I am writing this to seek advice from my brother and sister firefighters, I know im going to get alot of gruff for putting this on FFNation but my hands are tied and dont know where to turn for adivce. The following has taken place in my dept I belong to.
A very close brother FF was terminated from my volunteer dept last week after he made a comment about the dept on facebook.

A little about the member he is a 20 year old 2 year member of the dept and has an extensive background in FF our chief has said he is the most qualified person in our dept if not the county. He just graduated at the top of his class with an associates degree in fire science and has over 60 state and national fire certifications in everything from EMT to Firefighting to technical rescue of various kinds etc. So basically he is a young man just starting his career and at todays day in volunteer service is a dream for any volly dept to have with his kind of ambition for the service. The only time this young individual has been reprimanded in the dept is 3 times for driving faster than he should have been going to calls he had been suspended each time and was getting much better and had gone over a year with out any further problem infact even removed his lightbar to further reduce any problems. (which for a young firemen to do I think is a huge step) other than that he has never done anything even one step out of line and never but himself or anyone else in any type of danger or anything like that.

A little about the dept is that it is a very rural dept that is primarily older member who still operate the way they were taught when they were younger, to say the least the dept is not up to speed where they should be but that is another whole issue to which some of us are trying to work on but the dept is not liking the change.

Then last week this FF had taken part in a dept training on Monday night our normal training night and was upset over what was being taught which was the old ways and not current teaching to which he knew this do to his extensive training he recently completed but instead of causing an argument at the training he just sat thru it and didnt say anything when he go home that night he was still upset over what had been taught so this FF put a message on his facebook page stating “volunteering to be aggravated love it NOT!” to which some other of the dept FF commented back on saying “must be the fire dept” to which the FF replied “oh you bet, time to move on cause things are never going to get better there until the chiefs that are in are gone” to which one of the other FF replied calling the current chiefs “obama” and “hussian” and other FF replied “ yeah im not sure what there trying to do besides drive all the good firefighters out until nobodys left” and the FF replied “ im not sure what there trying to do either the only thing I can figure out is in the direction there going they want it to be only them left to do everything and thats it guess they feel they dont need anyone else.” and that was the extent of the comments online. The next day the chief of the dept called this FF at home and advised him he was being terminated immediately when the FF ask why the chief started to yell at him and say because he has some complaints about what was said online and that this FF called them Obama and Hussian which he did not (we have the original facebook messages to prove this) the chief continued to scream that if he has a problem with it that the FF can come to the board of commissioners meeting and discuss all this in executive session there at this point instead of creating a argument with the chief he hung up the phone and had no further contact with the chief. Then 2 days later the FF recieved a letter from the chief stateing “effective immediatly you are terminated from ABC fire dept and from CBA fire dist. Please meet myself at the ABC hal on Saturday at 9 am to turn in all dept issued gear, if you can not meet at this time please call me so we can arrange a more convenient time. If you would like to address your termination with the commissioners (and gives meeting time and location)”
Signed by chief and states a copy of letter has also been given to each of the 5 commissioners and to the dist lawyer. So on top of this FF having to work Saturday morning and not wanting to have contact with the chief at this time he contacted one of the commissioners and meet with the commissioner and turn in all his gear and the commissioner said he would notify the chief.

When the FF had talked with the commissioner to which he had surrendered his gear to had not been notified of his termination which was now 3 days after he had been even though the termination letter states it was sent to all commissioners. Also the other FF including the one who made the Obama and Hussian comment was not terminated untill 2 days later and that was only because of further comments they personally made on there own facebook in retaliation to the said FF termination.

What I am looking for is any advice or anything else the FFNation community could offer for what this FF can do now he does plan to attend the commissioners meeting which is to take place tomorrow evening but does not expect it to go very well.

To me none of this seems fair or legal to any FF, when does ones freedom of speech come in to play at no time did he make any threats to any one or anything what are your thoughts and what would you do in this case?