January 9th, 2014 | Uncategorized
Over the last few days reports have been coming out that over 100 individuals have been indicted for fraud in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City. The social security disability scam is just now coming out, more than ten years later.
For those of you who haven’t heard about this yet, basically police officers, firefighters, and corrections officers manipulated the system to make it seem as if they had post tramautic stress from the events of Sept 11th. They were allegedly coached to respond to doctor questioning with symptoms typically associated with PTSD. The end result was hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance pay-outs.
We’d all like to think that some things are sacred in this life. You would think that arguably the greatest tragedy in American history would be enough to keep people honest, but it seems like time and time again humanity strives to lower the bar for itself. Personally, the saddest part about this whole story is that it could cast a shadow of doubt over NY’s first responders; the de facto heroes of 9/11. The vast majority of these men and women did an incredible job on that day to help save lives. Hopefully the acts of the few won’t change our perception of the many.
I guess we saw both ends of the spectrum in response to the 9/11 attacks. The honest, proud, resourceful New Yorkers who love the city and it’s people, and who would do anything to help… along with the wheeling and dealing, anything for a dollar, hustler New Yorker that the city is just as famous for. Though it’s tough to avoid cynicism when stories like this come out, I fully believe that emergency service personnel have a deep need to help others and I’m grateful for everything they do. No matter what else surfaces in the coming days, no one will ever forget the brave men and women who risked and lost there lives to help New York City survive 9/11. So hats off to the NYPD and FDNY, and all the other emergency services that have, and continue to support the city. Don’t let a few bad apples bring ya down
(If you want to read more about it: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/07/justice/new-york-ptsd-9-11-scam/)
