I'm awed, amazed, thrilled, and grateful for the successful rescue of the 33 trapped Chilean miners. I really am. But there's a disquieting thought that keeps intruding on my celebration. It seems curmudgeonly, at best, to point out that for most of their ordeal the miners have had contact with the surface, food, water, tobacco, medical advice, a very expensive and intense rescue effort, and the good will of the entire world. I admire the men no end for managing to work together and survive such a horrendous experience.
But when I read over and over the concerns about the men's mental health, and how they will bear scars for life because of their ordeal, and of all the effort put forth to help them, including training in how to deal with the media (another tribulation!), I can't stop thinking of the men who for longer months endured captivity and torture during the Vietnam War. Or the 444-day ordeal of the victims of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Or [fill in any one of a number of terrifying imprisonments]. Where was the concern for them? Where the effort to ease their return to society? Where, even, the money pouring in for interview, book, and movie deals?
Maybe we've become more concerned and compassionate over the years. Maybe we just like a good, dramatic story. I wouldn't take anything away from the support given these miners—but wouldn't it be nice to see that solidarity, that love, that attention, and those financial resources poured out for the ones who suffer even now, all over the world, mostly in obscurity?
