Superheroes and Soldiers: The Makings of a Hero (2006)
I applaud Thomas Autry for reminding us that saving himself by killing someone does not make someone a hero. The 36-year-old former U.S. Marine fought off at least four teenage attackers, killing one of them and critically injuring another during a late-night attack in Midown Atlanta on Memoral Day, leaving Autry with severe bruising from being punched in the chest with brass knuckles. When told that many in the metro area consider him a hero for his actions, Autry disagreed.
"The heroes are those guys out there fighting for us every day and not getting respect," he said, referring to military personnel fighting in Iraq and elsewhere. "That [killing the attacker] wasn't admirable, it was fight or flight and I tried the fight."
Children have it right: in studies, they say their heroes are people who protect them and love them and who do what is right, like Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mahatma Ghandi. A real hero knows what is right and achieves it by doing only good deeds.
Unfortunately, we don't usually know what is absolutely right for everybody, but we can do things we know are good, like being thoughtful and forgiving. At the same time, most people agree that killing people is always wrong, even to prevent a wrong. Soldiers are heroic not because they kill, but because they are willing to die for a cause, like the fire and rescue people who died in the Twin Towers. Conscientious objectors are willing to die for their country, but not kill for it. Killing does not make someone heroic.
If one can only do what is right by doing bad things, the way a lot of superheroes do in movies these days, it may seem heroic, but it's not. There are too many unknowns: in this case, it seems clear that neither the teenagers nor Autry had in mind to do some greater good, but neither did they set out to create great harm.
In ancient Greek literature, where many of our heroic icons began, the villains are almost always people who have done wrong things in error and have a respectable point of view. Hector in the Iliad can hardly be called a villain at all. In older superhero movies, too, villains like the Sheriff of Nottingham are still human in their crimes, and the hero kills them as a last resort, as a way to rebalance society, but the killing in itself is not considered a good or heroic thing.
So I would say Autry is a hero for not claiming to be a hero: I thank him and his fellow soldiers for his willingness to do the right thing, even die, to defend society, and I applaud him for the sensitivity to know that doing a bad thing, especially unintended, is human: if we all were more thoughtful about our common humanity, we wouldn't even need superheroes. But then what would we do for entertainment?
Sally MacEwen
"The heroes are those guys out there fighting for us every day and not getting respect," he said, referring to military personnel fighting in Iraq and elsewhere. "That [killing the attacker] wasn't admirable, it was fight or flight and I tried the fight."
Children have it right: in studies, they say their heroes are people who protect them and love them and who do what is right, like Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mahatma Ghandi. A real hero knows what is right and achieves it by doing only good deeds.
Unfortunately, we don't usually know what is absolutely right for everybody, but we can do things we know are good, like being thoughtful and forgiving. At the same time, most people agree that killing people is always wrong, even to prevent a wrong. Soldiers are heroic not because they kill, but because they are willing to die for a cause, like the fire and rescue people who died in the Twin Towers. Conscientious objectors are willing to die for their country, but not kill for it. Killing does not make someone heroic.
If one can only do what is right by doing bad things, the way a lot of superheroes do in movies these days, it may seem heroic, but it's not. There are too many unknowns: in this case, it seems clear that neither the teenagers nor Autry had in mind to do some greater good, but neither did they set out to create great harm.
In ancient Greek literature, where many of our heroic icons began, the villains are almost always people who have done wrong things in error and have a respectable point of view. Hector in the Iliad can hardly be called a villain at all. In older superhero movies, too, villains like the Sheriff of Nottingham are still human in their crimes, and the hero kills them as a last resort, as a way to rebalance society, but the killing in itself is not considered a good or heroic thing.
So I would say Autry is a hero for not claiming to be a hero: I thank him and his fellow soldiers for his willingness to do the right thing, even die, to defend society, and I applaud him for the sensitivity to know that doing a bad thing, especially unintended, is human: if we all were more thoughtful about our common humanity, we wouldn't even need superheroes. But then what would we do for entertainment?
Sally MacEwen