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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steverooo" data-source="post: 1319603" data-attributes="member: 9410">Heroes?Not too many years ago, there was a small group of men who were following a plan, and had been, for many yaers...  They faced long odds.  Their actions were relevant, and, indeed, affect the world to this day.  They made their choices.  They made the ultimate sacrifices, too...On the 11th of September, not too many years ago, they highjacked several planes, and crashed them into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, after years of infiltrating and training in their enemies' stronghold...They met all of the above criteria...  Yet were they heroes?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />  Or were they the villains? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" /> Of the FOUR planes that went down that day, we know that only on ONE of them did the passengers and crew attempt to stop the hijackers...  The one that crashed in PA.  There, a small group of men also followed a different plan, which was made in haste.  They faced shorter odds.  Their actions, too, are still relevant; they still affect us, today.  They, too, made the ultimate sacrifice...Some would call the first group heroes.  The rest of us call them Terrorists.  Most call the second group heroes...Why?  What is the difference between the two?If anything, the first group suffered the longer odds, and were more willing to sacrifice themselves!  So that can't be it...Captain Kirk explained it pretty well to the rock beings trying to understand the difference between Good and Evil, when their representative protested that they couldn't tell the difference, that both sides used the same methods, and fought in the same ways...  He told it to look at what they fought FOR, what it had offered the two sides; that THAT was what made the difference between the two!...The Terrorists fought for terror, revenge, to "make a statement", and to pen a protest in blood and flame...The second group had been previously instructed to call their friends and families, and tell them what was going on.  They fought to defend their own lives, and those of the other people on the plane, as well as those they didn't know, who they would otherwise have been crashed into...IMO, there is your heroism.  Not in long odds, not in sacrifices made or not made, not even in succes or failure.  Just in the willingness to try, and why you do it.FOUR planes crashed, that day.  THREE of them took a lot of other people with them...  Only on ONE plane did somebody try to stop the hijackers...  On the other three (apparently) nobody tried.  Even on the one, they were only partially successful.En Memorium Dei!</blockquote>

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