What's your definition of a hero?

[15357]

What..... You mean people with absolutely no field infantry training? I laugh at their closed formation.

Bullshit. Wars create heroes on all sides. The Red Baron was a hero, a truly honourable man.
There were heroes amongst the German army in WW2 just as there were amongst the British and the Russians and the Americans.

A hero is someone who makes a huge sacrifice for the benefit of other people, and to the soldiers fighting on the ground, ideology has **** all to do with it. They just want to live through it all, along with their friends.

Exactly. People need to realize that all sides in a war are human, can be hurt like people, and can have the same courage and dedication that makes them heros.

 

[Jintor]

A person who puts another person's safety/survival over their own.

 

[Shift]

Bullshit. Wars create heroes on all sides. The Red Baron was a hero, a truly honourable man.
There were heroes amongst the German army in WW2 just as there were amongst the British and the Russians and the Americans.

A hero is someone who makes a huge sacrifice for the benefit of other people, and to the soldiers fighting on the ground, ideology has **** all to do with it. They just want to live through it all, along with their friends.

I agree completely with the first point, I mean look at Rommel, best general of the war, in fact he only lost in africa because he was outnumbered and was denied extra troops and supplies from Germany. Forced to commit suicide to save his dignity and family's lives because he was involved with the Hitler bomb plot. In fact all the generals involved with that plot are heroes, and VERY brave, as they were the only ones brave enough to actually do something about Hitler before he destroyed their country. Or the generals forced to fight to the last man, and the men under them who followed those orders fully. Like the stranded German troops in Stalingrad, had a opportunity to escape but were denied by Hitler, and they had to fight to the last man, they either froze to death, were shot by the Russians, or captured by the Russians, which 80% of the time usually led to death anyway.

But i disagree on that final point, you are pretty much saying, you cant call the ones who survived heroes, because they didn't make the ultimate sacrifice for someone else. That doesn't mean they didn't do heroic deeds. I mean watch Band of Brothers, or read the book, or read any other Ambrose book, like Citizen Soldiers. Richard Winters is a pure example, complete disregard for his own safety, always led from the front and is a bloody miracle he survived. Or in Bastogne, Bill Garneaure (spelling) climbed out his foxhole, during a artillery bombardment going off all around him, to help a buddy who had his leg blown off, into a foxhole, and he got hit too, taking his leg. He survived, and if that wasn't heroic i dont know what is. Also an entire section devoted to the medics of the war in Citizen Soldiers, how they would stich people up in the middle of a battle, or rush out into the open to help someone, you wouldn't believe the amount of lives the medics saved.

So ok, ideology may have not really played a part, but they were still thrown into the shit and they still did their jobs, thats heroic enough, considering how horrific it was.