It has been a year since I penned a paean to public servants. It is again Public Service Employees Recognition Week.
Rather than repeat last year’s sentiments, I will send you to that article should you choose to go.
Nothing has changed, and everything has changed since that piece.
Life has become much more dangerous for our federal, state, county, and municipal employees. The massacre at Virginia Tech University serves as a grim reminder of that fact.
Not a day passes without some reference in the newspapers, TV, or omnipresent cable news to some hostage taking, shooting, or roadside explosive device that has injured, maimed, or killed one of our government employees.
Of course, to identify these people as government employees minimizes their value and humanity. They were someone’s mother, brother, daughter. They were someone’s best friend. They volunteered at their churches, waved at neighbors, and watched over the children in their communities. They lived, and loved, and then left us.
Without being too morose, it is important to recognize the wonderful everyday, down-to-earth, plain Jane’s and Joe’s that these individuals are. They are no better or worse than others. They merely serve in positions where their service affects a greater number of people than those in other occupations.
As we have been constantly reminded in the foreign and domestic scenes, these people deal with life-and-death matters, from the paramedic who is assisting someone injured in a car crash to the Marine sniper protecting his fellow comrade during a fire fight.
The activities on The Mall in Washington, DC, are wrapping up for another year, and we will go back to business as usual.
However, with all the reminders around us, it will be hard to ignore or forget the daily challenges faced and overcome by government employees serving us all across our country and around the world.
Well done, good and faithful servants.
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Fred W. Apelquist, III, M.Ed.
Approximately 315 words.
© May, 2007