I was living on the Eastern Shore of Virginia in 2001. I remember as I was driving along the radio announcer saying that normally he does not encourage people to stop listening to radio and go watch television, but people had to go see what was going on in New York where a plane, believed to be a small one at that time, had flown into the World Trade Center. I was listening to it as I stopped in to see my mother in Norfolk. Just before I walked into her house I heard them say a second plane had hit the towers. I remember standing in her living room looking at the television and watching the replay. The announcers were trying to determine what type of plane it was, but I knew. Having grown up under the landing pattern for the airport I knew a passenger plane when I saw one. The outline of the plane in the smoke was undeniable. That is not an accident. One plane maybe but definitely not two.

I drove on to my meeting in Williamsburg. We were supposed to be talking about other church things but all we could talk about was what we knew of events in New York. One tower fell before I got there. The other fell while we were talking. We said our goodbyes to each other, made calls back to our homes and left. When I went to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel I was stopped by police. They were checking all the cars and asking why we were going across. I told them I was headed back home. I think it helped that I was wearing my EMS shirt. It was a present for passing my EMT exam. I knew right then that something had changed in the world.

The next day I was talking to one of the firefighters in town. We were talking about scene safety and our first lessons in firefighter school. There was a moment when we said that they should have made sure that it was safe enough to go in that there had to be something they did not do that caused so many to die. But we were looking to make sense of something unexplainable, something we could not get our minds around. And then he looked at me and said, no, if we had been there we would have gone in too.

Let me be clear that I am telling my account of that day. In no way would I begin to compare myself to those who responded to that awful situation. Those who ran in while others ran out. I have too much respect for them. And there was a time when we were proud of them and respected them too. We have posted the pictures, written poems and songs in their honor, hailed them as heroes and promised we would never forget their sacrifice. Candidates have made whole campaigns out of their support for the heroes of 9/11. Every time a politician needs a boost they pass some act to honor our first responders by building a monument, statue, or discount day at the ballpark.

The problem is that it is all just a lie. The heroes of 9/11 are great for a photo op. But then they are pushed out the back door like some cheap hooker that served as arm candy for the ball but you do not want people to see beyond that. Because these heroes are dying. They are dying, not because that is the inevitable process of life. They are dying because they ran in while others ran out. And what they ran into was a cloud of poison.

Multiple studies have shown an alarming increase in the presence of cancer in those exposed to that cloud that lingered at ground zero while they went through the rubble bucket by bucket. They need our help. They are suffering and this is the opportunity for us to rush in and saved those who saved so many of us. Sadly, the same congressmen and women who fought for photo ops turned their backs when they were needed the most.

Have you heard about the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act? It is designed to provide health care for first responders and survivors who were exposed to toxins in the air at ground zero. Obvious thing to pass, right? Do you know that it was only after public shaming, especially driven by Jon Stewart through his role as host of the Daily Show that the bill was passed in 2010? The Bill was funded for 5 years while they made sure there was a link between the cancer and the air or that people would not cheat the system. They found there is a link and there was no fraud. And yet the Bill is about to run out of funding. The votes are there to pass it but some of the leadership does not want to bring it up. Or they are using it as a bargaining chip in the political games that make our government so dysfunctional.

When I was a kid I was taught that heroes were someone you looked up to and admired. Apparently in today’s world, we might look down and notice them as we step on them to reach higher for ourselves. Want to say that it is all about those people in government? It is not. Abraham Lincoln, in the Gettysburg addressed ended with a reference to “that government of the people, by the people, for the people…” The government is us. I know people want to say that this party or that party does not play by the rules. That all our problems can be placed on those other people. But we are the people of this country. So we need to speak and be heard. Remind your representative that when we say we will never forget it is not a catchy slogan. It is a promise. Tell them to pass the Zadroga Act now. Because we are running out of heroes. Heroes who need someone to run in for them.