In the aftermath of the West Virginia coal mining tragedy, I have heard numerous talking heads assigning blame. Not one that I have heard is qualified to do so. None of them have been below the surface beyond the highly reinforced confines of the first few hundred feet beyond the shaft. Apparently their only qualifications for making rash judgements is that they once stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.

I have appropriated the title of a rather excellent book about Vietnam (the original title of the book from which the movie We Were Soldiers was taken because I feel there are some comparisons that will be important later on in this piece (even though I, admittedly, have never been a soldier and the comparisons may well be less than perfect).

One of the most overstated untruths about miners is that they become miners out of economic necessity, because there is no other work to be had. While that may be true of a small percentage of those who work for the mine, it is not true of most, and CERTAINLY not true of the miners who make their work into a career. The first time you experience significant rockfall, no amount of money can make someone stay in the mine if they don't want to be there. And make no mistake about it, it is not a matter of IF, but of WHEN, you will experience your first rockfall (a cave in is a massive rockfall that completely blocks the exit).

Many miners join the mining industry for the same reason firefighters fight fires or career soldiers enlist in the military. There's a knowing risk to one's safety but that is an assumed risk done on the understanding that the needs of many outweigh the needs of the few. In the soldier's case, the risk is assumed to defend the nation; in the firefighter's, it is to defend property and persons from the ravages of fire. In the miner's case, it is because the resources being mined are resources essential to our standard of living. There is a certain amount of machismo involved, granted, but for many, it's a job they love and a job of which they are proud. Having been both a miner and a firefighter, I believe I can speak with a certain amount of authority on those two.

Like warfare, like firefighting, and like certain other occupations such as crab fishing in Alaska, there is absolutely NO WAY to make mining 100% safe. You can't support several miles of underground haulage ways with steel beams and other forms of reinforcement, you have to use the best methods at your disposal. when the rock falls, it's going to fall and there's no way to prevent that from happening. Even in open pit and strip mining, fatalities are substantially higher than the workforce in general, and many minerals cannot be mined by open pit or strip mining methods in a cost effective manner because of the depth of the seam.

The critics are quick to point out that there were 208 MSHA citations against this mine, using this as evidence that the mine should have been shut down (and in one especially appalling incident, even blaming the BUSH administration for the fact that the mine was open in the first place). They fail to point out that only 46 of these citations resulted in fines and most of those fines were minor, and they also fail to realize what can result in a fine in the highly regulated atmosphere of the mine. A piece of equipment that has been broken down for five years and abandoned on the side of a haulage way that maintenance neglected to "tag out" is an automatic citation, and will almost certainly result in a fine; as will an inoperable radio, even if it is in an abandoned tunnel. If the "refuge" (the reinforced area for miners to gather in the event of a cave in) lacks adequate water, that is also actionable, even if the water was appropriated to miners up at the face because nobody wanted to go all the way back to the surface to bring more. In short, it is very easy for an operating mine to acquire a number of citations.

What happened in Tallmansville, West Virginia was a tragedy, to be sure. And the survival of even ONE of the miners was an absolute miracle. And in the years to follow, 13 families will receive large settlements from the company that owned and operated the mine, and they will deserve every penny. But, without strong evidence that so far has not been presented, we cannot assume that the deaths are any indication of a neglect on the part of the mine owners or the mine industry in general. And we shouldn't use this as impetus to tighter legislation, even though we almost certainly will.