Our military services are steeped in tradition built out of real-life heroics of our predecessors: George Washington and his soldiers fearlessly crossing a frozen Delaware river; Marines raising the flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima; the harrowing contests in the air over Europe by the Tuskegee Airmen and the 100th Bomb Group; James Lawrence’s final cry admonishing his men, “Don’t give up the ship!” Over time, each of the services has taken the real accomplishments of its servicemembers and mythologized them to great effect in setting a high standard to be aimed for by other servicemembers as well as The post Do We Need a Hero? Building Heritage and Culture in the U.