Yesterday it was a bad day

There’s a saying in the fire service: “It’s a good day when everybody goes home”. 

In the rugged mountains near Yarnell, Arizona yesterday it was a bad day.  A very bad day.  19 wild fire fighters were trapped by the wind-driven flames.  They will go home, but not in the way it is hoped.  They will be carried from the spots where they tried to find refuge from the fierce flames, carried no doubt by brother and sister firefighters and rescue people.  Carried by people who know their fear and their pain and their devotion to what they chose to do: give their all to try to help, to save others.  They gave all.  Prayers of sympathy and hope go out to their loved ones, their fellow firefighters, their town, the ones left behind who must cope with this devastating loss.  They join the heroes who so rarely get the acclaim they deserve, they and the men and women in West, Texas, and Webster, NY and Houston, Texas and New York City and in the forests and cities and towns and plains all across our land - so many more men and women in so many more places.  Yesterday was a bad day for 19.  May the days ahead be good ones for all of the others.