Monday, April 15, 2013

To do what you can, while you can

Another blow to a reeling nation- another dark cloud decends, and madness unleashed with no reason other than murder and mayhem.

It will play out in the news, and be seized upon for political gain for this group or that; that isn't what I am here to discuss.

Right now, I want to draw focus to one particular group of people. When explosions rocked the ground in Boston, they were there; screams of anguish and pain rent the air, and they were there. In the medical tent, they were there, in the street and in the buildings, in the ambulances and in the hospitals. With no warning given, no questions asked, no goal that lasted beyond the next scant moments, they ran to the wounded, the bleeding and damaged. They stanched wounds and held hands, guided the shaken to safety. They ran to the sound, not away. A doctor running the marathon who left to go straight to his hospital to receive patients. A paramedic, also a runner, who rushed in to do whatever he could. A medic in the tent, one minute treating exhaustion, the next treating wounded, never expecting to see a triage area blossom there.

Whenever I see these things happening, these are the ones that stand out to me. These are the ones to honor and to emulate. Without thinking, they throw themselves into battle to do what the can, while they can. Some had just run a marathon; surely there were few that expected them to answer the call. They did anyway.

In times of madness, always look for the ones running to help. It won't lessen the hollow act, but at least they give some hope.

3 comments:

  1. Well said. This is exactly why I do what I do. It certainly isn't for the money or the glory, those simply don't exist in my field. It is for the deep seeded desire to care for others.

    -Mandolin

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  2. First responders have a special calling to throw themselves into harm's way. God bless them.

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  3. I've been fortunate not to require their services too often in my, well, let's call them my more vigorously exciting years, but I'm certainly blessed to list among my friends and family a great number of firefighters, paramedics, and nurses. They're good people to know. But when I watch the news footage or read the reports, on days like yesterday, they're about the only thing that keeps my faith in mankind. Here is a glass lifted, and I pray they can always be found among us!

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