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What a day! I stayed up all night to watch the men being brought up, it was incredible. Americans are tough people, and these miners are amoung the toughest. There's no doubt about it the hand of God was in this rescue.

Isn't it funny that during the nineties all we saw were the soft, "sensitive" girly-men and we feared for our country. Now we see everyday how truely strong and gritty our people are.

Like you, I stayed up till the last man was brought up. I also saw the speach by the governor. What a great outcome!

The night the news broke that the miners were trapped, I went to the bedside of my two little daughters and explained to them the situation and we had a bedside prayer for those men. Being only 5 and 7, they had plenty of questions about what all this meant but were happy to offer their prayers.

They woke up last night when all the men had been rescued and when I told them what had happened, the 7 year old said ,"YESSSS!!!"

I was a little frustrated that there had been so little coverage of what was going on at the beginning, but I am glad in the end that they kept it low-key until the last few hours or the media coverage would have been agonizing.

So many things could have gone wrong in the rescue but I am in awe of how precise the whole operation went. Think of the decision made on where to drill that first hole. That, my friends, was a piece of work. Had that first hole been off, then we may still be waiting, wondering.

These guys had all the bases covered such as, drilling a well for pumping water out, drilling a well for pumping in air(and heated air at that)to pressurize the chamber to keep the water level down, providing a seal for the rescue shaft when the bit broke through the ceiling of the chamber to keep the pressure up and the water level from rising and numerous other backup and safety precautions. Even the USN was involved in case the miners suffered pressure sickness.

Thats a lot of "stuff" to pull togeather in a short amount of time. Thats America!