Editorial: Happy returns

OPINION: Sharpisnly tossing a grenade back off an Afghanistan roof didn't make James McKie a hero, writes The Southland Times in an editorial..

Being on the roof did.

Bravery, in the extremity of the moment, is to be celebrated, of course. Especially when it pays off. But heroism is routine and that is the point this abashed soldier seems to have been trying to make.

Heroism in Afghanistan, nowadays, tends to be a matter of hauling yourself back into danger day after day after day, amid the grief and the distress of comrades and innocents dying around you, sometimes badly.

The New Zealand soldier serving in the British Army protests that he's embarrassed by the hero tag and that is entirely understandable.

Standard procedure, apparently, would have been just trying to jump off the roof in this case. In these circumstances, however, it is hard to picture the British Army directing Rifleman McKie to retraining.

The man himself would seem to be arguing leaping to safety wasn't, particularly, an option in any case.

He draws our attention to the problem that, under fire from three directions, there was no way he could have left the roof without receiving serious damage below.

In cases such as this there tends to be an unofficial public inquiry into the goings-on inside a soldier's head. Though it all happened in moments, he has been called upon to explain as best he can what he thought and felt when the Taleban grenade landed. And we must all bear in mind he had maybe half a second at his disposal for contemplation of this sudden downturn in his circumstances.

What he immediately thought of, he says, was his friend killed in action the previous day: Corporal Richard Green.

He also figured (if that isn't too dawdling a description for the mental process) that doing nothing was "going to get the same amount of hurt" as trying to toss the grenade back.

Commanding Officer Captain Graeme Kerr, who owes his life to the New Zealander, was perhaps a tad off the mark when he said McKie acted with "complete disregard for his own life" and a high regard for other people's.

Yes to the latter, but not so much the former. Rather, it would seem, the rifleman acted admirably for their collective survival.

As a soldier should.

It would be unworthy to interpret his action as pure instinct. Rather, it would seem to be really a pretty fair example of the alloy of instinct and courage that serves soldiers well, or at least the luckier ones.

The now-famous McKie has taken every opportunity to put his suddenly famous deed into a context of heavy casualties for his platoon.

His reluctance to be elevated from their ranks and feted as an individual is scarcely surprising and reflects well on him.

Nevertheless, a bravery award would be in order and his family in New Zealand is entitled to be mightily proud, though they will be relieved when his service in Afghanistan ends in another three weeks.

Having first served in the New Zealand Army, he had sought adventure in its British counterpart and in the words of his dad Andrew it took him a year of "sleeping on a couch in London, doing all the paperwork and everything".Even action heroes, it seems, can't escape that.

- © Fairfax NZ News