We all come back, or we all die together
It is often said that the really tough guys are the ones who get up and go to work every day. Without doubt, it is a group of really tough guys who go down into the mines everyday, out of sight and out of mind to too many of us, we who live in the day light and only think of them when something goes haywire, underground, in a faraway state.
Coal mining is a dangerous business and, like structural firefighting, results in a strong bond of friendship and equally powerful ties of brotherhood. Firefighters never have to ask each other if the other members of the engine or truck company will come back for them if something goes wrong. They know they will and it is therefore foolish and a waste of time to ask about this unwritten rule. This principle, though invisible, and emblazoned on every rig and in every bunk room, just as it is in every heart, says they will all come back or they will all die together. The same rule holds for miners.
Like firefighters, miners are generational. Grandfathers and fathers pass down skills and knowledge to kids. Just as firefighters walk into firehouses and flames together, so the miners walk into locker rooms and the deep mines together, in a day to day fight against gravity, the vagaries of coal seams, the pockets of poison gas, and the perils of sudden explosions. And knowing the risks, they either return to the surface or die together. You just never know when the day might come.
Imagine the men huddled together in the twilight, illuminated by the fading yellow light of their helmet lamps. Calmly waiting for the help they knew the unwritten rule meant was coming or for their death. And here we find the incredible fearlessness instilled in them from their years underground. No one ran. No one went to pieces. Nobody was abandoned or left behind. No outlandish Hollywood histrionics. They stayed together and died together, a band of brothers, united in friendship........
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