We have done a lot of things to cheapen our language over the years, but to me one of the saddest is what has happened to the word "hero."

I mean <em>really</em>.

"Guitar Hero?"

I looked at dictionary.com, because I'm a modern, happening kind of guy and because my own dictionary was all the way in the next room. Here are the first two meanings given:

<em>-- a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
-- a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.</em>

I can live with those definitions, but where does that leaves us as far as football heroes ... or hero sandwiches?

[caption id="attachment_173" align="alignleft" width="266" caption="Gunga Din"]<img class="size-full wp-image-173" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/gunga-din.jpeg" alt="Gunga Din" width="266" height="209" />[/caption]

Seriously, just because you catch a touchdown pass as time expires doesn't make you a hero. It might make you a winner, unless you were losing by more than seven points at the time, but whether you catch that pass or drop it, you're still going home that night.

To be a hero -- to save a drowning child, for example -- there has to be some risk involved. Maybe you save the drowning child, but succumb to drowning yourself. Then you're a hero. A dead hero, yes, but still heroic.

You want heroes? I'll give you heroes. The firefighters who went into the Twin Towers even though they knew they might not come out were heroes. Big time heroes.

Gunga Din was a hero. If you're a fan of old movies, you have probably seen <a title="Gunga Din movie" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031398/" target="_self">"Gunga Din," </a>with Sam Jaffe as the water bearer who wanted to be a soldier. It's a pretty magnificent movie. But you ought to read the Rudyard Kipling <a title="Kipling's &quot;Gunga Din&quot;" href="http://www.love-poems.me.uk/kipling_gunga_din_w_insp.htm" target="_self">poem</a> on which the movie was loosely based.

It may be full of good old 19th century British Empire racism, but it gives the man his due as a hero and so does the movie.

Watch "Gunga Din" if you want to understand heroism.

You'll never look at football players or "Guitar Hero" the same way again.