On something heroic

The terms "hero" and "heroine" is very overused today I think. Every soldier, every person who fights a horrible disease, every person who suffers unreasonable misfortune in their life.

Many of these things may take more courage than I possess, but should not being a hero mean a bit more?

I have always been fascinated by the "heroic" age of polar explanation, and the race for the pole between Amundsen and Scott.

Scott certainly was brave, and while he was not as much of a bumbling amateur as some later writers made out, he made simple mistakes and misjudgments in technical and interpersonal matters that cost him and some of his men their lives.

Amundsen was professional, tough, taciturn, and ruthlessly efficient.

Most people know the story, but Amundsen raced to the pole and back using a team of dogs and a previously unmapped path (these were both gambles, but calculated gambles from a man who knew how to live and move through extreme cold). Scott used a combination of hauling (ponies, dogs, even a motor tractor) before eventually man hauling to the pole, but dying on the way back due to hunger, dehydration, the onset of scurvy, leaking seals on the depot'd fuel cans, using the wrong material for the sleeping bags, and a dozen other things that would have been small errors normally, but in such tight margins of survival became fatal)

The person I would say was truly heroic (although I would mention a guy in Scott's team called Tom Crean - you can read about what he did on Wikipedia which I think is a fairly accurate account of how he saved himself, Lashly and Evans) was Ernest Shackleton

Shackleton organised an expedition to reach the South Pole a few years before Scott/Amundsen's race. He relied also on man hauling, and he brought his men within 100 miles of the South Pole. And he realised that they could not all make it back alive if they carried on to pole. And he turned around and brought every man back... although they were all starving he cut his own rations back to give a bigger share to the other men.

In the same position, as much as I admire Amundsen and have a grudging respect for Scott... I KNOW (as much as you can know anything about historical figures) that both Scott and Amundsen would have pushed on, and most would have called them brave for this.

Shackleton felt that it was more important to bring his men back... they pushed themselves to the very extent, but not beyond it. He is supposed to have once said to his wife (about himself) "its better to be a live donkey than a dead lion"... but I think the truth is in the physical and mental condition they were in, with "summit fever" burning in all of their hearts, disorientated, already starting to starve, to numbly push on to the pole would have been by far the easiest thing to do. To turn back required huge strength of character. For his he is one of the people I personally consider a hero.

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I dont know if this is just a ramble, or something anyone else has thoughts about (the principle of heroism I mean, not specifically the South Pole)

 

Hero and glory hound are two different things to me also. Doing the right thing isn't always sexy, but it's always the right thing. So I hear.

 

Shackleton accomplished an incredible feat bringing all of those men from the Endurance back home in one piece, especially considering the terrain, how completely isolated they were, and the fact that their ship (not the best design for that use) was crushed by the ice.
Perhaps I am bit jaded but I cannot say I felt like a "hero" helping keep the boilers lit on a 30+ year old Aircraft Carrier. Incredible job experience with some very memorable travels but not a hero.

 

In my view, heroism is doing something for the greater good even though it means your own life is at risk, or in spite of imminent doom.

Think the band playing while the titanic sank....

 

yes, I think I agree, and that was part of what I was trying to say about Shackleton

His first and strongest commitment was not to eternity and the relentless drive to his goal, it was to his responsibility as a leader, not to drive his men to the pole wanted at any cost, but to bring them back.

And in this, I think donkeys can be much braver than lions sometimes.

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That said, some of my other heroes are not such admirable men. (Like William the Conqueror... although he was apparently fair and reasonable with people who did exactly what he wanted.)