Reply #42: I don't think so...and a a vet, I can tell you that being a POW is [View All]

[rasputin1952]

certainly no picnic, (I was never a POW), but it doesn't make you a hero either...the hero stuff is as overblown as bush's "service" in the TX ANG.

Heroes...I usually don't speak of heroes, as most of them are in military cemetaries...but three of them that come to mind are:

Bob Kerry, lost his leg on a mission, received the MOH for getting his SEAL team out of a bad situation after completing the mission...slimed by the R's when he was just thinking about running fro president in 2000.

Max Cleland, who, a month before his tragic loss of three limbs, had received the Silver Star as a Cpt that had pulled several of his wounded Sig Corps members from the line of fire and treated them for wounds where at least 2 of them would have died if he had not performed his act under fire. Slimed by the R's for being a "coward" and "out on a beer run", when a grenade he was trying to grab and toss away from the chopper and his men, went off.

Roy Benevides, SSG at the time, Special Forces...went in on an extraction of fellow SF Team members, was shot, stabbed, clubbed, hit w/shrapnel, almost bled to death, and was considered dead when loaded on the Huey, until a Medic felt a faint pulse and began to treat him rigorously. Before he clambered on that bird, he had spent nearly an hour fighting off a determined NVA attack, killed at least 15 NVA, some of them hand to hand, treated several wounded team members, retrieved classified material from the dead Lt that led the team, watched a chopper burst into flame and crash, rescued those on board and getting them to safety before another bird could land. And a few other things that are not on the front of my brain because I am tired.

Google "Medal of Honor", go to the site that is sponsored by the Army., I think it is the first one...I'd paste the link, but my pc has C&P down for the count...anyway...go to Vietnam Awards...read about Kerry and Benevides...these are what heroes do...and neither of them "brag" about being a hero...in fact, I met both Kerry and Benevides, (who has since passed away), and they are the epitome of what we call "humble guys". These are heroes.

McCain got shot down, and he spent years in the Hanoi Hilton, I give him credit for making it through that horror, but he is no hero.