[donsupreme]

If he was a doctor in AIDS ward, and got infected with HIV while caring for other sick patients, wouldn't he be considered a hero? He is a missionary doctor oversea, working in some of the poorest countries in the world, clearly not doing for the money. Believe it or not, people have been called heroes for doing a lot less than that.

[privong]

> If he was a doctor in AIDS ward, and got infected with HIV while caring for other sick patients, wouldn't he be considered a hero?

Why is contraction of the virus implied as a necessary condition for being a hero? Clearly the heroic act is the treatement of others; that the hypothetical AIDS doctor or these ebola doctors contracted the disease they were treating in others should not be a necessary condition for considering them heroes.

[anigbrowl]

It isn't; it's the risk of doing so that one willingly runs which makes one a hero. Since we don't see these peole at work the fact of contracting it is an indirect proof of hands-on activity.

[mnarayan01]

Nothing the GP said implied it was necessary, merely sufficient.

[goodcanadian]

Believe it or not, people have been called heroes for doing a lot less than that.

Sure. It seems in the U.S. that all you have to do to be a "hero" is enlist in the army.

[damon_c]

Yes. Going to work as a bond trader in downtown Manhattan on 9/11/2001 did at one point meet the criteria for being called a hero.