But not by those who simply don't like her religion and want to find ways to attack her.
This discussion has moved into the twilight zone. What are we arguing about? Just because some of us choose not to put MT on a pedestal, or as high a pedestal as you, doesn't mean there's an attack on MT going on, only on the height of your pedestal.
I've stated before that MT gets an A for getting her hands dirty washing all those derelicts. And she gets an A+ for obedience to her club. As I understand the club criteria, that warrants sainthood. Why is it necessary that all of us adore her? I look at her and see a glass half full. I see an enormous lost opportunity. She was in a powerful position. Had she looked around her and recognized how destructive some of her club's positions were and used her enormous power to disabuse it's leaders, I would have kissed her feet. But she didn't. So she's just a run of the mill saint and not a hero of mine. What's wrong with that?
Speaking of heroes, I clipped this column recently. I really liked it. (I accept ownership for posting it. <g>)
Karen
<<Tucson, Arizona Sunday, 22 April 2001
Difference between heroes and victims
By Howard Kleinberg
Kenny, his wife, brother-in-law and sister-in-law were sitting around the table last weekend when the sister-in-law interrupted the conversation to insist the television be turned on so she could see "the heroes coming home."
"Heroes? What heroes?" barked Kenny, a World War II Pacific theater combat veteran.
"The heroes." she repeated, "The ones coming home from the Chinese."
"Nobody knows the difference any more," a vexed Kenny argued. "They're not heroes, they're victims! They were hit by another plane. Period! You want to know about heroes? Read about the men who fought on Iwo Jima, talk to the guys who landed on Normandy."
Certainly, this was grist for a back-and-forth verbal brawl, but Kenny made a credible point.
Not to diminish anything from the conduct of the Navy spy plane crew that was held 11 days by the Chinese, but the definition of "hero" demands more than just an emergency landing of a plane and being held captive.
Anyone watching talking-head TV during the last two weeks would have heard some analysts wondering why the crew of the spy plane actually flew into alien hands instead of ditching it and its sensitive equipment at sea and chanced rescue or death.
This begs a larger question, and this is whether the people of the United States can endure a war any more.
So abashed have we been in recent years at the sight of a dead U.S. soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, at Americans killed or being held hostage by terrorists or rogue governments, so quick have we been to roll out the yellow ribbons that a nervousness exists in some quarters that, as a nation, we haven't got it in ourselves any longer to tough out a war.
Nobody wants one, but they do happen. In this era of increasing technology, whatever we do in a war, or in any tough situation, will be brought vividly into our homes. Can we handle it?
In the first years of our participation in World War II, the Roosevelt administration feared our population could not deal with the sight of dead American soldiers, sailors or airmen.
The censors refused to allow the publication of any photos showing such.
We could see dead Germans and Japanese, but not Americans. It was feared such a sight would greatly demoralize the home front.
Eventually, the ban was lifted but not until we were well into the war - and winning.
But back to heroes and victims. For some time now, I have felt the term "heroes" has been distorted, almost cheapened.
It may not be suitable to say that when several hundred American Marines are killed in their beds by terrorists in Lebanon, but that's the hard truth. Those poor troops were victims.
The crew of the EP-3E spy plane may have been heroic in just volunteering for such hazardous duty but that they were in a midair accident and sought safety at a Chinese military airfield does not make them heroes any more than men killed while sleeping are heroes. They more fit the definition of victims.
I do not say this to cheapen what the crew of the EP-3E went through, or to sully the deaths of other American service personnel.
I do it to honor the men and women who performed deeds of great valor, who endured physical torture, who took bullets to their bodies and kept fighting, who ran their plummeting B-17 bombers down the smokestacks of Japanese battleships, who made the long, frozen march from the Chosen Reservoir, who fell on Viet Cong grenades to save their buddies.
Indeed, I am happy that the men and women are back from Hainan Island. I'm relieved that they are safe (and I'm damned mad at the Chinese for holding them).
But, like Kenny, I consider them victims in the line of duty.
* Howard Kleinberg, a former editor of the Miami News, is a columnist for Cox Newspapers. >> |
