{"id":391,"date":"2004-05-05T21:29:18","date_gmt":"2004-05-06T05:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2004\/05\/05\/where-are-the-heroes\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:19:13","slug":"where-are-the-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2004\/05\/05\/where-are-the-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Are The Heroes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Euan Semple raises a question<\/a> and provides food for thought, quoting another blogger. He excerpts from Laughing Knees<\/a>:<\/p>\n

But so many of the stories from the news are cloaked, as always, in the myths of “heroism” and “doing great deeds for country” and the “selflessness of the young men and women who serve our country”. I’ve read and reread the words over and over again, trying to find in myself the empathy for such abstract and fervent emotions, but, perhaps because I am not American, I just can’t look at the photo of Pat Tilman and feel that he is anything other than a young man whose death will cause suffering for those who knew him and further paints the picture of the war in Afghanistan as nothing more than an arrogant and empty fiasco that the American government has all but forgotten. I cannot find it in myself to see him as a hero. I cannot see it in myself to see anyone as a “hero”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All this reminds me of a poem from a class on Vietnam Film & Literature I took. It speaks for itself. <\/p>\n

\n\n\n
\n
Dulce Et Decorum Est<\/center><\/p>\n

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
\nKnock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
\nTill on the haunting flares we turned our backs
\nAnd towards our distant rest began to trudge.
\nMen marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
\nBut limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
\nDrunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
\nOf disappointed shells that dropped behind.<\/p>\n

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!– An ecstasy of fumbling,
\nFitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
\nBut someone still was yelling out and stumbling
\nAnd floundering like a man in fire or lime.–
\nDim, through the misty panes and thick green light
\nAs under a green sea, I saw him drowning.<\/p>\n

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
\nHe plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.<\/p>\n

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
\nBehind the wagon that we flung him in,
\nAnd watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
\nHis hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
\nIf you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
\nCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
\nObscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
\nOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
\nMy friend, you would not tell with such high zest
\nTo children ardent for some desperate glory,
\nThe old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
\nPro patria mori.*<\/p>\n

–Wilfred Owen\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/blockquote>\n

*It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.<\/i><\/p>\n

Owen fought in World War I and died seven days before the Armistice<\/a> at age twenty-five.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Euan Semple raises a question and provides food for thought, quoting another blogger. He excerpts from Laughing Knees: But so many of the stories from the news are cloaked, as always, in the myths of “heroism” and “doing great deeds for country” and the “selflessness of the young men and women who serve our country”. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quotes","category-social-science"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12966,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions\/12966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}