A Viewer Writes: Let Me Make Myself Perfectly Clear

When I say I get tired of hearing our political leaders praise our military, firefighters, police, and first responders as heroes ad nauseum, it’s because I mean it. It’s not that I don’t appreciate and have the ultimate in respect for them and all that they do, because I do consider myself near the top of that list, it’s just that I don’t care to worship any one group of people over the other because of their career choices. We all live in a society which requires many different careers to be populated and worked at to bring us all up to be a first rate country that is a world power, and there are many of these careers that are far to many to mention that require people to put their lives on the line every day, so I’ll mention a lot of them right now.

Utility linemen working through rain and wind
Construction workers in excavations and doing high work
Road Construction, & Bridge workers
Radio tower light bulb changers
Doctors & Medical workers risking deadly infections
Farmers using and working on heavy dangerous equipment, 1,000 lb. livestock
Laboratory workers of all types
Truck drivers
Factory workers
Racing teams of all kinds
Mechanics
Captain Sully

I guess just look at the insurance ratings for industrial trades to get the whole picture, but I hope you see my point. In all these trades and countless others, people risk their lives many times a week in the effort to help others who are busy practicing their own careers make their lives classier, easier, better and safer.

I grew up during the Vietnam era, and was in the draft lottery just for the last two years as the war there wound down. It was called a ”Police Action”, not a war, as I recall. Sorry, but when bullets fly between two opposing sides for over ten years, I call it war. And over what? I was never told, and our generation’s question came out at Woodstock when it was sung, “And it’s one, two, three, what are we fightin’ for”? Not really any incentive there for me to join the military when my own neighbors had been sent over there only to come home in a box.


I also felt no urges to get into law enforcement or firefighting, either, as I’m just not a “club person”. And, I don’t want to order other people around and forcefully manhandle them. It’s not that I don’t like being part of a team, as my construction career always made huge things happen well when all pulled together toward the day’s goal, I just enjoy the other 16 hours of my day away from all that and doing things for me and my own set of friends.

I did one day however, after Vietnam was over, walked in to the local Air Force recruiting office and signed up to take an entry test. I wanted to learn to fly and thought that I could use the AF as a stepping-stone toward that goal. As the recruiter came back with my test scores he had a big smile on his face and said I was just the type the AF was looking for. Percentiles were 95, 95, 95, and 89! He said I could do anything I wanted in the AF. I said, great, I want to be a pilot! He took my glasses off my face and asked, “How far can you see clearly?” I said, “About 18 inches.” He said he couldn’t put me in the cockpit of a (then) $22 million dollar plane and have my glasses fall off, but I could be anybody else on the plane; navigator, radio man, and handed me a list of careers I could choose from. I remember seeing trades like cook and heavy equipment operator on there and thought, “I can do ALL of these trades without having to go through boot camp and have a drill sergeant spitting in my face”. So, I handed the list back to him and politely excused myself and left.

Now, I have all the respect in the world for those brave young men and women who sign up to put themselves in Harm’s way in order to protect our Constitution and our safety and way of life here in America and will always admire them for signing up for the job/ career that they do and do realize that their level of risk can get much higher than mine. And I really hate to see our military men and women used in other countries as whores to Big Oil, drug trade, and arms trading. That’s not what they signed up to do and the statistics on suicide rates and mental issues in our military ranks speak loudly to that. If our politicians really hold these people up as heroes, they should quit treating them like crap, IMHO. It’s the same with police being treated like criminals for doing their jobs by the press and political leaders. And none of these trades are any more devoid of bad apples than all those in my aforementioned list, including the press and the politicians.

So, I want everyone to know how much I appreciate all people of all trades, and you are all of tremendous value either in the eyes of your families, co-workers, clients, or friends. We are all heroes to each other at one time or another, and I hold not one of you above the other, but as fellows in a class effort towards making a successful society. I hope that someday I have been or can be a hero to each and every one of you.

So, when I hear the all too cliché thanks to our heroic military, firefighters, police and first responders, I think to myself, without doctors, there would be nowhere to take me after picking me up off the road. Dead is dead, after all! Without manufacturing trades, none of the above would have weapons, cars, fire trucks, jets and tanks. When I hear that cliché phrase, I think of every one of my Brothers and Sisters of EVERY career that makes other careers possible, and really wish that we could get away from constantly mentioning the Holy Four.

So, when you see my eyes roll the next time I hear the Holy Four praised, you may better understand why.