Get Back Onboard! [Ethically Speaking]

I was listening to the news while driving home the other day when I heard a translation of the recording between Capt. Gregorio De Falco of the Italian Coast Guard in Livorno, Italy, and Capt. Schettino of the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia. “Vada a Bordo!” Capt. De Falco shouted while Capt De Schettino repeatedly came up with excuses to not go back onboard his ship. According to Capt. De Schettino, he did not abandon his ship. Instead, he tripped and fell into a lifeboat with his second-in-command. “Listen Schettino, perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this,” De Falco yelled. De Falco became an instant hero. His wife said, “The worrying thing is that people like my husband who simply do their duty every day, immediately become idols, personalities, heroes in this country. That is not normal.” Schettino was certainly a coward, but was De Falco a hero?