“It’s hard to say just when the word ‘hero’ went bankrupt. But in the aftermath of 9/11, America became, to its own mind, a nation of heroes. We spread the word around like butter on toast. […] The men in these photographs are soldiers who were wounded in Iraq. […] No one has the right to say that these men are not heroes. But I also suspect that few people understand the contemporary hollowness of that word better than they do.” Verlyn Klinkenborg in the introduction to The Damage Done.
(Thanks, Stan!)