Let’s Roll

I was going to write a post on this yesterday, but I deleted it when I read this.

When you put on the uniform of a cop, a firefighter or a paramedic, or to a far greater extent, a soldier, there comes with it the acknowledgment that you may die wearing that uniform. You come to grips with that, or you don’t put on the uniform.

Dying in the line of duty may be honorable, but it is not heroic. There is nothing heroic about dying. And honoring the sacrifice of cops and firefighters in New York certainly does not extend the same honors to cops or firefighters in Texas.

Or for that matter, paramedics in Louisiana.

You want to look for 9/11 heroes, look no further than the passengers of Flight 93. Those people came from all walks of life. They were not members of the public safety brotherhood, but members of the larger brotherhood of man. They swore no oaths to protect or defend anyone.

And yet, when the situation called for it, they rose up and fought back. When faced with the prospect of dying themselves to save thousands of others from a similar fate, they did not shrink from the task.

They were heroes.

When I listened to the politicians and pundits bloviate yesterday, I was struck by two realizations:

First, none of them – not a single, blow-dried, vacuous, morally compromised one of them – are worthy of the sacrifice of those men and women.

Second, if America is still capable of producing citizens like the passengers of Flight 93, we are still strong indeed. I suspect there are many thousands more just like them, found pretty much anywhere in America outside the DC Beltway.