Courage

I was thinking about the concept of courage the other day. It's defined (at dictionary.com) as "The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution." Its synonym is bravery. Nowhere in there does it say anything about moral goodness. Courage is merely facing your fears and doing what you feel you have to do. Now, past that, what is a hero? We define a hero as "A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life." So, basically a hero is someone who is courageous, who has "nobility of purpose." That is someone who has a glorious purpose. This glorious business is pretty subjective, but basically it means doing something spectacular. Still nothing about moral goodness.
WARNING!!! WARNING!!!! Highly offensive material to follow. If you are someone who takes offense easily, or even someone who doesn't take offense particularly easily, please withhold your offense taking. (I actually offend myself with these thoughts)
The reason I was thinking about all this was the usage of the word "hero" to describe those people on the planes that hit the world trade centres. According to the defintion, or even the common usage, these people are not heroes. They weren't particularly brave, (not that they were cowardly) they didn't really have a purpose (other than flying on their plane) and that wasn't very noble, although they did sacrifice their lives, but they hardly wanted that, or even accepted it. In fact, if you think about it, the high jackers were much more heroic. They were courageous. They risked their lives, more than that, they KNOWINGLY sacrificed their lives for a cause. THAT is everything in the definition of heroism.
Now, I am not for a moment suggesting that we hold up the highjackers as models for our behaviour, or even that they are good people. In fact, the attack on the world trade centre was one of the most heinous crimes of the century so far. What I take objection to is the mis-use of the word hero. Call the people on board the planes "victims" because that is what they are.