Soldiers are not heroes (necessarily) .

So I wake up this morning to see one of my acquaintances from years ago has left this status:

Rather than rant about it on facebook where I would be assaulted by people who are too stupid to understand what I'm saying I will respond to it here. If you're interested the article linking to the story he is referencing is here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/08/tributes-british-soldiers-afghanistan

1) Way to pay your respects, you can't even be bothered to come close to typing correctly. I'm not Grammar Nazi but that is pathetic especially considering this guy appears to be patriotic (more fool him). Way to show you really care...

2) "none can match what they were willing to do for us". - Really? What about every other fucker in the army. Secondly, "what they were willing to do" - you mean their job? If they had known that they would be unfortunate enough to die they probably wouldn't have gone. I have no actual evidence for this except for the fact that humans aren't often willing to throw themselves on their sword, but equally this guy has zero evidence for his claim.

3) I'm going to draw your attention to a paragraph of the article.

So let me get this straight, they were blown up whilst driving in an armoured car... Tragic, yes. Heroic, no. I'm sorry you don't just sign up at the Job Center & instantly get to append Hero after your name. You actually have to go beyond the call of duty. I.E. throwing yourself on a grenade. Now I'm not saying their death isn't a bad thing, or tragic. I'm just saying that if I'm driving down the street and my wife (no I'm not married) had planted a car bomb in my car & boom, I don't get propelled to the level of Hero. Likewise if I just do my Job, I don't get to be a Hero. I'm sorry a Plumber who walks through the snow for miles to fix the boiler of a family with young Children because he can't drive on the Icy roads would be more Heroic than any one of these 6 people who died. No disrespect to their families. It is very sad & I wish them all the best, but they're just not Heroes.

I agree. The lable hero is often miss-applied.
To have a dangerous job doesn't instantly qualify people as a hero.
For instance Firefighters, just because they do their job doesn't make each and every single one a hero.
If one storms in a burning house and rescues 3 childrens 2 cats and a goldfish then this guy would be a hero and deserves a medal. But societies will lable almost every one a hero who dies in service of their country, obviously to make their death less senseless. In a way it helps relatives to know that the "society" honors the death of their loved ones by calling them heros. It is not really a big deal for me. What really gets on my nerves is if media calls celebrities heros, just because they donate a small amount of their fortune or speak out for charities, or even worse because they got a grammy! this angers me more then if some soldiers who died in service get called heros, they might not have done something special but they sure as hell deserve it more then some stupid fucking celeb.

I agree.

On a side note I despise the use of "epic" in today's vernacular. "Epic" means:

That doesn't have a lot to do with a cat failing to land a jump from one object to another or something else inane.

Well it's hard to argue with you on this one. I've never understood why people wanted to be soldiers. I mean, their job is to actually kill people. Who the hell wants to do that?

It is beyond me why anyone would call people who kill others heroes.
We do not go around calling assassins heroes.

Well this is kind of interesting question. Now soldiers might not be "heroes", but there doing a job that most people are not willing to do and a job that most people would not do. Now I say this because I know people don't like the idea of people are killing each, but it's a sad fact about this world is that it's not a peaceful one so countries are going to need soldiers. I will agree that the word "hero" is thrown around a lot today.

A good choice of "Heroes" are the Medal of Honor receivers. Sure they did kill loads of japs and germans, but they were doing their job. KILLING THE ENEMY. And after the parades, they got brought back home to sell military obligations. The real heroes got send back in a wooden casket...

People like to call them heroes because it makes casualties in war more palatable. It's as simple as that. It's especially true in a conflict like Afghanistan which, whether you support it or not can't be denied in its remoteness to the everyday concerns of the average citizen in the west. This wasn't a squad of Red Army troops who fought to the death in a foxhole in the Ukraine or one of the thousands who were blown to smithereens on the shores of Omaha beach - but if the troops who die in Afghanistan aren't elevated to that status, people would realise just how bleak, depressing, and morally ambiguous the war out there actually is.

I like what George Carlin said about it.

I know they're not soldiers, but same idea.

I dunno if "hero" would perhaps be too strong a word, but I would say that regardless, he sounds like he was an exceptional, courageous man being worthy of respect.

But it's all a matter of perspective, I mean would you have the same respect for a high paid German athlete who gave up his career to join the Waffen SS after the Reichstag Fire?

I agree in part. The fact that your signing up to risk your life is pretty heroic by itself. It must take courage to be willing to die for a cause, idea, nation, etc. That is just my opinion. I can see the difference between tragic and heroic now at least. Until you pointed that out I had never gave the issue enough fought to come to that conclusion, and for that I thank you.

I get what you're saying, but I'd suggest editing the title to reflect that a little better. There are probably some dumbness who'll just rant.

As they say: "unfortunate" casualties of war

Soldiers are meat, and war is the meat grinder.

Yep. Sounds familiar.