Who Is A Real Hero?

leggo

"Back against the wall and odds
With the strength of a will and a cause
Your pursuits are called outstanding
You're emotionally complex
Against the grain of dystopic claims
Not the thoughts your actions entertain
And you, have proved, to be
A real human being, and a real hero"

Aside from Ryan Gosling, of course.

I think this as I'm watching footage of FDNY putting in another heroic shift on Sky News and wonder is there any more heroic job?

You always hear the US bandy on about how their soldiers are fighting for their freedom and, while that isn't to say that the US army does no good work, I find it a bit hard to marry the idea of someone unquestionably administering the political force of another person, regardless of their own personal views, with the idea of a hero. Heroic work can be done within the line of duty, sure. But just being a soldier? Nah, sorry, you're not instantly a hero for me. Maybe brave...but then again, one could also substitute the word 'brave' there with 'dumb' depending on the context. You don't get your automatic hero badge just by signing up to the reserves. Must try harder.

So what walks of life make you deserved of Ryan Gosling-style, hero status?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DSVDcw6iW8

saiint

so i became a chef in the army for nothing
i risk my life everyday
i might leave a gas cooker on
i might get food poison
come to think of it
the whole irish army are heros if their brave enough to eat my food :L

krudler

is there really a need to quote the OP when you're the first post?

Gummy Panda

In before all ladies with their snail trails saying Ryan Gosling is dreamy.

LeeHoffmann

to me, somebody is a hero if they continue to live their life according to their principles in the face of pressure from loved ones, friends, strangers and laws, because they know they´re right. Somebody once said to me that you know you´re doing the right thing if it´s difficult. Most heroes, imo, are ordinary people. They have quiet struggles and are rarely thanked for their sacrifices. I think you can recognise heroes by their selflessness - what they do, they do for others.

Which walks of life? There are so many. The first that comes to mind is single parents who work hard/make sacrifices to give their children a better life.

saiint

krudler wrote: »

is there really a need to quote the OP when you're the first post?

that ok for you now ?

I am. Don't tell anyone, though.

juan.kerr

krudler wrote: »

is there really a need to quote the OP when you're the first post?

:mad: That's one of my pet hates. Makes no sense why someone would do it.

Duggy747

I hear this Enrique Iglesias fella is a hero, has some special talent of kissing pain away or something.

I dunno, sounds like a charlatan to me.

WoollyRedHat

One who lives outside the image and for the greater picture.

I hope that sounds wise and enlightening to you.

RikkFlair

Your man who landed the plane in the Hudson River, cool as a breeze.

(He wouldn't do it today!)

bluecode

The word hero is bandied around too much. The word is cheapened by overuse. Mostly it's just ordinary people doing their job often in difficult circumstances. They are usually baffled at being termed a hero quite rightly.

Anyone who begins to think of themselves as a hero stops being one immediately. I can think of several professions who are called heroes way too often. To the point where some of them begin to believe it themselves and begin to expect special treatment.

I'm not naming names because I'm no hero!

A famous American pilot once said: 'Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum'.

karma_

RikkFlair wrote: »

Your man who landed the plane in the Hudson River, cool as a breeze.

(He wouldn't do it today!)

That's who this song is about, Chesley Sullenberger.

Callan57

The thing about hero's is ..... they are mostly dead

kowloon

GAA All-star Heroes. Mighty men.

Wacker The Attacker

Your ma's my hero

somefeen

I think generally the difference between a hero and a normal person is simply a hero was in the right place at the right time.

I don't consider most soldiers to be heroes (apart from those that might have made massive sacrifices in the name of peace).
If you see the help for heroes campaigns etc in the UK, IMO you are just looking at the only way they can keep young men willing to go to war and get blown to bits. Call them a hero for stepping on a landmine and the consequences are outweighed in a young man's mind with the fact that he'll be a hero to his country.
Since I live in the UK now I never air this thought since its bound to make me incredibly unpopular!

not yet

My Dad is my hero. Always has been.

2ndcoming

Hulk Hogan, circa 1990.

/end thread

Big Nasty

bluewolf wrote: »

I am. Don't tell anyone, though.

Can you talk about it though or is it all hush-hush?;)

cableguy.ie

G.I Joe

MJ23

kowloon wrote: »

GAA All-star Heroes. Mighty men.

A great bunch of lads.

My hero is Al Bundy.

WindSock

Anyone who sacrifices themselves or part of themselves for the betterment of other people. Be it saving lives in a crisis or adopting / fostering disabled or unwanted chillren.

juan.kerr

somefeen wrote: »

I think generally the difference between a hero and a normal person is simply a hero was in the right place at the right time.

It's a bit more than that, surely? Not everyone will shine if put in a life or death scenario or will choose to put themselves in a life or death scenario.

juan.kerr

Heroes in a half shell...TURTLE POWER!!!!!

griffdaddy

Batman's a real hero. He wasn't gifted radioactive super powers or from another planet or any of this shít. He puts in hard training and good planning into everything he does, and when he gets hit he feels it the same as anyone else.

Seaneh

saiint wrote: »

so i became a chef in the army for nothing
i risk my life everyday
i might leave a gas cooker on
i might get food poison
come to think of it
the whole irish army are heros if their brave enough to eat my food :L

my dad is a retired NCO and he always said there were only two types of trained killers in the Irish Army.
Medics and cooks.

funny. stories of a few lads breaking into the officers mess at night to cook steak because were sick of chicken and pork everyday while over seas.

WindSock

griffdaddy wrote: »

Batman's a real hero. He wasn't gifted radioactive super powers or from another planet or any of this shít. He puts in hard training and good planning into everything he does, and when he gets hit he feels it the same as anyone else.

His superpower is his bottomless cave of batcash.

griffdaddy

WindSock wrote: »

His superpower is his bottomless cave of batcash.

That's one thing to consider. But he doesn't have to spend his money on helping people, he could just as easily have a batcave full of coke and hookers. Plus all the batcash in Gotham won't make the pain of getting his face smashed in by Bane any less real.

sink_or_swim

that austrian guy who jumped from space to earth

WindSock

Glory hunters are not heroes.

Icyseanfitz

people who make selfless actions

SEPT 23 1989

Tom Crean

Cheeky_gal

Drive

SwissResidence

Shavarsh Karapetyan is a hero http://iliketowastemytime.com/2012/04/12/remarkable-acts-of-heroism-of-shavarsh-karapetyan

Cienciano

Firemen are doing a job they get paid well to do. I wouldn't consider them heros. Volunteer firemen is a different story. Or volunteer lifeboat crew.

leggo

Cienciano wrote: »

Firemen are doing a job they get paid well to do. I wouldn't consider them heros. Volunteer firemen is a different story. Or volunteer lifeboat crew.

I dunno, what's a good salary to risk never getting to see your children grow up for the sake of saving strangers' lives? Would you consider the firemen who died on 9/11 heroes? Or the one's currently trying to save the people in burning houses in Queen's?

suicide_circus

My hero?

He's ordinary.

Bloodwing

It all depends on your perspective, at least 670 people would consider Nicholas Winton to be a hero.

Cienciano

Here's a hero. Pierlucio Tinazzi:

Wednesday, the 24th of March, 1999...
At 10:42 AM a Belgium truck (Volvo FH12 cab towing a refrigerated trailer) was passed through the French toll booth. Nothing special, carrying nine tons of margarine and twelve tons of flour. As the driver went into the tunnel, he made his way along. After a couple miles, he realized something was wrong as cars coming in the opposite direction kept flashing their headlights at him; a glance in his mirrors showed white smoke coming out from under his cab. Normally this was no big deal, as there had been 16 other truck fires in the tunnel over the last 35 years, always extinguished on the spot by the drivers. Today wasn't going to be that day.

At 10:53 AM the truck driver pulled over around the mid-point and climbed down in a cloud of dense white smoke. As he reached under his seat for his fire extinguisher (there were also extinguishers on the walls of the tunnel every few hundred feet), flames erupted from under the truck and he jumped back empty-handed. At this point, the smoke turned black...

At 10:55 AM, the tunnel employees triggered the fire alarm and stopped any further traffic from entering. At this point the tunnel was populated by at least 10 cars/vans and 18 trucks that had entered from the French side. A few vehicles from the Italian side passed the volvo without stopping. Some of the cars from the French side managed to turn around in the narrow 2-lane tunnel, to retreat back to France, but negotiating the road in the dense smoke that had rapidly filled the tunnel made negotiating traffic pretty much impossible. The other trucks didn't have the space to turn around, and reversing out wasn't an option. Most people rolled up their windows and sat tight, expecting the problem to be resolved shortly... after all, nothing serious had ever happened here before.

Within minutes, two fire trucks from the French town of Chamonix responded. The fire melted the wiring and plunged the tunnel into darkness; in the smoke and with the abandoned, wrecked vehicles blocking their path, the large fire-trucks were unable to proceed. The fire crews instead abandoned their vehicles and took refuge in two of the emergency fire cubicles (fire-door sealed small rooms set into the walls every 500 meters or so). As they huddled behind the fire doors, they could hear the burning fuel roll down the road surface, causing tires to pop and gas tanks to explode. They were rescued five hours later by a third fire crew that responded and reached them via a ventilation duct; of the the 15 firefighters that had been trapped, 14 were in serious condition and one (their commanding officer) died in the hospital.

Pierlucio had cleared the tunnel to the French side about 10 minutes earlier, had been taking a break, and was getting ready to make a run back through when the fire alarms went off. He had a two-way comm system in his helmet that kept him in contact with the Italian tunnel office. As soon as the word came, he grabbed breathing equipment and drove his BMW K75 back into the tunnel. As he came across people trying to get out, he stopped and told them to drop to their knees, stick against the wall (where the fresh air ducts fed up) and keep moving, stopping only to breath at the ducts. He rode on into the hell that was the tunnel fire, through the smoke.
Most of the truckers close to the fire suffocated or were poisoned by the gases within minutes. Pierlucio peered among the dead and found the occasional surviver. He'd put them on the back of the bike and slalom back out the French side as fast as possible, bringing out victim after victim, then going back for the next one. On Pierlucio's fifth trip into the tunnel, he came across Maurice Lebras, a French truck driver who was unconscious but still alive. Too big and unwieldy to get onto the back of the bike unconscious, Pierlucio refused to abandon him. Instead he wrestled Maurice into fire niche 20 and closed the door.

The original fire doors were rated to survive for two hours. Some had been upgraded in the 34 years since the tunnel was built to survive for four hours, but niche 20 wasn't one of them. Not that it mattered, the fire would burn for over fifty hours and it would be over five days before the tunnel cooled sufficiently for anyone to go back in. Pierlucio's BMW melted right into the pavement a few yards from niche 20.

This fire raged out of control for over two days. The fire was so hot that the rock that forms the interior of the mountain was permanently changed in chemical form. To say it was hellish would be a gross understatement.

27 people died in their vehicles. 10 died trying to escape on foot. Of the initial 50 people trapped by the fire, only 1 dozen survived. Every one of the dozen said exactly the same thing: "That guy on the motorcycle saved my life."

It took two years to repair the damages fully and upgrade the tunnel's facilities. It reopened to car traffic on the 9th of March, 2002. These days the tunnel employs a permanent staff of 65 firefighters (about 20 are on duty at any instant).

So, this Friday, the 7th anniversary of Pierlucio Tinazzi's incredible heroism and tragic death, all bikers around the world are asked to carry a flower in remembrance if they ride that day... To remember the bravest biker hero you probably have never heard of before.

http://www.whootis.com/Pierlucio%20Tinazzi

Callan57

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

Tom Crean

Ah ... they don't make men like that anymore

OurLadyofKnock

The crew of the 1/87 scale Airfix Lancaster Bomber which I set on fire and hurled from the top of of James Connolly Tower in 1977.

Ando's Saggy Bottom

Tom Barry.

Meangadh

Depends on what your definition of a hero is- is it someone who achieves a huge feat in sport, politics, etc or someone who does extraordinary things whilst living an ordinary life?

It's both really I suppose, but my personal heroes are my friends who have lost family members before their time- parents, siblings, children- and yet have the courage to get up every day and live their lives. Every day must be a battle for them, I honestly don't know how they do it- and they do it with such grace and dignity with no complaining. I think I'm in awe of them every single day. They're definitely my heroes anyway.

Celly Smunt

sink_or_swim wrote: »

that austrian guy who jumped from space to earth

the people who got him there are the actual heroes.


Nobody ever remembers the engineer

Barry Barry

Ron Jeremy.