WHO ARE THE REAL HEROES?
By Bill Hamilton
The mind-numbing events of September 11 have generated a virtual litany of descriptive terms to describe the feelings of those who viewed them - horror, terror, sadness, anger. May I suggest that we add another to our vocabularies - hero -- and use this memory to cement its appropriate use into our national psyche.
Too often our kids, sometimes even encouraged by their parents, identify their "heroes" as sports figures, television stars or even business personalities. After witnessing yet again the hundreds of fire and emergency-service workers responding to another major disaster in this country, in my mind only they truly qualify for that title.
When your kitchen catches fire as you prepare Sunday dinner or your neighbor's heart stops as he cuts his grass, no one from the WWF or the NFL will come to your aid. When your dad with Alzheimer's goes missing or your teen is trapped beneath the steering wheel of his overturned car some rainy Friday night, no one from the NBA or the NHL will be of any help whatsoever.
Since Pennsylvania's own Benjamin Franklin established the first emergency-response service in America, the men and women who have served in these capacities - firefighters, police, medics, search and rescue technicians and so many others - truly have served as our nation's real first line of defense, largely without acknowledgement, sometimes under ridicule.
As September 11 rightfully continues to be described as a day that changed America, I hope it also will have become the day our use of the word "hero" will have become reserved for those who truly deserve such a noble title.
Those brave souls who ran into the World Trade Center to render aid to their fellow New Yorkers, those who valiantly fought the raging fire at the Pentagon in Arlington, and even those who responded to the Somerset County, Pa., plane crash scene and eventually secured the site for investigators, all went right to work because they knew they had a chance to save a life, even if doing so could cost them their own.
They had no big government plans or policies; they had no radar systems or missiles to defend themselves. They signed no autographs or multi-million-dollar contracts or sports-drink endorsement deals. They didn't hit home-run records and then sell the ball for thousands of dollars or keep track of shots on goal and auction off a hockey stick. They just did their jobs. Sadly, many of them died in providing their service.
Yes, September 11 changed America. It identified, once and for all who are America's real heroes. But it's who they always were - policemen, firefighters, medics and other emergency-service responders, career and volunteerS. I thank God for every one of them who responded so bravely and mourn with those who so unfortunately have been left behind by some who made the supreme sacrifice to serve and protect the rest of us.
(By permission of the author)
William N. Hamilton, Jr.
Life-member, Latrobe Volunteer Fire Department
Past-president, Pennsylvania Fire Services Institute
601 James Street
Latrobe, PA 15650
412-787-7551
twobills@bellatlantic.net