Talk:Ira Hayes

The tragedy of Ira Hayes wasn't just that he was a veteran of WW2 but that he was transformed into a hero by an American public hungry for heroes and that he, like the other two survivors of the photograph, had a difficult time coping with their new-found status, when Hayes himself said that "the real heroes were the ones that died in the battle." He should remain as hero, because that is what makes him famous. Danny

You are going to probably have an issue when I go start referring to German WWII vets as heroes, so lets just agree on NPOV.

• "the real heroes were the ones that died in the battle."

Susan Mason

No, I will probably have an issue when you ignore what I just explained. His status and his tragedy was because he was transformed into a hero. He appears in Wikipedia because of that. We do not have articles on every veteran that died. Danny

hero is POV. You are free to explain that he became famous and many considered him a hero, you are not free to define him as a hero. Hayes himself disagreed with you:

• "the real heroes were the ones that died in the battle."

Susan Mason

In this case, hero is not POV. It is a statement of fact that the American government made him into a hero. That is why he was famous. Whether he liked the moniker or not is irrelevant.

Ah, so which piece of legislation officially made him a Hero of the Republic? Susan Mason

Rosenthal's photo presented him as a hero, and he was accepted as such. It is not POV to say that people treated him as a hero. Vicki Rosenzweig 17:17 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

But Vicki, the article doesnt say that, it says Ira Hayes was a hero, which is POV, rather than, The news media presented Hayes as a hero. This is as inappropriate as starting the Jesus article with Jesus is the king of kings, the lord almighty, the son of God himself. Or with starting the Rommel article with, Erwin Rommel was the greatest German general of WWII and a hero of the Reich.Susan Mason

• "the real heroes were the ones that died in the battle." -- Ira Hayes on whether or not he was a hero

At the bottom there was only 1 paragraph from the entire poem/song. I don't believe this conveyed the message of the song at all, so I added all the lyrics.

Hero clearly has two distinguishable senses, one PoV and one not. (And shame on us -- but not for this article -- if Hero fails to make that clear.)

• The PoV sense is associated with the term heroism, and involves the PoV assertion that the hero is a good person to whom others owe gratitude and emulation.
• The NPoV sense concerns various social phenomena such as hero worship and a status (which probably has a formal name i've forgotten or never needed to learn) metaphorically called poster boy (and not too distantly related to some senses of cover girl). Some (but not all) medals are examples of objective criteria for identifying someone as a hero in the NPoV sense: the Congressional Medal of Honor is certainly one but i presume the Good Conduct Medal and most campaign ribbons are not.

It is a simple fact that this article can not be properly written without use of the word hero. IMO it probably must be used outside quotes. It is worth discussing whether reference to the distinction i make in this contrib needs to be included in this article; IM(current)O, it is sufficient to link it to Hero (and check that that article is properly written), and IMO Susan's opinion probably reflects either naivete or bloody-minded-ness in her rather than reality. But exactly how to use the word hero here is probably worth discussing on this talk page.

(For the record "king of kings, the lord almighty, the son of God himself" is a false analogy bcz that has no NPoV sense. And you're damn straight that Erwin Rommel must be described as a hero: if he had not been, he would not have been permitted to suicide (rather than be executed) for his act of treason.)

And finally, a hero is probably the last person you should believe when they make statements on what constitutes a hero, since part of being a hero in the NPoV sense is normally that they have to use hero only in PoV senses!

--Jerzy (t) 14:05, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)