Almost as heroic as community organizers. /spit

This also struck me during the attempted assassination of Reagan. Normal human instinct is to protect oneself. The Secret Service agent unhesitatingly used himself to block further shots.

Unfortunately, a student brought a loaded gun to our local high school last week. A friend asked her 14-year old son what he would do if someone in his classroom started shooting. He said, “I’d rush him and take him down so he wouldn’t hurt anyone else.” He wants to be a Marine.

The death rate of farmers is higher than the death rate of soldiers in iraq.

the actual number of secret service men who have had to die on the job is how many?

so technically, you go into the job, but the likely hood of your demonize in it is a lot lower than GARBAGE MEN…

Here is the top ten list for the deadliest jobs in theUnited States:

1. Fishing / 200 fatalities per 100,000 full-time workers

2. Logging / 61.8 per 100,000.

3. Pilots / Flight Engineers / 57.1 per 100,000.

4. Farming / Ranching / 38.5 per 100,000.

5. Structural Iron and Steel Workers 30.3 per 100,000.

6. Garbage Collector / Recyclables Collector / 25.2 per 100,000.

7. Roofing / construction laborers

8. Installers and Repairmen Working on Electrical Power Lines.

9. Truck Drivers / 18.5 per 100,000

10. Coal Mining.

its MY believe that those unsung people who ACTUALLY die are the real risk takers.

see secret service man above in that list?

see police in that list (not since women are on the force).

see firemen?

So who is the REAL risk taker the modern american soldier, or his opponent?

who is the real risk taker, the secret service man who in the modern history only had to act twice (Kennedy and Reagan) and neither times died?

or is it the average joe who stands up and dies?

over 95% of work related deaths are MALES…
don’t see the parity army equalizing that one, do you?

TECHNICALLY the young man who goes out fishing to put a sea food meal on your table is taking a much higher risk of actually dying AND HE KNOWS IT, than the secret service man.

he would have a much better chance at a pretty nice life if he was ABLE to join secret service, and not fish!

[edited for length by n-n]

Actually, that was the University of Texas tower, in Austin. A&M didn’t build a tower until the late 80s.

But we also need to remember others who also risked themselves. Risk Rescorla, Security Chief for the Morgan Stanley Dean Whitter firm and former hero of the Ia Drang battle in the Vietnam war (documented in the book and movie We Were Soliders Once, and Young, not only worked tirelessly to get everyone out of the towers (in the face of some other misguided security officials’ advice to stay put… yes, some building officials went so far as to tell people to go back to their offices) but also went back in to look for stragglers. He was caught in and died during the North Tower collapse.

Also: Frank DeMartini, architect, also willingly entered the damaged North Tower to conduct an assessment of it’s soundness; his was one of the first warnings of potential failure, and unfortunately, his warning ended up being true and killing him.

As a side note, this is why 9/11 truthers piss me off to no end. They deny the basic, well documented, and well proven history in order to substitute a paranoid, delusionary narrative that’s to their own liking. The real history has as much bravery as it does tragedy – need we be reminded of the United 93 passengers brave attack on the cockpit in that flight’s final moments? — and truther idiots prefer to ignore that in favor of idiotic lies.

At any rate, there is plenty of bravery outside the already known bravery of the first responders. Comparing them to the Secret Service personnel who willingly put their own lives on the line is quite appropriate, I belive.