EDIT:

If you can make the case 'soldiers = heroes' then the inverse of that (albeit not an antonym as RB comments) is equally likely to be demonstrable. Despite my own pacifism however (not absolute as said previously - I recognise the right to appropriate degrees of self defense) and consequent personal mistrust of the whole machinery of war and especially the glorification of it and those who willingly participate in it (as is the norm in the UK today) as I said early on I don't think soldiers are necessarily either heroes or mercenaries, but that the truth no-doubt lies somewhere in the middle.