{"id":2629,"date":"2015-08-26T08:16:22","date_gmt":"2015-08-26T14:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=2629"},"modified":"2015-08-26T08:16:22","modified_gmt":"2015-08-26T14:16:22","slug":"first-responders-or-second-responders-heroes-or-role-models-reflecting-on-the-train-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/08\/first-responders-or-second-responders-heroes-or-role-models-reflecting-on-the-train-attack.html","title":{"rendered":"“First Responders” or “Second Responders”? “Heroes” or “Role Models”? Reflecting on the train attack"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The kids are at school, I have a mountain of things to catch up on for work, and what have I done? \u00a0A late breakfast (because I spent the time before the kids left, filling out the forms at the last minute), prepped a pot roast in the crock-pot, read the paper, and a quick blog post.<\/p>\n

But there are two reflections on the French train attacks that caught my eye.<\/p>\n

The first, from Glenn Reynolds, aka instapundit.com, in his Monday column at USA Today<\/a>. \u00a0\u201cSee something? DO something!\u201d, he urges in the title, and then writes:<\/p>\n

Bureaucracies have their place, but they don\u2019t deal well with diffuse threats such as terrorism. By the time \u201cfirst responders\u201d get there, it\u2019s usually too late. But there\u2019s one group of \u201cresponders\u201d who don\u2019t have to go anywhere, and that\u2019s the group already on the scene. In conventional analysis, and in the terrorists\u2019 hopes, those people are called \u201cvictims.\u201d But as the three Americans on that French train demonstrated, victimhood isn\u2019t the only response. . . .<\/p>\n

Fear is contagious. But so is courage. People should respond not like a herd of sheep but like a pack of wolves.<\/p>\n

. . . [Despite the recognition that quick thinking passengers on doomed Flight 93 fought back against terrorists] when the government reacted, the money went into enriching and strengthening those bureaucracies instead of, as [J.B.] Schramm urged, educating and training American citizens. Perhaps this latest incident will serve as a reminder that there is another way. At the very least, it should remind citizens that while you can\u2019t rely on the government to be everywhere you are, you yourself are always there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The second, a Bloomberg piece by Marc Champion<\/a>, as syndicated and published in today\u2019s Chicago Tribune. \u00a0It\u2019s titled, \u201cWant More Heroes? \u00a0Bring Back the Draft,\u201d but that\u2019s a misleading headline, as the article doesn\u2019t actually say anything of the sort. \u00a0(It seems to be a case of a headline writer wanting something attention-grabbing.)<\/p>\n

Here are his key paragraphs:<\/p>\n

Soft targets \u2014 from trains to buses to bars to shopping malls \u2014 can be attacked. No police force can protect them all, and no intelligence service can monitor every suspect. So if this incident tells us anything useful about defending against terrorism, it is that ordinary people will sometimes be the only defense. The key to making ordinary people effective isn\u2019t the American spirit, it\u2019s training. Because they knew what to do, Stone and Skarlatos were confident enough to say, \u201cLet\u2019s go,\u201d and empowered to succeed.<\/p>\n

Moogalian is still alive, his wife says, thanks to Stone. The American said he saw the professor was bleeding profusely from his neck, realized a tourniquet would do no good, and plunged two fingers of his undamaged hand into the wound to cap a burst artery. He kept his fingers there until help arrived. Without military-level first aid training, I doubt he would have had the knowledge or confidence to act so effectively.<\/p>\n

Conscription-based militaries are out of vogue in most of Europe and in the U.S., and for good reason. They\u2019re expensive, inefficient and unpopular (I know I wouldn\u2019t have wanted to join the army at 18). Reinstituting the draft, or national service as it used to be called in Britain, would as yet be a vast overreaction<\/strong> to the scale of the threat.<\/p>\n

Even so, it\u2019s worth considering that the most effective defense against a certain kind of attack that appears increasingly part of the jihadist tool kit, may be to make the training Stone and Skarlatos had much more widespread. \u00a0(emphasis mine)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So:<\/p>\n

there are a couple issues here.<\/p>\n

The first is mindset. \u00a0Do you wait for help to come, or do you recognize that you can be the \u201chelp\u201d\u00a0that others need, even at risk to your own life?<\/p>\n

The second is ability. \u00a0My kids are in Boy Scouts. \u00a0Here\u2019s the Scout Oath:<\/p>\n

On my honor I will do my best
\nTo do my duty to God and my country
\nand to obey the Scout Law;
\nTo help other people at all times;
\nTo keep myself physically strong,
\nmentally awake, and morally straight.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Everyone thinks that the \u201cmorally straight\u201d is a joke, now \u2014 but the \u201cphysically strong\u201d component is not meant simply for its own sake, but because if you are weak, you are much less able to \u201chelp other people at all times.\u201d \u00a0 And not only is First Aid a merit badge required for rank advancement, but basic first aid is required for some initial ranks, and various other badges require understanding of relevant first aid.<\/p>\n

My oldest son will also be taking a Health class in school (10th grade) this year. \u00a0I am a bit nervous that it\u2019ll be a semester of \u201ceat your vegetables and use a condom\u201d but am hopeful that it\u2019ll include meaningful First Aid.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it comes down to this: \u00a0after September 11, the term \u201cfirst responders\u201d came into vogue to describe police and firemen. \u00a0But we as a country are much better off if we recognize that they are really, or should be, \u201csecond<\/strong> responders\u201d and that ordinary citizens can, and should, step in when such situations occur. \u00a0And Stone, Skarlatos, and Sadler are heroes, but they should also be role models for the rest of us.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The kids are at school, I have a mountain of things to catch up on for work, and what have I done? \u00a0A late breakfast (because I spent the time before the kids left, filling out the forms at the last minute), prepped a pot roast in the crock-pot, read the paper, and a quick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n"First Responders" or "Second Responders"? "Heroes" or "Role Models"? 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