My heart goes out to the families of the miners in West Virginia. As many of you know, for six months of my life, I was a miner, and I have a better idea than many of what these families are going through.

I also have enough realistic understanding of the dynamics of a mine to know that, barring somewhat of a miracle, this is not a rescue, but a recovery effort. That's why the effort has proceeded somewhat slowly; nobody wants to compound this effort by losing rescue workers as well.

Before miners go down, they are issued a belt, a hat, boots, a head lamp, and a "rap wrench". The wrench is basically a pipe wrench with a flat surface on the backside for pounding on certain objects. It's used as a tool for everything from vehicle repair to opening that oh-so-stubborn bag of potato chips your wife packed in the lunchbox. But most importantly, it's your tool for survival. When you are trapped as a result of rockfall, you use the wrench to pound on the pipes at intervals to let resuce workers know where you are and that you are alive. Workers have been pounding on the pipes that lead to the area where the miners are believed to be trapped, with no response, meaning they're either deceased, incapacitated, or in another part of the mine entirely. It's a grim picture, even though nobody wants to admit it publicly.

Underground miners share a common thread: they cheat death each and every day they go underneath the surface. While I continue to hope and pray that somehow the inevitable hasn't happened here, I know that in all probability, these miners rolled the dice one time too many.