I don't like the hero worship either. first time I noticed it was with the firemen during 9/11. Now it seems the media always wants to have a hero for each event. I don't want to diminish the pilots but as far as I know an engine loss is normal procedure and well understood. There are probably dozens of events every day where a truck driver is faced with an exploding tire or other problems that are as difficult or more difficult to handle.
Perhaps part of what's happening is the word "hero" is picking up new roles, while retaining old associations.
One can have a hero without something heroic. "Oh, not me, it's Joe that's the hero - he spotted that the meeting munchies were delivered to the wrong room." One can be heroic without heroism. "Thank you for your heroic efforts this evening to get the server back up." One can have heroism without bravery. "Your dauntless heroism in being here every single day without fail, has been critical to our success".
We don't seem to have a very rich or nuanced active vocabulary for describing excellence, or contribution, or sacrifice, or adversity? Or exemplars, or recognition, or celebration.
So meaning blurs. Especially when there's an incentive for it to.
The 9/11 firefighters (especially the first responders that went in before the towers fell) were heroes by just about every definition, though. They risked (and in many cases gave) their lives to try to try to save innocent people. They weren't trying to save their own necks, like a pilot would be. If that doesn't count as being a hero, I'm pretty sure nothing does.
I find it as a branch of this Military worship the US has fallen into, again since 9/11. Anything from "Thank you for your service" as an automated greeting, and applause when someone in a uniform walks into a bar. Nobody says "thank you for your service" to the guy who's just spent 12 hours shovelling shit out of the sewer.
