| | The True Meaning of Hero | |
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Dick Stodghill Five Star Member
Number of posts : 3795 Registration date : 2008-05-04 Age : 98 Location : Akron, Ohio
| Subject: The True Meaning of Hero Sat Nov 22, 2008 1:02 pm | |
| A "STODGHILL SAYS SO" BLOG: The word "hero" is bandied about quite freely today. If you hit the home run, score the touchdown or sink the basket that wins a game you are a hero. People are called heroes when in fact they have done something that rightly should be referred to as commendable. Occasionally an obituary will say a person fought heroically against a life-threatening disease even though it was their own life that was threatened. I have a different definition. A hero is someone who willingly places his life in jeopardy to aid another in grave danger. I have known a few men like that, served with them in infantry combat. They are a rare breed. At the top of the short list of heroes I have known is the name of Eddie Wolfe. Those who have read the book Normandy 1944 - A Young Rifleman's War know of a few times when he risked his life while others failed to act. As fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday is the morning when some of us had moved into the wrong field in the dark of night and then at first light were subjected to a horrific artillery barrage directed by Germans who could see us. Eddie, who was in the adjoining field safely behind a thick dirt hedgerow repeatedly called, "Stodgy, Stodgy, are you guys OK?" I assured him we were until finally the concussion from shells hitting close by left me unable to move or even speak. I could see, though, and in the midst of the shelling, when it was difficult to distinguish anything because of the brilliant bursts of silver laced with gold and red, I saw Eddie crawling toward me. He gripped me under the arms and, crawling backwards while pulling me and my equipment weighing well over 200 pounds, dragged me to safety. That was just one of the times Eddie left a safe place to help someone when the odds were stacked against his surviving. He never got a medal, never even a word of thanks because that just wasn't something men did. Eddie, a platoon sergeant, never slept while one of his men was out on patrol or doing some other extremely dangerous job. A few other sergeants called him "Mother Wolfe" and meant it as a compliment. But without meaning to, Eddie made most compliments meaningless to me on a night when I had to lead an ammunition train of rear-echelon men through rugged country while a German patrol was loose and roaming the area. At four in the morning when the job was finished he put an arm over my shoulder and said, "You did a good job tonight, Stodgy." Coming from him, to an 18-year-old soldier that was the supreme compliment that could never be equaled. The fact that he was a Jew didn't keep Eddie from sending me Christmas cards. He was too big a man to let something like religion keep him from doing things like that, things he felt like doing. Time catches up with everyone, though. Eddie Wolfe would have been ninety or close to it when he died this week. His kind seldom come along. The world isn't quite as good a place without him. |
| | | alice Five Star Member
Number of posts : 15672 Registration date : 2008-10-22 Age : 76 Location : Redmond, WA
| Subject: Re: The True Meaning of Hero Sat Nov 22, 2008 9:21 pm | |
| I am so sorry , Dick,
Losing a friend like that is plain sad. |
| | | zadaconnaway Five Star Member
Number of posts : 4017 Registration date : 2008-01-16 Age : 76 Location : Washington, USA
| Subject: Re: The True Meaning of Hero Sat Nov 22, 2008 10:36 pm | |
| I echo Alice's words. I have a pretty good idea how much Eddie Wolfe meant to you. My sincere condolences. Heroic is a word tossed around by many, and I think it is very misunderstood. To my way of thinking, many things touted as heroic are just people showing kindness and consideration for one another. Quite often just showing common sense and quick action are what makes one a hero, but the 'hero' is often the one who pays a price. |
| | | Abe F. March Five Star Member
Number of posts : 10768 Registration date : 2008-01-26 Age : 85 Location : Germany
| Subject: Re: The True Meaning of Hero Sat Nov 22, 2008 10:58 pm | |
| Dick, I think your analysis of the word "hero" places it in the proper perspective. True heroic deeds are seldom mentioned unless it is attached to something or someone in a personal way, as with your friend, Eddie. The word hero and how it is used can be an interesting discussion, especially for writers. |
| | | harry Four Star Member
Number of posts : 228 Registration date : 2008-11-07 Location : Nessebar Island
| Subject: Re: The True Meaning of Hero Tue Nov 25, 2008 7:46 am | |
| Yes Dick, to definite the hero is not easy, but one defection might be the first sing to recognize the hero, is, that the act must be done by voluntarily - not under some command or supervised. I was born 1945, so I couldn’t joined the war that was the last real war that was running by foot. Instead my father was born 03, and it mean that he belonged into the age group that was force to join every war for fifty years ahead. He was first forced to join in the civil war that took place in Finland during the revolution of Russia, after the finish government was declared to be independent. In 1922 Father was made his regular service in army for two years, and when the winter war broke out in November 1939 he was joined. As our home situated that time close the border of Russian on the Karelian Isthmus, that is strip of land between the lake of Ladoka and the Gulf of Finland, it appeared been most dangerous place lying no more than 30 km from Leningrad. It means also that the finis inhabitants in that region had to make up the first stage of the resistance and fight within their own villages and their own frontier. There was organised up quickly a special unit that was called as ‘Matsapertti unit’ that consisted of the men living in that region and that unit later was joined infantry regiment of 21. There were also 400.000 civilians to be evacuated and I remember the speech of the old General A.Enrood in 1988 in TV in which he was saying: There are the wars taken place in a field and forest, but the worst place for war is your own homeyard. The red army came with tanks and heavy weapons. Lacking of the anti-tank weapons finish soldiers had to turn out with the Molotov’s cocktails which wasn’t more than benzene in bottles that they threw against the overrunning tanks. The weather was hard, all the wintertime the thermometer was as low as 38-40 C degree under the zero, Such circumstances and the stout resistance of the Finns was too much for the red army and when the invasion was stopped by surrounding numeral units of the red army by blocked them deep in winter forest where all was white and cold. The finish soldier was soon earned a reputation as white death among the red army as the finish were skies with no noise and moved quickly around. Hostiles ended on 13 March and the coast was enormous. Finnish had to give large part of the land to Soviet Union including the Kariel Isthmus where our home was situated.
Finns went to the continued war ageist the Soviet Union with the Germany hopping get back those territories of they own which the Soviet Union was taken off.
When the war ended 1945 and my father came back from the war he was of forty-two Which is too height age for any by foot moving solder. Speaking about hero my father wasn’t any kind of hero, even he had been at war roughly speaking; eight years of his whole life and was lost his brother in the battlefield and was himself totally broking. He was doing only his duty as was that thousand and thousand other. With all the respect the matter require I dare to say: there is no hero in war.
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