Soldiers in general are not heroes. Some of them may be, but it is never the fact that they are soldiers that makes them so. They are killers. Of course they are, that's what soldiers do, they kill people. There is nothing admirable or noble about being a soldier. It is a job. It does not impress me. I respect the dedication they have to their bodies and the intense physical training they go through, but I would devote that same respect to a taxi driver who keeps his cab clean and well serviced.

There is no justification whatsoever to refer to the typical modern western soldier as a hero simply because he went to war.