Through the study of heroes we enter the realities of greatness. I am convinced that they share commonalities of character. Four that I have seen are:
1. They are real—not myth or fantasy. A young man who had been a "holy terror" became a Christian. He told his sister he was going to become a preacher. She said, "Be real, man, be real." There is no way for a hero to be a phony in the area of his heroism. The man raising the flag on Iwo Jima may have died a hopeless drunk, but he was real when he raised that flag. Heroes are not gods nor demigods; they are real people—not perfect, but real.
2. Dedication—heroes live with a purpose and many die for a cause. They faced a situation that became bigger than themselves, something they were willing to give themselves to. They found and responded to a situation which most of us feel deep inside—the haunting desire to give ourselves to something bigger than we are. Yet few heroes sought that situation, but when it came they were capable of a dedication totally beyond themselves. We poignantly experienced this on 9/11/01. The entire world saw dedication even to death.
3. Concentration—while dedication precedes and fosters concentration, it does not automatically accomplish it. Concentration is the ability to think of the right thing at the right time. It requires poise in the face of opposition, mental discipline amid confusion, the kind of resolution and persistence that caused the apostle Paul to say, "This one thing I do."
4. Sacrifice-—in a great sense they lived their life or sacrificed their time, talent, possessions—or even life—for those of us who look up to them. They have been remembered, not for what they got, but for what they gave. They were the responsible ones. Many had the opportunity to choose a lower road, but their sense of responsibility made them choose the higher road. They sacrificed their standard of living for their standard of giving. The "me generation" through which we passed did not have the attitude of heroes.
In selecting heroes to emulate we should look more at their traits of character than at their accomplishments. Accomplishments are proportional to opportunity. Societies have numerically weighted their hero worship in favor of military figures—not necessarily because society desires to be military, but because war challenges the best that is within man. Hemingway believed the only noble sports are those in which a man risks his life, such as bullfighting, automobile racing, and mountain climbing. These require the courage, the concentration, and the willingness to risk the ultimate of life which becomes life itself.
We might justify our military heroes as being the protectors of our society, because they have saved us in military situations. However, subconsciously I believe it is their personification of the traits of nobility which we all wish for but either have not the occasion or the capacity to attain. A hero is someone who is all that a person should be under the demands of the occasion.
While our American philosophy, based on our Judeo-Christian theology, has been one of hero recognition, the Bible has been very instructive to us by its surprising revelation of the heroes of the faith and their weaknesses: Abraham lied; Jacob was sneaky; David was moody, immoral, and a murderer; Jonah was a traitor and a coward; Joseph was arrogant with his brothers; Peter was a denier and a coward; Paul was a persecutor. They all knew their sins and imperfections—but they refused to let their weakness keep them from using their strength which made them do acts of heroism and become the stalwarts we call heroes.
An important lesson in studying heroes is that often somewhere in their life they had a desert period, often of public rejection, and came back like the phoenix, having stood for a cause worth standing for.
