A Remembrance of Heroes Past

george Macdonald fraser

I THINK most people would agree that this is not a heroic age. Occasional individual heroisms there are, of course, but the present generation is not in sympathy with heroism as I understand the word. I was a child of empire, so my heroes were mostly people like Drake and Livingstone, Nelson and Kit Carson, Joan of Arc and Robert Bruce, Hereward and Harriet Tubman, the defenders of Rorke’s Drift and the Alamo, the Light Brigade, my own Highland ancestors, and those almost-forgotten fliers of the Great War—Bishop, Ball, Rickenbacker, McCudden, and others. Service as a foot-soldier in Burma in the Second World War did not alter my views, for the men of the XIVth Army seemed to be cut from the same cloth as my boyhood heroes. They were men of action who prized the same old-fashioned virtues, judged matters (more or less) by the same standards, shared the same hopes for themselves and their country, and had the same unspoken notions of loyalty and personal honor. But like my heroes of old, while grateful tribute is paid to them on anniversaries, they and their values belong to the past.

GF

About the Author

George MacDonald Fraser

george Macdonald fraser

I THINK most people would agree that this is not a heroic age. Occasional individual heroisms there are, of course, but the present generation is not in sympathy with heroism as I understand the word. I was a child of empire, so my heroes were mostly people like Drake and Livingstone, Nelson and Kit Carson, Joan of Arc and Robert Bruce, Hereward and Harriet Tubman, the defenders of Rorke’s Drift and the Alamo, the Light Brigade, my own Highland ancestors, and those almost-forgotten fliers of the Great War—Bishop, Ball, Rickenbacker, McCudden, and others. Service as a foot-soldier in Burma in the Second World War did not alter my views, for the men of the XIVth Army seemed to be cut from the same cloth as my boyhood heroes. They were men of action who prized the same old-fashioned virtues, judged matters (more or less) by the same standards, shared the same hopes for themselves and their country, and had the same unspoken notions of loyalty and personal honor. But like my heroes of old, while grateful tribute is paid to them on anniversaries, they and their values belong to the past.