Well for one thing, I certainly wouldn’t use signing a contract after being bombarded with cultural propaganda about what it means to “be a man”, and promises of adventure and learning awesome skills and paid-for university education, because the person had no real direction in their life and very few options — as a benchmark, that’s for sure.
Second, I don’t exactly see how simply following orders even if it means you are putting your health at risk, automatically makes one “brave” or “courageous”…let alone a “hero”. It could just as easily mean one is an idiot.
For me “hero” always implied a degree of ethical and moralistic integrity…doing something of high moral regard in the face of great adversity and possibly to great cost to oneself. Obviously soldiers make a sacrifice, but you will have a hard time convincing a lot of people that what they are doing (possibly a majority of the time) is moral or ethical.
I mean, you could say it takes courage to walk into a shooting range exhibition and open fire on random people (would you not be scared to do that?)…but that doesn’t make such a person a hero in my eyes. According to the definition you’ve given, such a person would be. Essentially as long as someone does something you’re afraid to do, they’re a “hero” to you.
I guess different people just have different standards.