It seems to be a currently accepted principle that all of our servicemen are heroes; this is rubbish. My dictionary defines a hero as "a man distinguished by exceptional courage, nobility etc." or "a man who is idealized for possessing superior qualities in any field".
Our modern day services are entirely voluntary, no one is conscripted. The young men and women who join the Army, Navy or Air Force do so of their own free will and are paid for doing a job, as are many others. Few, if any, of these people join the forces with the expectation of doing extraordinary things and most are never called on to do so. That some have recently been employed on active duty in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan is irrelevant.
This is not to say that some of those who chose to enlist have not been called upon to serve in a more active capacity than they might have expected. That some of these have performed heroically cannot be denied, but the majority have simply done the job they signed up for. It is not a job that others may be attracted to but they are not heroes and to try to designate them as such is to denigrate true heroes. Simply being injured or, even, killed on active service does not make anyone a hero - these individuals are doing a job, admittedly a potentially dangerous one, under orders, no more, no less.
I do not belittle the efforts of our service personnel and I am a firm supporter of them, however, I am daily annoyed by the rubbish that is spoken. By all means, praise and publicise the brave and heroic acts of those who deserve it, but do not fall into a habit of believing that anyone who dons a service uniform is, automatically, a hero - they are not and the proposition that they are is ridiculous.
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