The American Spectator

At the conclusion of the memorial service on Sunday for Jerry Groves, one of the deceased miners, his son-in-law, Mike Rose, asked the coal miners in the audience to rise to their feet and be recognized. Ten men stood and Rose told them: “You are the backbone of this state and this country. Always hold your head high and tell everyone you are a coal miner.” Truer words are rarely spoken. These men go daily into the bowels of the earth to extract the gifts of fuel that the Creator secreted there, available to mankind if it is equal to the labor of hacking, heaving and hoisting. We take coal for granted in its various uses, as a liquid fuel, as steam coal burning to generate electricity, as the main energy source in cement production, as coking coal to power the blast furnaces that produce iron and steel. None of that is possible without these hardy boys.

p> em>”Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, br> Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; br> Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile br> The short and simple annals of the poor.” /em> /p>

This was a very solid group of men; we need to mourn them and learn to appreciate more those that remain. They work hard and are not wont to complain. Nor do they come home and spew a gospel of resentment. Instead, they live a friendly small-town existence with strong religious affiliation: no atheists in that foxhole. Look at the beautiful letters that they left their families when they sensed that death was near. No bitterness, no complaint, just love and reassurance to parents, spouses and children. What does it tell you about the character of a person when his primary concern in his dying moments is to mollify his loved ones with the image of him passing painlessly?

p> em>”Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife, br> Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray; br> Along the cool sequester’d vale of life br> They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.” /em>