The tee shirt photo I posted has gotten over 3K views between LI and FB. The question I asked was “What message does this send about the American Fire Culture?”
Captain Gonzalo Garcia with the Broward County Fire Department in FL shared the picture with his crew. He send me a report on what he learned. He gave me permission to post it.
“Just completed my morning shift meeting with my crews. It is a assortment of young and older crew with one female and 12 in total. We discussed the picture of the T-shirt you mentioned a few days ago.
For the most part I got two responses, one from the older crews and one from the younger crews. The older crew, 15 plus year in service, mostly reacted as I did which is to realize the idea of dying from fire was not a laughing matter.
This older group have families with young kids and are more in tune with the harsh reality of the firefighting job. The younger crew appeared to jump into the logo and sound like a bunch of motivated Marines getting ready to take a hill and not thinking about possible casualties. This younger crew are very motivated and have an almost too good of a time thinking about the T-shirt.
I wonder if we, including myself as the older group, or as mentors have not properly passed on to the younger crews the culture I hope will develop in our industry. A culture where firefighting can be fun but we also need to be cognizant of the dangers of today’s environment, cancer risks, and rate of combustion for new products.
I have witness the younger firefighters wanting to go into a burning building without giving it a second thought as to all the particulars I have to consider before taking an aggressive interior attack. Perhaps it is something that comes with training and certainly experience. I force myself to read each Line of Duty Death report to remind me of how simple it is to die on this job.
Thank you for posting and reflecting on this simple picture which can and has brought up very true and interesting points of views and conversations. It is appreciated.”
Culture Matters! Culture is passed down from generation to generation just like DNA. In 1976 my Lt. said “Firefighters’ have to get killed, its part of the job.” do we still believe?
We can all do better preventingts vs eghts vs egh and surviving fire.
