A Times Editorial

Needing a hero over truth

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 28, 2000

It's hard to define a hero: we think we know one when we see one. The requirements for the position shift with each individual, each time, each set of circumstances.

The only sure requirement is that a hero does something larger than the ordinary, something that uplifts us, someone who preserves life or stands up for principle, someone who adds to the richness of human experience.

So when a young man supposedly confronted, or maybe soothed -- the stories varied -- Michael Carneal, the 14-year-old who opened fire on a prayer group at a high school in Kentucky in 1997, the nation was ready to embrace him as an exemplary kid, a lionhearted leader, a hero. The principal of Heath High School, Bill J. Bond, seems to have started it, telling reporters shortly after the terrible incident in which three students died and five more were injured that Ben Strong had risked his life to save others. Strong himself elaborated on the story, suggesting at different times that he convinced Carneal to put down his weapon or even tussled with him. Consequently, he appeared on Larry King Live, on Good Morning America, in Time Magazine and on the cover of New Man as one of "21 Heroes for the 21st Century."

There was just one problem: the stories weren't exactly true. Now Ben Strong admits he played no role in getting Carneal to stop shooting. He did not try to overpower him physically or philosophically. Strong did speak to Carneal, but only after he'd dropped the gun and slumped to the floor.

It isn't just that Ben Strong tried to aggrandize himself by exaggerating his ability to stop more shootings, it's that we all -- the media and the public in general -- so desperately needed a story of goodness in the midst of evil, that we colluded in these untruths. We did the same thing after Columbine, accepting the popular canonization of Cassie Bernall, the girl shot after she supposedly affirmed her belief in God, when it may have been someone else, someone who survived. But that would not have made such a satisfactory, heroic story.

In the movie version of the Heath High School killings, Ben Strong would have to be the hero. He was the son of a minister, a football player, a clean-cut American boy. Even his name sounds like Hollywood's idea of the brave good guy. But real life isn't the movies. Our insistence on shaping truth to fit a narrative in which the wicked are punished and the virtuous praised does not take into account the sheer messiness of existence. We want heroes to emerge from the ruins of tragedy, but all too often they do not.

Heroes seem to be in short supply these days. Great sports figures turn out to be bigots, political leaders have feet of clay, artists have dark sides. Maybe they always did, and we just chose to ignore what we didn't like. Instead of heroes, we now have celebrities, people famous for being, well, famous. This is our loss, but we can't conjure heroes out of thin air; we can't force real life into a narrative pattern fed us by the movies.

Ben Strong wasn't a hero: he was a terrified kid in the midst of a horrific incident. We all share the blame for his undeserved renown.

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