Heroism is hard

One of my father’s favorite sayings was “There are no heroes.” But I think it depends on how you define “hero.” Indeed, he himself received the conventional recognition of a hero: a Purple Heart.

 I’m a decent person. I’ll do the right thing if I have the time and information to figure out what the right thing is. But I’m indecisive, no good in a crisis, often have to reverse an initial flawed impulse. 

 I wish I had the precise lightning reflexes of Wes Autrey. 

 In 2007, 50-year-old Autrey dived onto the subway tracks in the face of an oncoming train and pressed his body to pin down a young man who had fallen into the track bed and was having a seizure. The train rolled over them so close it left a grease smudge on Autrey’s knit cap. Afterward, Autrey was modest. “I don’t feel like I did something spectacular. I just saw someone who needed help. I did what I felt was right,” he said. “Since I do construction work with Local 79, we work in confined spaces a lot. So I looked, and my judgment was pretty right. The train did have enough room for me.”

 It’s enough to make you want to take up construction.

 Or jazz. 

 My professor of African-American literature this spring likened jazz improvisation to heroism. At first I thought I must have misheard. But I think he was referring to the jazz musician’s perfect readiness to jump in and carry on. As jazz critic Albert Murray put it, “Improvisation is the ultimate human (i.e., heroic) endowment … Flexibility or the ability to swing (or to perform with grace under pressure) is the key to that unique competence which generates the self-reliance and thus the charisma of the hero.” 

 With innate clumsiness and a tin ear, I have little hope of heroism. Or so I thought until I read a profile of Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis in the New Yorker. He spoke of the critical importance of training in making split-second decisions. “Your moral crisis will come to you not when you’re rested, not after a good day of athletics out on the field. You’re going to have the flu, and be dead tired, and surprised.”

 Maybe I just need to join the army.

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