Not if you listen to the media nowdays.
‘Football heroes’ was the term when Australia reached the third round of the World Cup to face Italy. Lucas Neill, an Australian team member was one such ‘hero’. Lauded he was. Until he threw himself in front of an opposing player in the penalty box. And as is the rule, a penalty was awarded, Italy scored, and Australia went out.
Oh, how the masses objected. Cheats! They cried. Unfair! They shouted.
What was overlooked, though, was the fact that Neill was directly and exclusively responsible for their swift exit from the competition when he facilitated the award of the killing stroke in the form of that penalty. Only he will ever know if there was any intention in it or a benign mistake.
Doesn’t matter – the result was the same. It was, in fact, a clear and valid penalty and bloody Mr Neill, should have, as a professional footballer (allegedly), known better than to throw himself around the legs of the opposing player, in the penalty area. You’ll go a long way in Australia to find someone who’ll agree with that but those who know football, know it is exactly the case.
Radio stations in the constant quest for listeners, therefore money, whipped the dopey public, not for the first time, into a frenzy of patriotic fervour (meantime the sneaky government of the day make use of such patriotism to the full, and screw them a little more).
Y’see, while the public are concentrating on flag-waving, rah-rahing and ooh-ahhing, they’re less likely to notice if a little more of their freedom is quietly snatched. But I’m drifting…

Let me tell you about heroes:

Late in the afternoon of Sunday the third of October, 1993, Mike Durant, an US Army Black Hawk helicopter pilot lay in his crashed bird on the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia.
Part of a hundred and forty strong force whose mission was to remove some Aidid’s top militia who were meeting in a location known to the Americans, his aircraft was struck by an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) and crippled. The helicopter half-buried itself in the ground as it slammed in.
One of just two survivors of five, he lay broken and relatively helpless in the smashed chopper. Somalian militia were closing in from all around and his situation looked truly hopeless.

Enter real heroes (in the truest sensed of the word).

Gary Shutgart and Gary Gordon were two Delta Snipers from the Elite US Army unit. The cream of Americas armed forces, they were lifetime soldiers. They were circling above watching and awaiting orders when Durant’s bird went down.
Knowing one of their buddies was helpless and knowing an angry mob, spurred to an even more frenzied state by the successful downing of the American chopper, was heading towards him, they asked to be inserted to defend their fallen comrade. They obviously knew the chances of survival were slim to non-existent, but regardless of their own safety, they responded as soon as permission was granted.
Through hails of bullets and RPG’s, and hundreds of armed Somalis, electrified on (a local, amphetamine-like drug), these two men defended that downed chopper and it’s hurt pilot to their very last bullet, resorting, when their automatic weapons spent their last, to handguns. Tragically, their efforts were in vain – for them at least – the chopper pilot was taken prisoner by militia, but released some time later.
These two men are actual heroes. Not swimmers, not cricketers, not football players – not even firemen or policemen(who as it happens, get paid handsomely for their efforts).

Much like ‘love’, ‘hero’ has been overused to the point its meaning has lost effect somewhat.

Shutgart and Gordon were posthumously awarded Medals of Honour, America’s highest award, for their bravery – and rightly so. True heroes, they laid down their lives for another, disregarding their own safety.

So enough of the hero tag for players of sport, givers to charity and other such insignificant pastimes, it belittles the true recipients. A real hero doesn’t think of himself. Or bask in self-indulgent adoration from fans cause he scored...whatever.

And before the feminist lobby start whining about my apparent sexism– or herself.

An ordinary woman (one of the aforementioned 'Joes' - or Josephines, I suppose) driven by desperation demonstrated this careless attitude to oneself with as much disregard for her personal safety as the D-boys.
She, with her daughter, was at a picnic with some friends and their children. The children were drifting around the banks in an inflatable dingy. Splashing and having fun whilst their parents looked on. In the blink of an eye (the way these things can happen), the small inflatable was dragged towards the relative rapid part of the river.
Panicked, the youngsters started screaming in fear as the little boat was suddenly bucking around with the force of the rapids.
The woman’s friends looked on, stunned into inaction as the kids were swept away. Breaking her own reverie the woman kicked off her shoes and leapt into the water. Not once did she think of herself, commenting, that at the time, she remembered thinking whether or not she should take her watch off. Off she swam, a female Indiana Jones almost and was thankfully victorious. She reached the small craft and hauled it and its occupants to shore.
Maybe not Medal of Honour stuff, granted, but this woman acted with as much selflessness in principle as the two warriors did. Just an ordinary person. A mother protecting her young. Brave lady.
Another hero. More power to her.

So enough! Winning a football match doesn’t make someone a hero; nor does swimming a fast time. OR regaining the smallest trophy in the history of the world.