08.15.03
Bullet point
Firstly, credit to the US Secret Service for having such an un-secret web presence. Even more so that they have a FAQ specially designed to answer kids’ questions about their work, including the intriguing information that secret service agents are expected to buy their own sunglasses.
One question leaves me cold, though:
Why do agents agree to “take a bullet” for the President?
The reason we agree to “take a bullet” for the President is based on preserving the ideals on which this country was founded, such as democracy.
Not only is the answer dismissively brief, it fails to explain what democracy has to do with it all. A fourteenth century version of this FAQ, replacing “bullet” with “sword blow”, “President” with “King” and “democracy” with “the divine election of monarchs” would make just as much sense, which rather suggests that the line is meaningless.