Word: heroism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...normal day, we value heroism because it is uncommon. On Sept. 11, we valued heroism because it was everywhere. The fire fighters kept climbing the stairs of the tallest buildings in town, even as the steel moaned and the cracks spread in zippers through the walls, to get to the people trapped in the sky. We don't know yet how many of them died, but once we know, as Mayor Rudy Giuliani said, "it will be more than we can bear." That sentiment was played out in miniature in the streets, where fleeing victims pulled the wounded to safety...
...normal day, we value heroism because it is uncommon. On Sept. 11, we valued heroism because it was everywhere. The fire fighters kept climbing the stairs of the tallest buildings in town, even as the steel moaned and the cracks spread in zippers through the walls, to get to the people trapped in the sky. We don't know yet how many of them died, but once we know, as Mayor Rudy Giuliani said, "it will be more than we can bear." That sentiment was played out in miniature in the streets, where fleeing victims pulled the wounded to safety...
...terror triggered other reactions besides heroism. Robert Falcon worked in the parking garage at the towers: "When the blast shook it went dark and we all went down, and I had a flashlight and everyone was screaming at me. People were ripping my shirt to try and get to my flashlight, and they were crushing me. The whole crowd was on top of me wanting the flashlight...
...military, preferably in combat. Texas Congressman Lyndon Johnson had himself shipped out to the Pacific for a little while during World War II and returned with a suspect silver star. John Kennedy allowed his PT-109 to get cut in half by a Japanese destroyer, but performed with real heroism in rescuing his crew. It was the war record, and the emaciated, boyish charm, that captured the ladies of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and sent him to the House...
...derives from this: they stopped the most vicious killing machine in human history. But almost none of them, at the time, knew the full import of what they were doing. That came later, at war's end, when the death camps were liberated, and the ghastly pictures began appearing. Heroism, one thinks, must include self-, social and perhaps world consciousness if it is to have a vivid picture of the evil it opposes. Otherwise we're just talking mindless personal courage, which exists equally on both sides in any war at any time in history...