What is a hero?

What is a hero? 

The populist image is "Our heroes in Afghanistan". But what are the motives of the individual soldiers serving in the Middle East? Are they doing so because they actually believe that Afghan people pose a threat to our country?

The simple answer is that most are over there because they were told to go. Military orders are not negotiable.

True, by just being there, they are at considerable risk. But look at it this way: When you are told to go to a foreign country by a commanding officer, you don't question that order. You hope you'll come back home safe but you know there is a chance you will be maimed or killed. So that takes courage, right? Well, to a certain extent, yes. But how many are there despite the fact that they do not believe the propaganda that Afghanistan somehow poses a threat to Britain? How many soldiers serving in Afghanistan know that they are there simply to protect an oil pipeline in which oil companies, including BP have invested heavily? What are their motives?

The truth is that it takes considerably more courage to defy a military order than to obey an order that might put your life at risk. "Might" is the operative word here. Defying an order brings inevitable and unavoidable consequences. Military punishments are harsh for such 'offenses'. Your peers dare not be supportive toward you or their lives would be made hell also. You don't just lose your job and any chance of a pension. You lose your liberty and your dignity. You lose your friends and, despite official denials, physical and mental abuses that amount to torture will be heaped upon you.

Those who blindly obey without question have the approval of their commanders and peers. They have their support and each knows that he or she is just one of a whole battalion. Everyone is looking out for one another. Disobey and you stand alone. No one will question or challenge the abuses you have in store. No one will defend you.

So I'll ask again: What is a hero?

I hear so much talk about the heroes in Afghanistan yet few seem to even consider the fact that UK and US soldiers are a hostile force occupying a foreign land. We have seen footage of the atrocities committed in Iraq by US servicemen. We have seen unarmed civilians and children gunned down from a US helicopter. This is a slice of what is happening in the Middle Eastern countries we invade. Let's just imagine that a hostile foreign force invaded our own country. Would we regard them as 'heroes'? And what would we say of those who have the courage to stand up to the invading forces? The people we call "insurgents" are doing in reality what we kid ourselves that our soldiers are doing: they are fighting to protect their country and countrymen.

I am not attacking soldiers here. Most are decent ordinary folk like the rest of us. But it is horrifying what decent ordinary folk can be made to do. The situation gets under the skin and you find yourself doing things you would never have dreamt of doing. But the truth is that our soldiers are actually the terrorists in a foreign land. Even those who do not commit abuses are forming part of a hostile and intimidating presence. Those who try to fight back at this oppression... however misguided... have a right to be regarded by their peers as heroes... just as the Resistance fighters of France in WW2 were regarded as heroes.

In reality, of course, there are no heroes in such conflicts. War is anything BUT heroic.

A hero is someone who is prepared to stand alone for what they believe. A hero is someone who is prepared to accept the inevitable and unavoidable consequences of their actions. A hero is someone who is prepared to take responsibility for who they are.

The real heroes are those currently serving time in a military prison, denied access to a lawyer, denied visits by friends and family and almost certainly receiving a daily dose of brutality of some kind simply because they had the courage to say "No, sir!"

Real heroes are few and far between.