the Truth About Being a Hero - WSJ - 14 views
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We all want to be special, to stand out; there's nothing wrong with this. The irony is that every human being is special to start with, because we're unique to start with.
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n the military I could exercise the power of being automatically respected because of the medals on my chest, not because I had done anything right at the moment to earn that respect.
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"A lot of people have done a lot more and gotten a lot less, and a lot of people have done a lot less and gotten a lot more."
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I got my medals, in part, because I did brave acts, but also, in part, because the kids liked me and they spent time writing better eyewitness accounts than they would have written if they hadn't liked me
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The only people who will ever know the value of the ribbons on their chests are the people wearing them—and even they can fool themselves, in both directions.
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he whole assault ground to a halt, except for one kid named Niemi, who had sprinted forward when we came under the intense fire and disappeared up in front of us somewhere.
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alking to a group of us about when it was a platoon leader earned his pay. I knew, floating above that mess, that now that time had come. If I didn't get up and lead, we'd get wiped.
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I'm most proud of is that I simply stood up, in the middle of all that flying metal, and started up the hill all by myself.
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At this point I saw the missing kid, Niemi, pop his head up. He sprinted across the open top of the hill, all alone.
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He was a black kid, all tangled up in black-power politics, almost always angry and sullen. A troublemaker. Yet here he was, most of his body naked with only flapping rags left of his jungle utilities, begging for a rifle when he had a perfect excuse to just bury his head in the clay and quit. I gave him mine. I still had a pistol. He grabbed the rifle, stood up to his full height, fully exposing himself to all the fire, and simply blasted an entire magazine at the two soldiers in front of us, killing both of them. He then went charging into the fight, leaving me stunned for a moment. Why? Who was he doing this for? What is this thing in young men? We were beyond ourselves, beyond politics, beyond good and evil. This was transcendence.
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the only thing he could think to do was sprint across the open hilltop to see if he could find a place from which he could lay down fire to protect them.
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hen a kid I knew from Second Platoon, mainly because of his bad reputation, threw himself down beside me, half his clothes blown away. He was begging people for a rifle. His had been blown out of his hands.