Hero may be the most overused and misunderstood word today. Hardly a newscast goes by without someone mentioning that someone is their hero, meaning that they admire that person and the challenges they’ve overcome despite handicaps. I’ve heard coaches call a player a hero, a man say his infant son is his hero and screaming “tweens” declaring that Justin Bieber is their hero.

I grind my teeth with frustration while I insist that a true hero is a person who puts his or her life in danger to save another — a person of great courage.

In a word, a hero.

You may disagree, but I think there are other names to pin on people who excel at a variety of endeavors, but as a child I learned that true heroes are few and far between.

Those heroes include members of the military who live their lives in the shadow of death and deserve the title of hero.

Every year the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission names recipients of the Carnegie Medal, which is given throughout the United States and Canada to those who risk their lives to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save the lives of others.

An example of a Carnegie Hero is Cara A. Ellis of Little Egg Harbor Township, N.J., a homemaker who died attempting to rescue Bryan H. Mueller from assault. Mueller, 52, fell to the ground after a man on the second floor of a nearby townhouse shot him with a semi-automatic rifle. Ellis, 21, was in her townhouse two doors away and heard the shots, as did other neighbors. She left her residence, saw Mueller and was overheard asking him if he needed help as she approached him. The assailant fired again, striking Ellis and mortally wounding her.

Angela M. Pierce of Dayton, Ohio, went to the aid of a police officer who was being attacked by a male motorist he had stopped; John F. Morris Jr., of Mobile, Ala., died attempting to save a woman and her daughter from drowning; Kevin Patrick Boyle of Saint Joseph, Mich., entered a burning house to save a man overcome by smoke.

Two of those heroes are fellow Texans. Thomas H. Porter of Cleveland, Texas, saved Lyndzie L. Lucius in Splendora from a burning pickup, and Robin DeHaven of Austin saved Lisa L. Alexander and five others who were trapped in a second-floor office of a four-story building after a man intentionally crashed a single-engine airplane into the structure. The airplane struck elsewhere on the second floor, causing an explosion that set fire to the building and filled it with smoke. Blocked by heavy smoke and fire in a corridor outside their office, the six went to broken-out windows for air and to shout for help. En route to a job, DeHaven, 28, a glazier, had been driving nearby and saw the airplane’s descent. Tracing smoke to the scene, he was alerted to the victims’ plight. DeHaven took a ladder from his truck, propped it against the building, ascended to the second floor and, entering the building, cleared glass from a window that provided for better egress, by means of an outside ledge. DeHaven climbed onto the ledge and aided the coworkers through the window and onto the ladder. None suffered serious injuries. DeHaven sustained minor cuts and smoke inhalation, and he recovered.

Jim McKnight, after reading an item I ran in Back in Time, sent me an e-mail detailing a true WWII hero, Oscar Chappell, who was serving on the oil tanker SS Dixie Arrow that was struck by three torpedoes from a German U-boat U-71 that resulted in the ship and surrounding sea being engulfed by fire and explosions. Seaman Chappell, injured by the explosions, heroically stayed at the helm of the ship and saved seven of his shipmates from burning to death by turning the ship into the wind and redirecting the flames from his trapped shipmates onto himself and the wheelhouse. Placing his own safety beyond all considerations, his last thought and act was to assure the survival of his imperiled shipmates.

Due to his heroism, the Navy League of the United States created The Able Seaman Oscar Chappell Award to honor a crew member who displays selfless dedication to shipmates.

So, the next time you hear a coach say that his star quarterback or running back is a hero for making a winning touchdown, think of true heroes Cara Ellis, Robin DeHaven or Oscar Chappell, and give the football player his due by calling him a talented athlete, not a hero.

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Nicki Logan is Lifestyles

editor of the Herald.