The view from here:  Tragic and sad.  These high-profile professionals were
knowledgeable volunteers in a highly controlled but dangerous environment.
They died doing what they had all aspired to do.

In the words of Whittaker:  "If you check out doing somthing you don't like,
it's your own fault"

On the wall are the names of many professionals who were volunteers in a
dangerous environment.  Many of these volunteers didn't particularly care
for the duty but they stood in harms way for you just the same.  They were
not heralded with hours of tribute by the rating-hungry news networks, many
were just a number in the daily body count.  They had families and friends
and close associates and some received posthumous decorations, much like the
crew of Columbia.

We did not revel in pictures of the pain then and perhaps we should not do
so now.  Visit the wall.  Read the names. You will be humbled.

The Astronauts were a select few of highly capable, highly paid, dedicated
government employees.  Their untimely deaths are a tragic event. They will
be remembered. To decorate them would, I feel, be unjustified.  They died in
an industrial accident tragic but somehow not heroic.  Let them rest in
peace.  Let their loved ones grieve in private.

Dedicated professionals in many venues are killed in their pursuits.  The
Peabody Coal Company has a list. Dow Chemical Corporation has a list.  NASA
has a list.  The local war memorial in your town has a list.  Let us not
start a new list in pursuit of oil.

pensioner
 (5th SFG, MAAG, RVN 61-63, 2d Place) pacifist, activist, realist,
pragmatist