In the final analysis, those arguments are irrelevant.

The true heroes are the men and women who did the job the city needed them to do with little regard for their own safety and Cesar Borja was one of them.

The World Trade Center Disability Law is clear and well defined. It says that if you worked a minimum of 40 hours in one of the specified areas within the year following the attack and were injured or became ill with a specified illness, then you qualify under the law. You did your duty, risked your life, suffered for it, and now it’s your employer’s turn to care for you and your family.

As PBA President Pat Lynch said about P.O. Borja, in his public response to questions about the officer’s first-responder status:

“New York City police officers asked no questions when responding to the attack on the World Trade Center. There were lives at stake, work to be done and New York City’s police officers did it .Whether it was evacuating citizens, crowd control, working on the pile or directing traffic, we did the jobs that needed to be done. The 9/11 Disability law is about exposure not work assignment. It provides clear criteria for eligibility. Police Officer Borja’s assignment at ground zero was in considerable excess of the minimum 40 hours during the prescribed period. He did his job, gave his life and qualifies for the benefit that provides little solace to the family of another fallen police officer.”

The New York Times took the Daily News to task over its report that indicated that officer Borja was a first-responder. The Times reported that there was no record of his working in the area prior to December 2001. It makes me wonder whether, if we sought out records for the 23 NYPD heroes who perished in the collapse of the Twin Towers, we would find a paper trail? Would the New York Times like to debate the likelihood of those officers having been on the scene despite the lack of reports indicating so?

The truth of the matter is that many police officers simply showed up at the WTC and went to work. Many finished their tour of duty in a precinct, jumped in a car and showed up at what used to be Church and Liberty Streets to do what cops do. America was filled with a desire to do something and so were New York City cops. We were needed. We showed up. We did whatever had to be done, and it didn’t matter whether there was a sign-in sheet or not.

What was hard to stomach was the embarrassment that the media put that poor cop’s family through. Did we have to have a public debate over the minutia of a paper trail? Isn’t it enough that Officer Borja worked in the hot zone for over 100 hours, was exposed to toxins, got sick and died?

Why was the story published? Was this about aiding and abetting those with a financial interest who are denying that police officers and others are sick and dying from exposure at the WTC? The Times did not, and indeed could not show that P.O. Borja was not exposed to toxins. The Times is not noted for its in depth local news coverage nor does it break local stories frequently. If you want to know what’s going on in Bahrain, then the Times is for you. It seems that the Times’ primary purpose was to embarrass the Borja family and undermine the sacrifice made by so many thousands of people during the days and months of recovery and cleanup. They are all true American heroes — the kind the Times rarely writes about.