It's obviously not for the money, status or respect. The people who look out for our health, security and safety get little of that.

        I'm talking about nurses, soldiers and cops. They don't gripe much, but when they do, we should listen. They've earned that much at least.

        • “It's not about money, it's about patient safety,” said Marsha Faries, a nurse at University Medical Center for 14 years, who was angry enough to walk out on strike.
       

Thank a nurse

        “There is just not adequate staffing to keep patients safe and keep us safe. We're just really tired of people not knowing how unsafe things are.”

        The fattest carps in the health-care pond are bottom-feeding on obscene salaries worth millions — while nurses get hooked for mandatory overtime, 20-hour shifts and unsafe staffing.

        Before the strike was averted, I asked Ms. Faries how she could walk out on patients. She broke down and cried. “Does it break my heart? You betcha,” she said. “Is it something I have to do? You betcha. Where's it going to stop?”

        • A soldier posted somewhere in harm's way near Afghanistan sent me an e-mail quoting a Rush Limbaugh show: “If you lost a family member in the September 11th attack, you're going to get an average of $1,185,000. ... If you are a surviving family member of an American soldier killed in action, the first check you get is a $6,000 direct death benefit, half of which is taxable. Next, you get $1,750 for burial costs. If you are the surviving spouse, you get $833 a month until you remarry. And there's a payment of $211 per month for each child under 18.”

        What Americans did for the survivors of 9-11 was one of our finest moments. But what we're not doing for the soldiers who risk death for our freedom is shameful.
       

Cops in handcuffs

        • And here's a Cincinnati cop, responding to my recent columns on brazen drug crimes: “The loud-mouth activists have made it easier for the dope boys to do their business because they have put handcuffs on the cops who used to chase them off the corners. I can't make an arrest on Burnet Avenue without several people surrounding me and calling me a racist cop. I get rocks thrown at my police car as soon as I walk away from it,” Officer Don Meece wrote. “And when I do have to use force, my supervisor responds to conduct an investigation, and guess what? Several people observed me mace, punch, or utilize the equipment that the city gives me to handle the situation, but nobody saw the bad guy punch, kick or otherwise assault me.

        “I knew when I became a police officer that my every move would be scrutinized,” he said. But “a criminal and his money-hungry lawyer” can ruin a cop's reputation and career. “I don't like bad cops any more than you do, but this is not happening to bad cops, it's happening to good cops all the time.”

        Then he added something that speaks for all the heroes who work at the outskirts of ordinary life, asking nothing but an occasional lifeline of support:

        “Although I do get frustrated at times I still love my job and am proud to tell folks I'm a Cincinnati police officer. I'm not going anywhere. I refuse to let name-callers and finger-pointers take away the pride I have in doing my job.”

        E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.

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