Take notice, take a stand and take heart.
That is the lesson after spending Wednesday night with real heroes, men who happened to be playing a football game in New Jersey, four days before Super Bowl XLVIII.
Inside Essex County’s Richard J. Codey Arena, ex-Giants receiver Phil McConkey looked around the turf field at the Wounded Warrior Amputee football team.
“We’ve got problems in our country,’’ McConkey told The Post. “But I think people need to come to an event like this and meet some of these people, understand who they are, and what they are going through.
“I went to the Naval Academy two years after a war ended. I was in the military in a Cold War. These kids went after 9/11. After the war in Iraq started. That tells you all you need to know about who they are, their character and what our future holds. We need to welcome them back with open arms, assimilate them back into society, so we all can benefit.
“This generation is no different than the World War II generation. They’re going to bring us back to prosperity and success.’’
McConkey then put courage into perspective.
“People saw me, 160 pounds, 27 years old when I started, and told me, ‘You have a lot of courage, returning punts.’ These guys? They got more courage in the top half of their pinky finger than I have in my whole body.’’
Consider the courage of Marcus Burleson. He wore No. 6. He lost his left arm and shoulder. His right arm ends just below the elbow. He has lost his left eye.
“I’m a bomb explosives expert,’’ said Burleson, a Marine. “I’ve done 12 years of bomb disposal. I was working on an IED [improvised explosive device] in Afghanistan and it went off in my face.
“We were working dismounted, so there were no bomb suits, no robots. What you could carry for 10 miles is what you had. We would do bomb disposal, four, five times a day.’’
Four to five times a day. Imagine that.
“I want to show other wounded veterans not to be self-conscious,’’ Burleson said. “You can still go out and live your life and have fun. Guys are seeing me doing it, and if I can do it, anybody can do it.’’
B.J. Ganem, No. 32, lost his lower left leg in Iraq.
“We were on patrol,’’ Ganem said. “I drove the lead vehicle. We wound up hitting a victim-initiated IED, so basically what the terrorists did was run Christmas lights across the road, rigged it to a .155 millimeter Russian-made artillery shell. We had gone through about 13 IEDs and some land mines, and they always seemed to miss us. That was 10 years ago. Now I’m 37 and work as veteran-to-veteran leader in the Semper Fi Fund.’’
The challenge now is to get veterans jobs.
“These men are going to be here another 60 years, we have to get corporate America involved to get them careers,’’ said Ganem as the WWAFT beat the FDNY & NJ 9/11 First Responders, 32-14, in a physical flag football game in front of more than 2,000 fans.
“This is my third Super Bowl with these men,” said ex-Steeler Rocky Bleier, a Vietnam veteran, “and it’s all about giving these guys a sense of hope.’’
Jerry Kramer has been to six WWAFT events. The great Packers guard knows about winning.
“We need to acknowledge the sacrifices that they have made for our benefit so we can sit on our ass in front of the TV set, so we can go fishing, so we can do a thousand things we take for granted,’’ Kramer said passionately. “They’re busting their hump and losing their limbs to let us do that, and we have never really appreciated that enough. There’s a disconnect between our lives and their lives. We need to fix that.
“People say we were warriors,’’ Kramer said of Lombardi’s Packers. “We were pussycats compared to these guys. The attitude these kids have is just stunning. They are not bitter. They are having a good time. It’s the kind of evening that every little town in America should have.’’
Don’t dare take these heroes for granted.