Billy Lynns Paper

Kevin Kim
American Heroism Being a hero has been an ultimate dream that every man can have. Like super heroes, you have super natural powers, wearing fancy looking customs, and fight off bad guys to protect innocent people from harm. People cheers you whenever and wherever they see you, with such appreciations, gratitude, and respect, life of hero seems like a living in a dream. However, in reality, a hero means something different. A hero can be anybody like your father, your brother, your neighbor, or your friend, who would risk their own lives just to save or protect people from any danger that they might face. Our military can be a great example, since these men and women sworn an oath to protect our country and people by putting themselves in a harm’s way. Of course, not all military occupations are combat related and military experience can be vary depends on the location you are stationed and specific military occupation, they are still some risk they have to take especially if they are deployed in hostile warzone like in Iraq or Afghanistan. Many have fallen and many have returned as heroes, but being a military hero in today’s society can’t be more interesting than a highly famed celebrity’s ridiculous life style. How ignorant are we to these heroes? While it is difficult to imagine their struggles and what they are going through after they return, Ben Fountain, an author of the fictional novel Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, addresses our society’s lack of recognition of our heroes by putting us in the shoes of young fictional character, Billy Lynn. While this book is based on a fictional event, it similarly portraits how our society sees military heroes and how we treat them. The book tells about the story of main character, Billy, an Army specialist, and his whole Bravo team dealing with several incidents during their visit at Dallas Stadium as an honored guest. They were offered a movie deal, by the one of the top Hollywood producer,