We live in a society that has changed dramatically from what our parents and grandparents knew. They lived through the Great Depression. We didn't. They knew how to do a lot of work with a little machinery and a lot of poorly-paid or unpaid manpower. We have to do the same amount of work with a little more machinery, fewer but slightly better-paid manpower, or fewer numbers of unpaid manpower. They knew how to re-use simple items until they wore out or broke beyond repair. They returned glass Coke bottles to the store for the nickel deposit. We throw plastic Coke bottles and aluminum cans in the trash if we're lazy or in the recycle bin if we're a little smarter.

Their firefighters did highly dangerous work for low pay, but had great pension plans and generally good retirement for firefighters permenantly disabled in the line of duty. That was because a few decades ago, society in general had a strong sense of community, a committment to civic duty, and a general understanding that a municipality had an obligation to the firefighters who were burned, crippled, maimed, or otherwise ruined their health while serving the greater good. That's no longer the case. Severely injured firefighters are often forced to retire with only a general disability pension...if they get anything at all. The disibility pension is great - if you like eating Ramen noodles a lot and never want your kids to attend college. In this age of longer post-retirement lives, skyrocketing health costs, and now the tanking economy, municipalities simply can't afford to fund what amounts to a blank check for severely injured firefighters, even if they wanted to.

For volunteers, things are even more grim. Not only do many volunteer firefighters risk their lives every time they turn out, most of them risk their living and their family financial future. Many volunteer departments don't carry anything like a volunteer worker's comp policy to support the firefighter and his/her family after a severe LOD injury. There are exceptions - if you get in a large enough pool with other fire-rescue departments, VFIS and a few other insurance companies have what amounts to worker's comp fire volunteers, but those policies are a long way from being universal.

What does this mean to YOU? It means that essentially, you are as disposable as those paper plates your shift throws away at the end of the annual company barbecue. If you are badly injured at work and unable to return to work after your FMLA leave, vacation, and sick time are exhausted, then your employment will likely be terminated unless you have a collective bargaining contract that says otherwise. And...even union departments that have good LOD medical retirement policies are going to be pressed to give up lots of those benefits in their next contract...or face massive layoffs. Departments from Philadelphia to Phoenix are facing layoffs, brownouts, station closures, and pressure to reduce personnel and benefit costs. Paying for an injured firefighter that is considered to be no longer productive or able to do the job...fahgettaboudit.

Read the responses to the blogs in Charleston...a significant number of responses to any story that references the Charleston 9 is met with responses that essentially say either "I have a short attention span, talk about something else" or "firefighting is a suicidal profession, so what's the big deal when a few of you die?" That means that a significant number of people that pay firefighter's salary either don't care if we live or die, or they actually expect us to die and don't see why we'd be upset if a few of us don't return from the next alarm. Given those attitudes, is it any wonder that those same people don't want to keep paying an injured firefighter or his/her family, no matter how the injury occurred?

So, what do we do when the employer will choose - or be forced - to replace us with a raw recruit if we're injured too badly to work? The most important thing is to stop considering ourselves to be disposable! As long as we keep throwing ourselves into Born Losers, drive like morons, drink alcohol in the firehouse and prior to responding, and other "Disposable Firefighter" behaviors, then brothers and sisters, we're going to continue to be considered disposable by the general public. We can fix it, though.

Change the equation from "Why shouldn't we go in there?" to "Why in the hell should we go inside THAT?" is an important first step.

Stopping the Disposable Firefighter Syndrome is both simple and infinately complex. It's simple, because the most important way to not be disposable is to simply decide that we're no longer going to be disposable. It's complex, because some of us don't recognize that no combination of professionalism, good intentions, testosterone, adrenalin, toughness, and cool-looking helmets is going to help us stop being disposable. YOU can take the first step. Look in the mirror and tell the reflection "I AM NOT DISPOSABLE", and mean it. Then go practice it every time you step into a firehouse, respond to an alarm, or go to a LODD funeral.