A Week for Appreciation

This post-Labor Day work week is bracketed by a series of days that remind us how valuable public employees are to this city, and the dangers of the jobs that they do: the funerals for a Sanitation Worker and two Firefighters who died in the line of duty, and the fifth anniversary of 9/11.

The massive death toll on Sept. 11, 2001 - 403 rescue workers died, 343 from the Fire Department alone - indelibly drove home to the public the risks those workers take. When other public employees die on the job, however, their names pass quickly into obscurity for most of those who didn't know them personally.

But Probationary Firefighter Michael Reilly and Lieut. Howard Carpluk in battling the 99-cent store fire that claimed their lives were no less heroic than those who died at the World Trade Center. Their efforts may have been more commonplace, but the commonplace for cops and firefighters is to race toward the hazards from which others flee. Most of the time, they do it skillfully enough, and with sufficient luck, that we don't even take notice of the risks involved.

Those participating in Saturday's Labor Day Parade, and those watching along Fifth Ave., should pause from their revelry, if only briefly, to think about the risks that are willingly confronted by those public servants charged with keeping us safe, and the sacrifices they and their families sometimes accept as part of their jobs.