Quotes about heroism

As for the medal itself, when I got back home, a question arise for which I really didn't have an answer: What exactly do I do with this thing? I don't know what most of the other recipients do, although I've asked a handful of them. A few have ordered up replacements so that they have something to wear and to show folks when they ask to see it, while they store the original in a safe-deposit box. Others keep the medal in a sock drawer or on their nightstand. As for me, I never bothered to ge a duplicate and I eventually took to carrying the original around in my front pocket. As a result, it's taken several accidental trips through the washing machine, so the gilded surface is a bit tarnished, and the blue ribbon has begun to fade. But that doesn't bother me a bit. In fact, I kind of like it that way, perhaps- in part- because I don't truly regard it as mine.

Like it or not, there are eight other guys with whom I served to whom that medal rightly belongs, because heroes- true heroes, the men whose spirit the medal embodies- don't ever come home. By that definition, I'm not a true hero. Instead, I'm a custodian and a caretaker. I hold the medal, and everything it represents, on behalf of those who are its rightful owners. That, more than anything, is the truth that now sustains me- along with one other thing too, which is a belief I hold in my heart.

I know, without a shred of doubt, that I would instantly trade the medal and everything attached to it if it would bring back even one of my missing comrades in arms.

EACH PERSON MUST, ON SOME LEVEL, TAKE HIMSELF AS THE CALIBRATION point for normalcy, must assume that the room of his own mind is not, cannot be, entirely opaque to him. Perhaps this is what we mean by sanity: that, whatever our self-admitted eccentricities might be, we are not the villains of our own stories. In fact, it is quite the contrary: we play, and only play, the hero, and in the swirl of other people's stories, insofar as those stories concern us at all, we are never less than heroic.

Maybe this was one of those times when being a hero didn’t involve looking particularly brave. It was just doing what you should.

Everybody wanted to be the hero of their own story. Nobody wanted to be comic relief.

Over time, my crush on Balder the Beautiful was converted into a crush on Ross, Franklin, Nares, Shackleton, Oates, and Scott.

I should mention that all of the above explorers were unqualified failures. Not coincidentally, they were also all British. Americans admire success. Englishmen admire heroic failure.

"Hero" is a description tossed around lightly these days- like "star" or "celebrity"- another significant difference between the closing days of the twentieth century and the century's middle years, World War II. During the war the use of the phrase "You're a hero" was likely to bring on the quick rejoinder, "No, I'm not; I'm just doing my job here- like everyone else." The fighting men and women were so dependent on each other and shared so many common experiences they were embarrassed to be singled out.

Some acts of heroism, however, were so breathtakingly conspicuous, so daring and vital to the military mission, they could not be overlooked or turned aside. In many instances they changed forever the lives of those who were decorated. Others who were decorated returned to the lives they would have had without the medal and the attention.

If there is a common thread among the major medal winners, it is the same modesty expressed by Army nurse Mary Louise Roberts Wilson when she received the Silver Star. Almost to a person they have said to me, "I didn't win this medal. I merely accepted it for all the people who were with me." Nevertheless, they did win it, and the very qualities that led them to take great risks to save others served them well once they returned home.

This is the story of becoming a Hero the Hard way.

And now everyone returning from an armed conflict is called a hero too. In the old days you had to commit specific acts of valor during war; now you just need to turn up. These days when a war is on, heroism seems to mean 'attendance.'

I’m all for courageous action, in moderation, Peter. But you have an alarming tendency toward heroics.

Dedication: This book is dedicated to all the people whose job it is to rush into danger when everybody else is running in the other direction.

Every country that aspires to become a nation needs its heroes, its eminent civic and moral leaders, and if it doesn't have them, it's our duty to invent them. ("Sweet Diamond Dust")

Birdie cringed. If there was one thing worse than being a coward, it was being mistaken for a hero.