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My state of fire fighting
I am writing this because I was reading old posts and thinking about things said by so many people and this week at our officer instillation dinner I was asked to give a speech about the brotherhood of fire fighters and my family experience. So I sat and thought about when I was young and new and how I felt at that time and how I feel now and mostly about the last ten years and things that have shaped how I feel. My family has been fire fighters since when FDNY was unpaid.
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS LIFE AND DON'T WANT TO LEARN OR OLD TIMER WHO THINKS THEY KNOW EVERYTHING PLEASE STOP READING!!
In the last 10 years I lost 3 close friends in the line of duty, 1 on 9-11 one on a routine EMS call that turned into him getting smashed by a large truck and lastly and most important my brother who died from an unknown illness 4 years post 9-11 I can not say it was from the effects of that time even if he was there weeks and was provided poor equipment and never had any other illness prior but please dont say its from 9-11 because thats against the law..
Ok why bring all this up? because even with all this I sit here knowing I love this life and all it gives, I know the feeling after 20 years of doing this is the same and yes we can say it I GET PUMPED WHEN I AM RIDING IN ON A CALL. So what do I have to say in this speech about my feelings of the fire service?
I see so many newbies saying things like the old guys treat me like crap or they don't want to here about the newest and best things out there and yes you old farts who say this new kids learn from a book and dont know anything and they dont listen or try as hard as I did at there age. So lets put all this in place, Hey probie listen up learn take the crap we all did and yes keep learning read the book take the class and never stop learning but please remember to give respect to those that have earned it! Now you leather faced old man with a bad attitude who can't learn anything we all bitched about bunker pants now I wouldn't live without them riding the tail board was fun but was stupid and toxins kill so go ahead take a deep breath if you dont want to learn. Last but not least those of you who don't feel women have a place in your house grow up they are even wearing long pants now days and have come out of the kitchen cave man!! and you women who want the job do the job pass the same test take the same crap we all take and don't ask for special treatment and remember dont crap wear you eat dating anyone in your house is stupid and will only mean trouble for those brave strong women who do this the right way
The fire service has been here before us and will be after us but while we are here its our job to make it better safer and all it can before the next set of kids playing with there toy truck and dreaming of their day. My 5 yr old dreams of being a fire fighter I hope for more for him but would never stop him. So what will my speech say it will say I respect love and care for ALL of you male female black white or green We all do a job paid unpaid we all are professionals and if we cant respect each other then we can never ask for respect from anyone else.
Capt. Dan Hoey
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS LIFE AND DON'T WANT TO LEARN OR OLD TIMER WHO THINKS THEY KNOW EVERYTHING PLEASE STOP READING!!
In the last 10 years I lost 3 close friends in the line of duty, 1 on 9-11 one on a routine EMS call that turned into him getting smashed by a large truck and lastly and most important my brother who died from an unknown illness 4 years post 9-11 I can not say it was from the effects of that time even if he was there weeks and was provided poor equipment and never had any other illness prior but please dont say its from 9-11 because thats against the law..
Ok why bring all this up? because even with all this I sit here knowing I love this life and all it gives, I know the feeling after 20 years of doing this is the same and yes we can say it I GET PUMPED WHEN I AM RIDING IN ON A CALL. So what do I have to say in this speech about my feelings of the fire service?
I see so many newbies saying things like the old guys treat me like crap or they don't want to here about the newest and best things out there and yes you old farts who say this new kids learn from a book and dont know anything and they dont listen or try as hard as I did at there age. So lets put all this in place, Hey probie listen up learn take the crap we all did and yes keep learning read the book take the class and never stop learning but please remember to give respect to those that have earned it! Now you leather faced old man with a bad attitude who can't learn anything we all bitched about bunker pants now I wouldn't live without them riding the tail board was fun but was stupid and toxins kill so go ahead take a deep breath if you dont want to learn. Last but not least those of you who don't feel women have a place in your house grow up they are even wearing long pants now days and have come out of the kitchen cave man!! and you women who want the job do the job pass the same test take the same crap we all take and don't ask for special treatment and remember dont crap wear you eat dating anyone in your house is stupid and will only mean trouble for those brave strong women who do this the right way
The fire service has been here before us and will be after us but while we are here its our job to make it better safer and all it can before the next set of kids playing with there toy truck and dreaming of their day. My 5 yr old dreams of being a fire fighter I hope for more for him but would never stop him. So what will my speech say it will say I respect love and care for ALL of you male female black white or green We all do a job paid unpaid we all are professionals and if we cant respect each other then we can never ask for respect from anyone else.
Capt. Dan Hoey
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by ILDisasterEMT on
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Captain-
It may seem a little anti-climactic after your moving words to say anything,but since the odds of life say that you and I will never meet, I had a few things I wanted to say to you.
First, I wish that we could meet. I wish that when I start my first day of fire academy on 2/9 that you could be the first officer I salute. Some of the officers in the department I'm joining don't like the idea of saluting and some of the younger ones think its silly. But to me, its just what you do to honor someone with brass on their collar. Not because they have the title or rank, but because of what they did to get it. We have a Deputy Chief, a Chief and a Chief Emeritus who is old and white-haired and still hangs around the station wearing his uniform and answering phone calls and serving the public though he long since paid his dues of service. He was around when my aunts and uncles and mother were children. He came to their school when they were in 3rd grade and told them not to play with matches. He drove my grandmother to the hospital in our community's first ambulance when my mother and all her siblings were born. He got out of bed in the middle of nights beyond number to disentangle and extricate his fellow community members from auto accidents when the tools for extrication were crow bars and sledge hammers. He has rolled hose and fought the beast and stood command on more fire grounds than most of us will ever see and even when his department was called for mutual aide, he got in his car and when to scenes to carry out functions far below his rank and he held every single rank and position the fire department I will soon be honored to be a member of ever had. He was knocking down flames when you were either a smoke eater or a chief and there was nothing in between.
Soon...in less than a week...I will be the newbie, the rookie, the stupid young kid. I'll flinch for who knows how long every time I hear a fuzee light a test fire. I'll know the rush of breaking glass the first time I punch out windows with a pike and probably lose a lot of my hearing from those powerful tools that untwist metal and cut glass. I will know a pride like I have never known before the first time I hold a crash axe or a halligan and feel like I have taken a step up the first time Im on the nozzle. My skin and clothes and hair will become saturated with smoke of a thousand fires until I can't smell it anymore and laugh at the irony of one of my senior fire fighters standing around a steaming charred house and smoking a cigarette lit with a zippo with the Maltese on it. As an EMT/firefighter, most of my clothes will probably be navy blue t-shirts and I will know how to use a center punch and trauma shears better than I could scissors when i was in kindergarten.
And then, in 4 months, I will hear my name called and square my flat top on my head as I walk across the station lawn and up the steps of an engine to receive my certificate from the Chief...a tradition in my new found fire home. I wont have paid my dues, but I will have earned the right to be a leather head, to have my own tan bunkers and to try to figure out a way to keep my feet warm in rubber boots as I stand in the spray of a hose on a cold winters night, trying with all my might and that of my brothers and sisters to save someone's home or car or more importantly their life. I hope that I will have done my job in training so that the first time I go in to fight and interior, that I dont run out scared by the roar of the beast and God help me if I ever lose respect for that monster that wants to kill me just as much as I want to kill it.
I've only worn turnouts twice in my life, during extrication training as an EMT and I will admit to not wanting to wear them when I am medical on an MVA scene and to putting my helmet on the roof of a car as I crawl inside. I remember the first time I did that and got slapped on the back of the head by an angry LT who said to put my damn cover back on because he didnt want to do the paper work when I got my head caved in. I remember turning beat read with anger at him for embarrassing me as I said "yes sir" and cinched my chin strap as i crawled through a broken window. Just as we all have moments that etch in our memories and remind us as we lay in the dark of a sleepless night at the station and force us to recall why we do what we do for no pay, why we do what very few will.
So when they call my name on that great day and I salute my Chief, just know I'll be throwing you one, too, Captain. Stay safe and may God go with you as you go with others.
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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
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The fire service relies on contantly evolving to make itself better. With more training, and a focus on safety we all (old and new) can work together as one unit to ensure the proper, safe mitigation of every fire scene. Great post Dan!!!
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ILD, with your attitude and mentality, I would definately be willing to work alongside you anyday, anytime. Keep up the posative outlook, you have a great career ahead of you in the fire service. Be Safe!!
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Permalink Reply by Dan Hoey on
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IL it would be my honor to work with someone that has your attitude and sadly I spend more time fighting with experience fire fighter who have gotten sloppy and have bad habits. Learn all the time thats my best advice never stop training and learning. There is no such thing as a routine fire the day you find one of those my be your last day doing this job.
The fire house is a home and should always be treated that way. We all fight with family but in the end we all are that family.
GOOD LUCK!!!!!
STAY SAFE@!!!!!!!!
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Captain-
I agree about the fire house being a home. I recently asked the Chief when we, as trainees, were allowed to come to the house. He said "You come here anytime you want" jokingly add "This house is the house you go to when nobody else wants ya."
I also asked him why the front door of the house was never locked. This is an old department, established long ago and all of the fire fighters and officers are pretty set in their ways. I was really touched by his answer. He said that our house is kinda like the White House. Its the people's house and just because stealing has become more common place and people break a lot more laws than they used to, he told me that fire stations have always been places of refuge. For the sick or injured, those who get lost or whose cars slip off the road in a snow storm. And now with the law we have in Illinois, any woman can drop off an infant that she is unable to care for within 3 days of its birth, no questions asked. He also said that the minute we start locking the door and people stop seeing that they have access to the house as part of their community is the minute they stop trusting us. And the minute they stop trusting us, we may as well roll hose and go home, because without the public trust, we cant do our jobs. He made me realize that fire fighters are so much more than the ones that spray water on burning buildings or answer medical calls in the middle of the night. People know that they can walk into a fire station at any time of the day or night and say "I need help" and those fire fighters will give them that help, no matter what the problem. Who wouldnt want to be part of that brotherhood of tradition.
I know there are some fire fighters who dont like this new law that women can turn their babies into the arms of a fire fighter when they are unable to take care of it. But so far in my city we have had 22 women use this law and those babies were tended to by the fire fighters and then turned over to children and family services and have found loving homes, either with foster families or through adoption. So I don't know how I will do in fire school, but I think anyone that doesnt want to be a part of something like that is out of their mind.
God bless the smoke eaters, and may God always bless the fire service.
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when your hanging out open every compartment and learn where it is ,,it being anything your asked for,,trust me us old people forget but we will remember if you forget
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Dan-
I saw a t-shirt the other day on one of my fellow trainees, and on the front it had the Maltese and Scramble and on the back it said "Stay where you are. We're coming to get you." I wish he had remembered where he got it because I would have sent you one. What he didn't know was that that was actually a piece of radio traffic from that awful September morning in 2001. A firefighter trapped under twisted metal and glass, calling out for help on the radio, and as his brothers ran up the burning stairs they kept calling back to him "Stay where you are, brother. We're coming to get you." They never did make it to him and they didn't get back out themselves when that tower collapsed into a plume of dust and smoke and ash. But maybe that is, and always has been the state of firefighting. Whether you are one of our own or one of someone else's its always "Stay where you are. We're coming to get you.
I also thought you might like to know, as I did with my bloodline being Scottish on one side and Irish on the other that there is now registered with the Office of Tartan and Heraldry in Scotland a relatively new plaid called "The firefighters tartan." As the owner of a few kilts myself, I plan to get one made of it. The main color of the tartan is black, symbolizing both smoke and those lost trying to save others, and red white and blue. The pattern of the tartan is sett so that on this field f black there are 3 intersecting red lines, 4 crossing white ones and 3 more intersecting blue ones...343. I dont think anyone in the Service needs that number explained to them. Its burned on our hearts and minds forever. Maybe you could share that with your brothers in your speech. - Attachments:
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FF Memorial Tartan.jpg, 9 KB
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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on
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In Illinois, the child abandonment law does not apply to volunteer fire departments unless they are manned 24/7. If not, then no.
We are in a small town of 800 people. Do we lock the station? Damn right we do. Why? Because we owe it to our taxpayers to protect THEIR property. Computers, software, high tech equipment, vehicles, food, money; it's all there for the taking. No thanks; I will give up that "homey" feeling for some insurance that we are not going to be robbed blind or worse, someone comes to the station and vandalizes the compressor or some other key piece of equipment.
Did you happen to notice that even the churches are locking up? $900 an ounce for gold will do that to you.
We aren't in Kansas anymore and anything of value is fair game for the thieves.
Lock it up if you want to hang on to it. Maybe you trust the people in your community, but if you have roads that run through your district, it will be roaming thugs that will get your stuff.
TCSS.
Art
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In the 50+ years leading up to now, that station has never been vandalized or burglarized.
Also, you will notice that I say that in IL a woman can deliver her baby into the arms of a firefighter. Im pretty sure that means the firefighter would be IN the station.
Im not sure if you just dont bother to read the entirety of my posts before bashing me or if you dont understand what Im saying in clear English. I honor your integrity and service since 1980, but go chew on somebody elses turn-outs for awhile. Just because I am new and should learn from those more senior to me, which isnt always easy for a variety of reasons, doesnt mean I have to take every insult you feel like dishing out. You're right. YOU are the reason I pulled that other thread because I didnt feel like being abused by you any longer. What you take for advice often ends up as an insult. Just because Im a rookie, doesnt mean that I dont know what Im talking about and have nothing to offer. And yes...we have roads. The 65,000 people in our district have to drive on something dont they.
Any further discussion should be taken to PM, but if attacked in public I will defend myself in public.
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