A hero? Hard to say. Not really, no.
In Afghanistan, everything moved really fast. That was also true for the cooks and the stamp lickers, as we called them.
In the army, we have our own language. We call it “ripping on each other”. That's what love looks like between guys. We call each other names, we insult each other. The tougher the mission, the harder we insult each other.
My buddies would say to me, “Hey, fatso, I hope you don't get shot, because we don't want to break our backs dragging your heavy carcass back.”