Archaeologica.org

http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16042791

The Navy Seal who fired feared the women might be wearing suicide bomb vests and stepped forward to wrap them in a hug to block any blast but they were unarmed.

From the above, you can never beat men like that!

Roy.

An unarmed woman attacking an armed seal breaking into her home is pretty impressive too.

George

Not if martyrdom is your ideal George if you believe paradise is awaiting you, a bit like a Banzai charge, though her husband seemed a lot more keen on others becoming martyrs than himself I would note.
Over the years I've noticed that it is always old men who send young men to war by and large.

Roy.

All acts of bravery could be cheapened by pointing out the beliefs of the actor , doing it for king and country , religious or late 20 th C modernist ideals , does it lessen the act ?
Yes older bloke sending the younger to war , only has a few exeptions

George

A gentleman by the name of Ferguson answered that many years ago George, he led a column of Chindits in Burma against the Japanese and went on to become the GG of New Zealand. He was admiring the courage of an atheistic officer and commented, 'how brave the man who believes that the bullet ends it all!'
The only way that Bin Laden et al can get people to blow themselves up is their belief in rewards in the afterlife. Without that there would be considerably fewer of them, and that I suspect applied to Bin Laden's wife, or she thought that they wouldn't shoot a woman of course.

Roy.

The only way that Bin Laden et al can get people to blow themselves up is their belief in rewards in the afterlife.

Hmmm..... I'm not completely convinced by that.

There is a lot of misinformation about Japanese kamikaze pilots. They were crazy. They were fanatics. They were drugged. The simple fact is that they were rather ordinary pilot recruits, perhaps a little better educated than most since they qualified for the air force who volunteered for the Special Attack Forces.

Looking at it pragmatically by 1944 it really did not matter. Japanese pilot training was so ineffective and their aircraft had been rendered obsolete by later American and British designs that for all intents and purposes every mission was a suicide mission. My recollection of Shinto is that it has no definitive concept of heaven. These guys were sold on doing their "duty."

Soldiers /heroes /martyrs are often young and uneducated and easy meat for enemy propagandists .Not all suicide bombers are uneducated , living in poverty and looking forward to paradise with the 72 virgins .Some of the most obvious recent examples had university educations , businesses and families . There are many other motivating factors that make people heroes .

George

that make people heroes .

Or villains.