What Makes an American Hero?

Charlie Kirk wasn’t the only person killed by gun violence in recent weeks. If he had lived, he wouldn’t be the only one injured.

He wasn’t one of the heroes in the other shootings who helped save people in the line of fire. He is the only one being considered for the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Real heroes, not glorified influencers

Two children were killed in a church service in Minneapolis. More would have died except for the heroes in that church, many of whom are children themselves.

“We had one kid that covered up another kid and took a shotgun blast to his back,” Marty Scheerer, chief of Hennepin Emergency Medical Services, said on Thursday.

Annunciation Catholic School principal Matthew DeBoer also credited older children and staff members with saving lives. “Adults moved students under the pews “within seconds” of the shooting,” he said.

“Adults were protecting children, older children were protecting younger children,” he said. “It could have been significantly worse without their heroic actions.”

Sheerer added:

“The teachers were amazing. The teachers were getting shot at. They were protecting the kids.”

The injured children in Minneapolis are between 6 and 15 years old. Most of the injured are the middle schoolers who stayed exposed to the shooter the longest, as they pushed the younger children under the pews to protect them.

These kids and teachers are real American heroes.

. . .

Hayden McAdams saved the lives of three people following a mass shooting in Amarillo, Texas, in September. The shooter had used an AR-15 to open fire during a drive-by on Detention Center employees celebrating a birthday. The shooter fumbled the reload, and McAdams began moving everyone to safety.

Fearing Knox may return, McAdams began pulling the victims to cover before finding out one of his coworkers had been shot.

McAdams then ran to his vehicle, several blocks away, to retrieve a tourniquet.

Upon his return, McAdams discovered a second coworker and the coworker’s wife had also been shot.

McAdams continued to provide aid to the victims. He then helped carry them to ambulances.

McAdams is a real American hero.

. . .

Six soldiers were awarded medals at Fort Stewart, Georgia, in August 2025, after two of them took down a shooter, even though they themselves were unarmed. The other four rendered aid to the victims.

Staff Sgt. Aaron Turner physically restrained the shooter. Master Sgt. Justin Thomas joined in to help restrain the shooter, and Turner was able to take the gun away.

Turner said he tried to talk the shooter down before physically restraining him. “Clearly that wasn’t working, and I ended up having to go hands-on to try and disengage,” he said.

The other four soldiers rendered aid to the five soldiers who were injured, two running into a smoke-filled hallway where one of the injured lay. They ran to help, not knowing where the shooter was.

Sgt. Aaron Turner, Master Sgt. Justin Thomas, Staff Sgt. Robert Pacheco, Sgt. Eve Rodarte, 1st Sgt. Joshua Arnold and Sgt. Melissa Taylor were the six heroes that day, preventing further injuries and likely deaths.

These six are real American heroes.

What makes a hero

There have been many other heroes since mass shootings have become regular events in the U.S. I’ve linked two more below.

Heroes are those who act quickly under fire to come to the aid or protection of others. They risk their own lives for others. They hide people from attackers, they encourage others to run and hide, they work to contain or deter the attack, they render aid to victims.

These are the people who deserve the Presidential Medal of Freedom. These are the people who don’t spout hate, racism, and misogyny. Who don’t seek the limelight to make money from being controversial.

They are the quiet ones. The humble ones. The brave ones in the face of horror and fear. They are our neighbors, our friends, first responders, children, adolescents, and adults. Some heroes are trained to intervene, but most are not.

They are the real American heroes.

Let’s celebrate them. Let’s lower the flag for the children and adults killed in shootings regularly in the U.S. Let’s put an end to gun violence. Let’s give these heroes the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Let’s not make martyrs or heroes of people who promote and provoke hate and violence. They are not our American heroes.

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This post was previously published on New Choices.

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