Radio Free Montone: Do Not Call Football Players Heroes
By John Montone, 1010 WINS
The next time a sportscaster calls a guy running into the end zone a hero, change the channel.
I can still see the long line of young firefighters marching into the burning towers on 9/11. Police officers and EMTs were there, too. They all knew the dangers. They all put their lives on the line. And too many of them took their last breath when the buildings turned to ash.
To call a quarterback or a wide receiver a hero diminishes the meaning of true heroism.
When Eli Manning shook off three New England pass rushers in the waning minutes of Super Bowl-XLII and heaved the football downfield where David Tyree hauled it in with one hand and his helmet they were called heroes. But they weren't. They were football stars.
Some heroes do wear helmets…that have "FDNY" across the top. Or they are the combat helmets worn by the young men and women who fly into foreign lands and defend our freedom to watch our games of sport.
A dear friend who recently passed-on created a fictitious place where he would banish phonies and hypocrites. He called it, "The Isle of Sincerity." "Chicken Hawks," deserve a place on "The Isle of Sincerity."
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These are the politicians and bloviators who when their nation called, ran scared. They discovered rare ailments or family obligations that made them unavailable for service. Many of them excused themselves from the war in Vietnam, a war that decades later they claimed we lost because we lost our resolve. And they say we must never allow that to happen again.
They are the first to demand we send troops into Africa, Russia, Syria, Iran and Iraq. They talk tough from the floor of the senate or the studio of a cable network. They wear American Flag lapels and question the patriotism of those who would very reluctantly make ground war the last resort. They can all keep each other company on "The Isle of Sincerity."
You want to know a hero? Our oldest son, Mike Montone. Born into relative privilege and educated at a highly-regarded private college, Mike was motivated by the 9/11 attacks to sign up for the U.S. Marine Corps Officer Candidates School. And at the age of 22 he commanded a platoon in Anbar Provence in Iraq.
The people out to get Mike and his Marines weren't wearing shoulder pads, but they did fire shoulder-launched rockets. The heroic young men in his platoon didn't worry about stepping out of bounds, they worried about stepping on IEDs.
So enjoy another football-filled weekend watching all those football stars, but don't call them heroes.
