Hero: One who shows great courage or noble qualities, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Not the pop idols, rock stars, athletes, celebrities, billionaires and other icons popular with the ignorant masses.
Heroes instead are educators, healthcare workers, law-enforcement officers, military personnel, firefighters, search-and-rescue specialists, volunteers and other ordinary folks.
Heroes routinely risk their lives or provide tender loving care, mentoring and academic training for modest—or no—financial rewards.
Heroes don’t endorse products for obscene amounts of money. Heroes don’t sign autographs and heroes don’t demand compensation for media appearances.
And only rarely do politicians qualify for hero status, excepting iconoclasts such as the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn. and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. (10 NOVEMBER 2002)
