"The Greater Good": Part IV

Let's deconstruct this picture. To let the horse out of the barn early, I will confess that the first time I saw this picture on the front page of the Daily News, my immediate reaction was--cannon fodder. The face of cannon fodder. "Where do I go to enlist?" I say this with all due respect for the man standing next to the president. I really don't have any idea what kind of man he is. This isn't about reality; it's about symbols. There's the president, just a regular guy wearing a plain old gray wind-breaker, and he has positioned himself next to one of the guys in the trenches, and, man, that guy is just beaming. He looks like he would go to the wall for his commander-in-chief. And he doesn't look like a green kid. In fact, he looks like he's a bit on in years. Loyalty, obedience, trust. Semper fi(delis) is the Marine motto, and it might as well serve for all the uniformed services. Knowing what we know now, the health of that fire fighter might have better served if that respirator hanging around his neck was still over his nose and mouth. The president would spend a few minutes at the site; the fire fighter and his fellow rescue workers would spend hours, weeks and months. They were told the air was safe. It was recommended that they wear their respirators, but unlike the workers at the Pentagon site for whom the use of the respirators was mandatory, it was more or less up to them. Loyalty. Trust. Obedience. Hey, c'mon. People had died here. This was war. We know now that many rescue workers have died and that many, many more are sick and will never get better. What about Christine Todd Whitman? What about the EPA? What about OSHA? The city? The state?