Philosophical Question of the Day

[JC86]

It seems like nowadays the term hero is being tossed around left and right. CNN is running this story of how these 4 boy scouts who get killed in a tornado are now heroes. I feel bad for the kids and their families but come on, it was a natural disaster. Firefighters risk their lives everyday and are largely ignored in the public eye until they die and then all of a sudden, they're heroes.

 

[Deeko]

The boyscout thing I understand, as far as firefighters go I think they are routinely judged as heroes, people just don't call attention to it until there's a tragedy.

 

[So]

Originally posted by: JC86
It seems like nowadays the term hero is being tossed around left and right. CNN is running this story of how these 4 boy scouts who get killed in a tornado are now heroes. I feel bad for the kids and their families but come on, it was a natural disaster. Firefighters risk their lives everyday and are largely ignored in the public eye until they die and then all of a sudden, they're heroes.

"These young men ... literally saved lives during this time period when emergency management could not get to them," Culver said. They "were the real heroes. ...

"They immediately started helping each other in this time of need [and] set up their own mini-triage unit."

Rob Logsdon, a 15-year-old staff member at the camp, said although he was injured, he rescued some of his fellow Boy Scouts trapped underneath a collapsed chimney at one of the camp's four bunkhouses.

did you ever read the article you linked to?

 

[Queasy]

The story doesn't say that the 4 boy scouts who were killed are heroes. It says the other scouts and scout masters who took actions to help people after the tornado are heroes.

edit: So covered it.

 

[Vehemence]

Reading comprehension is my hero.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: So

Originally posted by: JC86
It seems like nowadays the term hero is being tossed around left and right. CNN is running this story of how these 4 boy scouts who get killed in a tornado are now heroes. I feel bad for the kids and their families but come on, it was a natural disaster. Firefighters risk their lives everyday and are largely ignored in the public eye until they die and then all of a sudden, they're heroes.

"These young men ... literally saved lives during this time period when emergency management could not get to them," Culver said. They "were the real heroes. ...

"They immediately started helping each other in this time of need [and] set up their own mini-triage unit."

Rob Logsdon, a 15-year-old staff member at the camp, said although he was injured, he rescued some of his fellow Boy Scouts trapped underneath a collapsed chimney at one of the camp's four bunkhouses.

did you ever read the article you linked to?

yeap great stroy. sad that a few died though. but amazing that they went back training and did it.

Sad as it is. its a great requirting tool for Boy scouts. in the face of it they did what needed to be done.

 

[Foxery]

It's about what you were doing right before death, not the death itself. (See the actual article.)

For a firefighter to die on the job, he must have gone above the call of duty - and thus done something unusually dangerous, e.g. running into a flaming building to haul people out.

 

[Xavier434]

I consider most fire fighters who perform heroic deeds to be heroes despite whether they die or not...

As for the boy scouts and this story, So and Queasy hit the nail on the head.