Rants & Rambles
6 - Who are the Heros?
Last weekend, I heard a eulogy on National Public Radio for Hugh C.
Thompson Jr., a U.S. Army helicopter pilot who tried to stop the My Lai massacre during the Viet Nam war. It made me think about the nature of heroism. I write for young adults - you kids aged anywhere from nine to nineteen - who I think are particularly interested in what it means to be a hero. You have heros, you probably want to be one, and the image of heroism you develop as you grow into adulthood will greatly affect your behavior for the rest of your lives.
Authors have to deal with heros all the time: it's what folks call our main characters. We authors might prefer "main character" or the fancier "protagonist," but "hero" is what most people understand. Even if our heros turn to the Dark Side, they're still "anti-heros." Either way, we are expected to understand what a hero is.
Gone Over to the Dark Side
Hugh C. Thompson flew over My Lai while the massacre was happening (and
for those of you too young to have heard of it, this was a case where US soldiers began killing an entire village of unarmed Viet Nam farmers - men, women, and children - because there had been Viet Cong activity in the area and there was no way to tell who was Cong and who wasn't).
Thompson realized that the soldiers had gone berserk. He radioed to headquarters for help, then landed his helicopter between the soldiers and the villagers. He got out and confronted the platoon leader while his crew covered him. He also flew a group of the villagers to safety and came back to rescue a child who had been wounded. His actions were instrumental in stopping the killing. But to do it, he had to threaten to turn his guns on the US troops, his fellow soldiers.
Why was this heroic? Most heros are recognized for brave actions in defense of their own side. Thompson was able to recognize that, in this case, his fellow soldiers had gone over to the Dark Side. He acted to protect the defenseless, some of whom might very well have been Viet Cong, or at least Cong sympathizers. There was no way to tell: the soldiers took that as an excuse to kill everyone, but Thompson and his crew took it as reason to spare everyone.
Is Bravery Enough?
Many people do brave things in battle, and every soldier on the front line puts his life on the line. In that respect, every soldier is a hero, but only a few take on extreme risk in order to save others. The same applies to firefighters and police officers: their jobs give them chances for heroism that other occupations cannot offer. Some people are driven to take those jobs, and the real heros among them are not the ones who want the chance to be heros; they are the ones who simply want to protect and save.
Lots of stories have been written about soldiers and firefighters, but
most literary heros have more ordinary jobs. What makes them heros, or even gives them the chance to be heroic? We authors have to make that part up, but it's not all that hard to imagine situations that put people and risk and require bravery. As for developing heroic characters, we simply look at our neighbors.
When I was 36, I was diagnosed with leukemia. I went through a year of
chemotherapy. Between them, the disease and the drugs almost killed me several times. Afterward, one of my best friends, who had been with me often during the ordeal, told me how much he admired my determination and strength. He said he didn't think he could have kept up his spirits and survived what I had gone through. It was a wonderful compliment, but he was wrong: most people do have that inner strength. They don't give up. Death has to work hard to find the fatal trick that will take them.
What I did was not heroic: I did not save anyone other than myself. My
life was on the line, but I didn't put it there. Still, my experience illustrates the inner resources that people have, even if they don't realize it. Determination and spirit are absolutely necessary for heroism - and we authors make great use of it in building the character of our hero - but they are not sufficient.
Nor is bravery. As I said, every soldier and firefighter is brave. Anyone can be brave when they need to be. Some people are foolishly brave: is a NASCAR driver a hero? A stunt pilot? A mountain climber? What about a spy, risking capture, torture, and death for a good cause?
Compassion is the Essence
These people are brave, but they are not heros until they do something
above and beyond the call of duty, to use the phrase quoted so often when pinning a medal on someone's chest. And, I would argue, even that is not enough if the above and beyond did not involve saving lives, particularly the lives of the innocent, the bystander, and the non-combatant, including the families of the enemy. To do that takes compassion. Compassion is the essence of heroism.
By this definition, many charity and foreign aid workers in Iraq are
heros, while some decorated soldiers are not.
Nor are most main characters in novels. Yes, our protagonists face conflict, danger, uncertainty, difficulty, and all those other plot devices. Yes, they are often forced to grow up quickly, learn to tell right from wrong, make sacrifices and tough decisions, and be brave. More important, they must change. As part of that change, they must learn compassion. But until the very crisis of the story, when they use their newly-acquired compassion to help others, they are not really heros. And that's true of all of us.
(You can hear the eulogy for Hugh C. Thompson Jr. on npr.org: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5134304.)
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"...the real heros among them are not the ones who want the chance to be heros; they are the ones who simply want to protect and save."
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