I hate to be the guy that responds to the obvious throwaway, but have you broken the speed of sound in an airplane? Have you been a 2 time WWII fighter ace? He was the best of the best, and an inspiration for a generation.
Hero has become a joke word used to describe anyone that goes to their job in the morning, but General Yeager was a bona fide hero whose achievements would be viewed by the vast majority of humanity past and present as bordering on godlike. He's what the ancient Greeks meant when they talked about heroes.