Word: heroic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Still, Americans are increasingly troubled about the moral content of their assumptions. A group of Marines in Viet Nam were discussing the flag raising over Iwo Jima, that heroic image of World War II. "Hell," said one Marine, "a man could get himself killed doing that." "Within the kids' lifetimes, this flag hasn't stood for the things it stood for when John Glenn and I were young." says Allen Brown, a Cincinnati lawyer. "The flag then was still the flag of the dream. It's hard for us to understand kids who have only a book idea...
...aloofness stemmed from an early skepticism. As youngsters during World War II, we collected paper, stomped on tin cans and weeded victory gardens to help the heroic Russians and defeat the hated Nazis and Japs. Before most of us were in our teens, we were taught that the Germans (no longer Nazis) and the Japanese (no longer Japs) were our allies and the once heroic Russians our enemies. Small wonder that in our college years we learned to be wary of ideologies or political passions. Political involvement, as Joe McCarthy showed us too, could bring disgrace in middle...
...belated reward for his heroic World War II exploits against the Japanese, the one-eyed, one-handed New Guinea native was flown to Canberra to meet Queen Elizabeth during her recent Australian tour. Ex-Sergeant-Major Yau Wiga did not hesitate to offer political advice-in his best pidgin English. "Me tellin Missis Queen: 'Now queen, I'm one fella pickaninny. Self-guvim New Guinea im e no good. You givim self-guvim New Guinea now, New Guinea e all buggerup.' " The Queen's reply, reports Wiga, sounded something like...
...G.I.s while the killing went on all around them. One soldier saw three children peek from some brush where they were hiding, motioned them to lie flat. Several G.I.s shouted to distract a soldier just as he was about to shoot an elderly woman. About the only heroic figure in the mad morning was Lieut. Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot who marked spots where he saw wounded children and women so that ground troops could provide medical aid. He was astonished and furious when he saw officers and G.I.s rush over to shoot the victims instead. Thompson landed several times...
...years later, the capital in the wilderness still needs a heroic effort to become a success. A respectable 60% of the federal Deputies now live in town, and Brasilia's population of 500,000 makes it Brazil's tenth-largest city. But many recalcitrant bureaucrats continue to ignore the lofty imperative of former President Juscelino Kubitschek, who conceived the idea of Brasilia: "We must march to the west, turn our backs to the sea, and stop staring at the ocean -as if thinking of departing...