because i can

Heroes.

It's not the comic books where people are imbued with superpowers from a spider bite or cosmic radiation. It's regular people like you and me that do extraordinary things. It's choosing to stay and help others when every neuron in your body is telling you run away. The bottomline is that it is only heroic when someone else's life at risk. Doing something to save yourself? That's selfish.
They don't give Medals of Honor for getting a prostate exam, or living a clean and virtuous life. Maybe my point of view is askewed by the fact that I'm serving in the military. Or maybe I'm just not willing to be so liberal about the term.
Taken out of context, most things that are heroic seem to border on the stupid. Me, I've taken off on foot to check on the dead and wounded in an area that had just been hit by an IED. The area was not secure, there could have been more IEDs in the area or an ambush waiting for someone just like me. In retrospect what I did seems to be stupid. Here's a non-military example: "Man runs in front of train." Sounds stupid right? Taken from this context though it seems heroic, "Man runs in front of train to save teen in its path." Even though the teen was probably fully capable of saving himself from the oncoming train, the man risked his own life to save the teen.

Here. Read up on some of them. Believe it or not, most of these citations are toned down and gloss over most of the details of the event. There's a limited amount of space on the awards worksheet. I'm not kidding. Mine only has a fraction of what I did on those specific days.

The two from combat action in Iraq.
CPL Jason L. Dunham, USMC
SFC Paul R. Smith, USA

And the one from combat action in Afghanistan.
LT Michael P. Murphy, USN