Billy Don't Be a Hero Billy Don't Be a Hero "Billy Don't Be a Hero" is a 1974 pop song that was first a UK hit for Paper Lace and then, some months later, a US hit for Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods. The song was written and composed by two British songwriters, Mitch Murray and Peter Callander. Because the song was released in 1974, it was associated by some listeners with the Vietnam War, though the war to which it actually refers is never identified in the lyrics. It has been suggested that the drum pattern, references to a marching band leading soldiers in
George A. Hero was twenty he joined the cotton firm Robinson and Hero, and later owned and operated the business under his own name. In 1889 Lehman, Stern and Company hired him to run its cotton futures department. When the company incorporated in 1896, he became its vice president. Hero retired from the cotton business in 1912. He owned a derelict plantation on the west bank of the Mississippi River. Canals dug there during the early 19th century in order to grow sugar and cotton had degraded after the Civil War, and the swampy land was almost worthless. Hero's neighbors showed no interest