Death in war is not like movies. It doesn’t matter how grotesque and realistic it looks. There’s no poetry. It happens suddenly, surprisingly and that’s it. There’s rarely a last gasp or struggle to say something meaningful. If anything the wounded may make a curious sounding whimper or a deeply disappointed groan and even soil themselves before dying. It’s pitifully sad.
Calling fallen soldiers “heros” is the only consolation that we, through our government, can give young men and women who gave their lives, but there is nothing heroic about the last slow moan coming out of a 19 year-old Marine right before he farts and dies.
These soldiers are “heros” because that word helps us ignore the reality of life cut short by violence. They are heros so we don’t have to be. War is not honorable.
