The new face of bravery and heroism
CNN just ran an article on the secretary who called 911 in Binghamton titled “Secretary played dead to avoid New York shooter.”
It is a simple reflection of our modern society that the unarmed Shirley DeLucia who has the intuition to play dead after being the first victim shot in the abdomen by a cowardly lunatic who went on to kill 13 people in less than 1 minute is being hailed as a hero for calling 911 after the rampage was done. I give her credit for having the intuition to play into the preconceived notions of a mass murderer that one bullet placed anywhere in a persons body will kill them, but she is not a hero. She seems to understand the difference and even rolled her eyes at her brother who told her that people where calling her a hero. It should not be surprising that we are told to admire helplessness as heroism in a time when our highest elected officials amateurishly bow to foreign monarchs, apologize for our countries just actions around the globe and our elected leaders beg foreign governments to buy our bad debt. The unarmed woman had no other choice than to play dead and desperately call for help since she had no means to defend herself. It was a matter or survival, not heroism. “I am shot, others are dead, please come help us.”
What bothers me most about the liberal use of words like bravery, courage and hero is that when we apply them to insignificant tasks they lose their meaning. When strong words like these get watered down and applied to common things people who are truly heroic, brave and courageous become radical vigilantes that are a danger to society and our ability to defend ourselves and enjoy our freedom abolished. I guess we are just that desperate for truly heroic, brave and honest people that we try to fabricate them wherever we can. Perhaps we just need to find something to celebrate in every tragedy. I can appreciate that, but don’t tarnish great words and people by making then ordinary.