What Makes a Hero

When you picture a hero, what do you see? An actor, maybe, they are certainly often the centre of hero-worship, as are rock stars.  If you are a sporting type, then maybe your hero is your team's star player/striker/quarterback/pitcher/enforcer/whatever.  If that's who you see as a hero, then that's perfectly cool, it's all good, after all, heroism will mean different things to different people.

Many people cite members of the emergency services as heroes. Our police officers, firemen, medical personnel, and they are right. These guys are heroes, as are our (and by our, I mean whatever you, the reader, will define as 'our') military personnel, guys who put their lives in the line hourly, never mind daily.

Those guys are heroes. No doubt. But there is another class of hero.  The ordinary guy (or girl) who, when placed in an extraordinary situation, will go so far above and beyond what could be reasonably expected. I'm not suggesting that these people are more or less heroic than the others already mentioned, that would be very unfair on pretty much everyone, I think once we get to the stage of being a hero, to then try and assign levels of heroism does a terrible disservice to all concerned.

So, what prompted this. I'm watching an award winning docu-drama about 9/11, which focuses on some of the unheralded acts of heroism, the guys who, despite the danger went up the towers to see if they could rescue others. Just ordinary people, doing extraordinary things.  Similarly, during the 7/7 attacks in London, ordinary people went into the flames, put themselves in mortal danger.  In both instances, people are alive today thanks to the actions of those who didn't let the danger they were facing stop them - both civilian and emergency services. In the case of 9/11, sadly many of these heroes paid the ultimate price for their bravery.

When I watch these documentaries, when I read about these stories, it makes me think - if I was in the same situation, would I be able to do the same? I'd like to think I would, but the reality is, I doubt it. I guess in truth, I'd never know unless I was actually thrust into such a circumstance, and you will forgive me for hoping that never happens.

For once, I didn't write something to get to a specific point, I wrote this because I simply wanted to record my admiration and respect for all of those people who show an incalculable degree of courage, of selflessness, of simple human decency, those people who restore ones belief in the positive side of humanity.

I've never dedicated a blog post before, and I doubt very much I will ever do it again, but these simple words, such as they are, are wholly inadequate to express the true measure of heroism inherent in those special few.  So I would dedicate this post to all of the heroes of 9/11, of 7/7, and those who continue to put themselves into the gravest degrees of danger, that the rest of us don't have to.  Sometimes, thank you just doesn't seem to be sufficient, but sadly, it is all we have.