Of War and Heroes

Sensing his own frailty, each man yearns for someone stronger or nobler or more certain in whom to believe. He embraces God, or he elevates mortals to the status of heroes, or he does both. The death of World War II hero Audie Murphy (see page 27) was a melancholy reminder that society imposes an impossible burden on those few from whom it expects so much. This is especially true of the battle hero, whose impulsiveness, perhaps sheer recklessness, and submersion of self can emerge as fatal faults in the day-by-day pursuit of peacetime success. And the hero, too, aware of his own weakness, must always fight the fear that he does not deserve all of the accolades.

The pressure has crushed many war heroes. World War II Flying Ace "Pappy" Boyington returned to take to the bottle, fall into debt and observe bitterly: "Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum." Marine Ira Hayes, one of the idolized flag raisers at Iwo Jima, died at 32 in a drunken stupor, frozen in the wintry outdoors of an Indian reservation. Similar strains tear at relatively unknown Congressional Medal of Honor winners as their wartime exploits dog them. Marine Johnny Basilone, decorated for bravery at Guadalcanal, was obsessed with the notion that someone else had done the deeds for which he was honored, refused his right to seek a Stateside assignment, and was killed at Iwo Jima. Michigan's

Sergeant Dwight Johnson, whose heroics in Viet Nam verged on the suicidal, required psychiatric treatment on his return, then was fatally wounded when he tried to hold up a Detroit drive-in grocery store.

The ancient Greeks may have had a more humane idea. They were hero worshipers, too, but an individual had to die before he was enshrined. The dead, at least, cannot destroy or be consumed by their own legends.

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