This is kind of a trick question.  It’s a question that is causing great debate on Facebook with a group called “Soldiers Are Not Heroes” created to combat the many pro-soldier groups.  It, in turn, has spawned a group created to remove them from Facebook – “Petition to remove “Soldiers are not heroes” from facebook”.  These two groups were pointed out to me by Kathy Blau who has been working on the Heroic Imagination Project with Phil and Zeno.

The trick of the question is that there’s not a yes or no answer.  Anyone giving a concrete yes or no is generalizing to an extreme.  Unfortunately most people on Facebook like to generalize.  How’s that for a generalization?

One argument is that soldiers are heroes simply for signing up.  That’s possible.  There is undoubtedly an element of sacrifice and risk involved in volunteering.  However, what do we know of their intent?  I can think of a few possible reasons for volunteering.  There are plenty more.

1. Serving your country
2. Wanting to kill people
3. Needing money to pay for college
4. Boredom
5. Wanting to protect freedom
6. Family pressure

So, there are some soldiers that made an heroic act in choosing to serve.  There are some that did not.  I won’t dare to assume which is the larger group.

Can you be a hero if you chose to join the armed forces to help you pay for college?  Certainly.  What you do once you join opens you up to many opportunities.  We’ve seen soldiers throw themselves on grenades to save their comrades.  No question of the heroism there – Michael Mansoor is a prime example.  Acting alone to save a soldier’s life against great odds is another avenue – Leo Major did that.

I’ve just finished watching the HBO series, “Generation Kill” that was based on a book of the same name.  The author was an embedded journalist from Rolling Stone.  His observations shown in the TV series inspired this post.  I saw soldiers and officers consistently refusing to follow orders from their superiors (interesting use of the word) because they saw how morally wrong they were.  That was heroic – it was done for the good of others and with risk of repercussion.  I saw an officer get out of his humvee to direct traffic during a night-time ambush.  That’s heroic.

That’s a lot of heroes.  What’s the opposite of the word hero?  There are plenty of them.  In “Generation Kill” I saw marines firing on fleeing civilians.  I saw an officer twice attempt to bayonet a captured enemy soldier.  I saw officers call down bomb strikes on civilian targets.  I saw soldiers and officers committing immoral or dangerous (not for them) acts in order to further their careers.

From this article (read this and the comments if you’re interested in this subject), I found YouTube videos of many unheroic acts.  Quoted here: “We refuse to blame those who shoot civilians even when the attacks are clearly acts of vengeance; we downplay the war crimes and the routine cruelties; we make excuses for those who shoot the wounded or torture prisoners; even when official Pentagon reports casually mention how a US soldier summarily executed a wounded fighter and shot another wounded, unresisting fighter twice in the back, we pay little notice.”

LarryE, the author of the above article, concludes with this: “Soldiers are not heroes. They can be heroes, they can act heroically, they can do heroic things – but the act of putting on a uniform and agreeing to put your conscience in a lockbox for the next so many years does not make your life more important than others, it does not make your opinions and insights more worthy of respect than others, it does not exempt you from moral judgment. It does not make you a hero.”

Soldiers are people.  They’re capable of acts on either end of the moral scale, just like you.  Just like me.  They tend to find themselves in situations that require heroism, or tempt barbarism, more often than you and I are.  This is why so many people are quick to label all soldiers as heroes or all soldiers as menaces.

Soldiers are people.

So are firefighters, so are police officers.  The people that died in the World Trade Center were people.  There are heroic firefighters, there are heroic police officers, and there were heroic victims on 9/11.  There are also plenty of bad people in the police force and the fire brigades.  Bad people died on 9/11.  And then there’s the middle people; the people who haven’t done anything heroic or evil.  Perhaps by choice, perhaps by chance.

Soldiers are people.

Phil Zimbardo just sent me a link to this article by Pat Lencioni of The Simple Wisdom Project.  It was a 4th of July post discussing the hero of today.  The mission of The Simple Wisdom Project is simply to provide common sense reminders to readers who live in a world where the most important truths are often over-complicated, forgotten or abandoned.

His conclusion is very much in line with that of the Hero Workshop and the Heroic Imagination Project:

Of course, ideally we could all come to the realization that the world needs more heroes and that it’s time to develop a stronger collective backbone. But that doesn’t happen overnight. In the mean time, maybe we could do something a little more realistic: the next time we witness someone taking a difficult stand for what is right, whether it is in the workplace, at school, in your church or little league, let’s take the time to tell them that we admire them for what they did. And better yet, let’s tell them that we wish we could be more like them, and that they’ve inspired us to try. Not only will that reinforce their heroic behavior, it will also increase the likelihood that the next time we are faced with a moment of truth, no matter how small it may seem, we choose to be a hero, too.

Note the masks around the one minute mark.

Also note the singing of the Liverpool anthem, You’ll Never Walk Alone.

The Philanthropist is NBC’s new hour long action drama on Wednesday nights.  It follows a mega-rich man who has found a passion for personally acting positively for his causes.  I was pretty excited to see it last week and tuned in last night to watch the episode set in Myanmar (or Burma).  I had wondered aloud to friends whether Aung San Suu Kyi would be mentioned.

Well, she was actually a featured part of the story.  However, the scriptwriters inexplicably changed her name.  I can’t imagine why they did it.  That was the least of my concerns – the story treated her plight as kind of a lame side story.  The protagonist snuck into her home – the one she’s been imprisoned in for more than a decade – and asked her if his company should do business with the ruling junta.  Then he ran away.  This is just weeks after an American man snuck into her home in real life and condemned her to another five years in prison.  My hope is that some people were inspired to look up her story, but my fear is her cause was trivialized.

U2 are promoting her story as well. They’ve set up a mask you can download, print, and wear to their concert or on the bus or in the pub.  Their song, “Walk On” was written for Aung San Suu Kyi.  The site says, “Use your liberty to promote hers. And the liberty of the people of Burma.”  I’d love to see photos of people who have done so.  Send them to me and I’ll post them here.  Click on the photo to download the mask.

With the arrival of our newest hero, I’ve been lax in getting some important links written about in the last week.  So, here is some reading.

The biggest event was the 64th birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi.  She is still imprisoned in Myanmar.  Many people across the world, famous and not, have left messages of support for her at this website: http://64forsuu.org/ I encourage you to educate yourself on her story if you haven’t already.  I’ve certainly written about her a few times here.  Her struggle is important in comparison to other dictatorships around the world.

The Spiteful Critic website has this comparison of the hero’s journeys in Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Matrix.  Nothing new, but quite a nifty way to explain the concept to someone else if you feel the need.

Third was a blog post concerning the speech Phil Zimbardo made at the First World Congress on Positive Psychology with Martin Seligman.  It concerns Heroic Imagination versus Hostile Imagination.  It’s good to see the ideas getting recognition.

More specifically, hero’s journeys in the NBA.  There have been three events in the NBA in recent weeks that have interesting ties to the hero’s journey.

The draft was on last night and a number of players have just received their Call to Adventure.  As their dreams of fame, success, glory, and money seem a step closer they will need to Cross the Threshold into the big league.  That crossing is regularly a test to insure the hero is ready for the road ahead.  Peter Parker (Spiderman) had a test at his crossing when his uncle was killed due to Peter’s unheroic act.  This showed him that with great power comes great responsibility.  Uncle Ben acted as Guardian Threshold, helping Peter get through.  Similarly these rookies will have guardians in the form of senior players, coaches, owners, and others.

A superb example of the hero’s journey in the NBA is presented by Michael Del Muro at the Bleacher Report.  He documents Kobe Bryant’s journey.  Bryant won the championship with the Los Angeles Lakers this season, which seems to be the pinnacle of his journey.  He began his journey as a high school student with an eye on the prize – glory in the biggest league in the world.  His world was centered on him – he followed the same path as Peter Parker who focused his skills on benefiting himself.  Also like Parker, he had a guardian – Phil Jackson.  Jackson helped him become a better player, but Kobe’s path of trials included individual plaudits, clashes with his team mates, trouble with the law and fidelity, but no championship.  No championship without Shaquille O’Neil that is.  Then Jackson and Shaq left the team.

Kobe endured more tests and trials before reconnecting with his mentor and quickly became the hero.  He was no longer focused on himself – knowing his talent was only one part of success.  He stands now with a championship and the title of best player in the league.  He is self-assured without being cocky.  His personality was in contrast to that of LeBron James, who was too often focused on himself.  We saw LeBron try to win games by himself and fail.  We saw LeBron speaking to a reporter and repeating how amazing his last second shot was.

That leads us to the final link.  Shaq has just been traded to LeBron’s team, Cleveland.  Shaq’s role to Kobe was that of an antagonist and sometime enemy.  He was someone to overcome.  Years later he would play second fiddle to Dwayne Wade, acting as a mentor.  They won the Championship on their second try.

Will Shaq help LeBron James take the next step on his hero’s journey?  And will LeBron be able to move forward when Shaq leaves?  It took Kobe many years and Wade is still looking for the mentor to take him forward.

I’m going to be in the hospital for the next few days welcoming my newest hero.  Not sure what that will mean for the blog short term, but I thought I’d let you know

I’ve changed the blog to a green for the rest of the week to support (or bring awareness to) the incredible acts of personal heroism going on in Iran.  After an obviously rigged election, enormous groups of people are protesting.  Each of them is individually risking their safety after the government promised to arrest any protesters.  Last night on BBC I saw tens of thousands of people calling the government’s bluff.  Much of the organizing seems to be coming via the internet.  Bloggers are using Twitter to communicate, frustrating the government’s attempts to close down internet communication.  Twitter’s ability to be used in many ways is causing them problems.  To add to that, people around the world have been changing their Twitter icons green and more importantly, changing their location and time zone to Tehran in order to frustrate any low end targeted attacks.  It’s a pretty amazing event.  I would suggest reading BoingBoing or following Shel Israel on Twitter if you want to know more.

Iran shows that small individual acts of heroism can add up to make a huge difference.  The students at St. Mary’s in St. Louis understand that as well.  The next set of papers will be up tomorrow.

Back in Michigan and eight more papers for your reading enjoyment.

Ryan Lilly – You can be classified as a hero for many different things and even if you are only a hero to one person you are still a hero.  (VERY NICE ESSAY)

Sam Clancy – I learned that although most people think it is hard and time consuming to donate time to charity it can be easy. This knowledge of how easy and rewarding service can be it makes me want to sacrifice my time and talent to more worthy causes.

Scott Scholbe – Other heroes don’t even know they are heroes but do small things everyday that make others feel like helping too.

Sean Dunn – Before I did this report, I used to think of a hero as someone who wore a cape and fought bad guys. I now realize that a hero can come be anyone, anywhere.

Tony Filla – How much dedication and pride Malek puts into his culture, work, ethics, and beliefs is just astonishing to me, it amazes me at how much time and effort he’s able to give.

Will Ruzicka – That topic is consumption and waste. Our main reason this issue concerns us is because all this is happening right in front of our eyes and people just stand by and keep making it worse. It inspired us because with this topic we could actually get our hands dirty and make a difference.

Zach Politte – This issue moves me because of the effect it could have on someone’s life. I believe that with the ideas that we came up with in this project will change people’s lives.

Zach Pudlowski – I learned that it’s ok to come out of your shell and find out what other people’s lives are like and how I coul d be a hero on any given day.