Soldiers who die in battle receive national honors for service to their country. This is fitting and right. Firefighters and police officers who die in the line of duty receive widespread honor. This, too, is wholly right.For people who die working on oil rigs, response differs. There is no national honor. There are no public memorials. The attention that befalls a fatal rig disaster treats names of the victims as less important than circumstances of their deaths. News stories focus on spectacle, spill threats, and politics. The people are anonymous hard-hats, regrettable in their loss but otherwise forgotten. If their work comes up at all, it's as the subject of questions about whether i...