Abramson's lordly ways

I will admit to pushing the envelope, but mainly it is in response to someone trying to push those buttons within me.

To lump 2 points together, I am not at all including officers who have served in the mililtary. As you have already agreed to, it is theperson and the action, not the uniform. I was a soldier, and although my unit was in the first Iraqi war, I never was. I was out of the military by the time that war rolled around. I do not think of myself a hero, in spite of the fact that I have stopped to help a paralyzed woman by pulling her out out a flaming truck. I consider myself compassionate and human. In reality, I think there are very few heroic acts, and far more humane acts. Throwing yourself on a grenade so that your fellow soldiers can survive, is what i think of when I hear "hero". Running into a situation that you do not fully understand is humane. Some heroism is easily confused with foolishness. There wa a man who threw himself onto another man in NYC, who was having a siezure and fell on th subway tracks. The man who saved him was with his daughter, and it could be argued that he was foolish for risking his life for this stranger. It could have ended up much worse, his daughter might have been fatherless. It is also an example of extreme selflessness. Risking your own life to save a stranger.

I have listened to the scanner, I understand that there are potentially life threatening situations. The difference is, that you simply have the knowedge beforehand. No one tells me that today on a run up north, that an elderly couple will pull of the shoulder in front of my semi from a dead stop, and that to avoid them I will have to swerve so hard that as a result, the right side wheels of my trailer will actually come off the ground and that my years of experience and the ability not to panic are the only things that will keep me upright. Nobody is going to warn me that a man in chicago will pull a gun on me because i have the nerve to blow my horn at him for tryinig to use the shoulder to get around me and other stopped traffic.

I listened the other night to the chase involving the hummer that was carjacked in IN, and the intensive search in the Iroquois projects. I understand fully the hesitation that one must overcome when confronting a possibly armed subject.

The only difference is that you have to go into situations that require resolve and courage, people like me are thrust into them. Many of these cops can continue to taunt me because I dont wear a badge, and slander me for the same reasons, but those same people would also have trouble doing my job. Going to bed at night in a strange city, most often in the worst areas of society, knowing the only thing between you and "them" is a door lock that was made as cheaply as possible by the manufacturer. See, laws have a funny way of depriving many truckers of the right to defend themselves. Unless you know exactly what states you will be travelling in, and the exact laws of those states, and the federal laws tht can be interpreted to harass you, you arent allowed to keep much of anything to protect yourself. A small wooden handle wrapped in metal at the end that can be justified as a tire thumper, is about the extent of it. You carry a bat? better have the ball and glove to go with it. Guns might not be illegal in some states, but federally, having "explosives" ie ammo, in the cab is. Gonna throw the gun at an intruder?

So when you talk about what is more than the public will ever know, the danger and the hardships, we all have our jobs, we all have our own risks, and we all decide what kind of person we will be when we wake up each day, assuming of course that we have survived the one before it.

As to your offer of a ridealong, I would be happy to, and have even accepted an offer from Col Turner to sign me up for tht program, he just never bothered to follow through. My email is still fordebates@yahoo.com if you would like to take the time to arrange something with me.

Oh, and though it may seem minute, just getting out of your truck in subzero weather to walk in the darkness 300-400 yards to use a bathroom is risky in itself. You never know what is waiting for you in the shadows, and tht is something that most of you should recognize the commonality of. Few do.