We don't need another hero

Inadvertently got caught up in the periphery of an internet outrage last night. Didn't have a clue what was going on, but after seeing five references in the first ten tweets in my timeline to some big pile on against Chris Hayes, I instinctively tweeted my support, just on general principle. I've been following him for long enough to know he would never do anything deliberately hurtful or insulting.

Discovered a fair number of insults from strangers in my mentions this morning criticizing my tweet. Then I got the skinny on what Chris actually said, and I was right. Chris merely made a nuanced remark about war heroes:

“I feel… uncomfortable, about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers, and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.”

Hero is such a loaded word. One might think of our fallen military troops as victims and still appreciate the sacrifice of life in service to their country. Indeed, Chris made that point too.

Hayes did acknowledge the other side of the argument, namely that there is no mandatory conscription and service is purely voluntary, therefore all those who choose to sign up and take heavy risks are heroes in their own right.

Chris raises a valid question. It's useful to ponder if the glorification of war contributes to mankind's proclivity to resolve differences with violence and all too often unnecessary death. And frankly it's always bothered me that we never really pay proper tribute to military troops who die long after they come home from the battlefront. A widely circulated statistic on the internet this week reminds us that more veterans of our most recent wars have died of suicide than combat. Yet no one proclaims them as heroes even though their deaths are equally attributable to their service.

I'm a life long pacifist. To me the best way to honor our war dead is to stop having wars. Granted not a realistic goal, but my preferred solution nonetheless. Which brings to mind this song, from whence I took the post title.



[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]