I don’t happen to feel that dying in battle is heroic. For a soldier on active duty during a war, it is quotidian. It is also somewhat random. Some die, some don’t. Some may die because they are inept. Some, like Pat Tillman, are killed in disgraceful ways which their superiors then try to capitalize on by making them into artificial heroes (they tried the same thing with Jessica Lynch) All in all, this wartime “heroism” is a sordid business.