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When you click on that, it will take you through verification with GovX.

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To learn more about Thorn, go to episode 323 of the Behind the Shield podcast with Joel

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Titoro and Wes Barnett.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

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As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on

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the show veteran wildland firefighter and trainer in the Department of Innovation and

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Learning for the US Forest Service, Ben Iverson.

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Now in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from his own journey into firefighting,

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forging human performance in the wildland space, some of the heartbreaking losses from

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wildland firefighters, the metamorphosis of how the US Forest Service is handling those

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events and taking care of the families and fellow firefighters after, the impact of the

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recruitment crisis on the wildland side, firefighter fitness and so much more.

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Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment,

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go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and

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leave a rating.

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Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for

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others to find.

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And this is a free library of over a thousand episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so

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I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.

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So that being said, I introduce to you Ben Iverson.

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Enjoy.

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Well Ben, I want to start by saying two things.

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Firstly thank you to our mutual friend Rex Hambly for making this connection and secondly

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to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.

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Yeah, agreed.

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Thanks Rex and good to be here.

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It'll be an interesting conversation I trust.

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Absolutely.

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Well, very first question, where on planet earth are we finding you today?

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I live in rural northwest Wisconsin.

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I have the, at this stage of my career I'm a virtual employee so I work out of my home

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and it's a little ironic given some of my duty stations over the years in urban areas.

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I live in a forest for really kind of the first time in a long time.

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So it's a great little spot of woods in northwest Wisconsin.

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What took you to the virtual medium?

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I think one of the best things that came out of the whole pandemic was the realization

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that some people could work at home.

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I think that was sadly lost.

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I think a lot of people swung the other way but to get into a car for example, let's say

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you work in accounting and then drive, you know, if you're God forbid a large city, an

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hour and a half to go sit at a desk and then do the same.

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So now you've lost three, four hours with your family.

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I think the virtual tool is incredible and you and I are obviously able to have this

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conversation because of it.

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So how did you find yourself transitioning into that?

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Well, I actually went into a virtual job before COVID.

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I'm one of the few, I guess, comparatively that made that move before I had to.

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I think that's a big deal, like being able to make that move on my own terms made a difference.

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Having the structure in our house to have a place that was work that was separate from

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life.

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You know, one of my coworkers, when we all went virtual for COVID, she was working from

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her kitchen table and the other side of the table was her husband working from the kitchen

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table.

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And that thought is like, yeah, no wonder why some people hate it.

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I didn't have that.

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I made the move on my own terms, had a great infrastructure at home to do it.

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And it was good timing.

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And it was into a virtual work group.

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My boss lived in Texas, a coworker in Maine and another one in Utah.

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I mean, we were spread across the country.

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And so all of our work would have been virtual anyway, or we wouldn't have been doing it

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at all, which is entirely possible.

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But yeah, it was a good move.

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I was looking for something else.

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One of my mentors from years ago was leading the work group and reached out to him and

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said, hey, looking for something different.

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You got anything?

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And that first 120 day detail with Jim working for the Office of Innovation and Organizational

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Learning led to another one and another one.

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I just kind of never left.

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And later got permanent home with that group.

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And yeah, I've been doing that since.

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Beautiful.

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Well, before we go to the beginning of your life story, Wisconsin is not a place the guests

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are normally sitting, especially in rural Wisconsin.

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So paint that picture for us.

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Pros and cons.

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I mean, in a lot of ways, it's the same, just different.

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It's most of I've spent time in my career working in Sacramento, working in Boise.

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But prior to that, you know, it was just living in rural communities, living in the woods.

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I grew up about 30 miles from here where I live now.

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And really, that was another huge benefit.

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While I was virtual, my wife wasn't.

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She worked at the fire center in Boise.

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And so we were kind of stuck there.

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But her job went virtual with COVID, thankfully.

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And at the same time, my folks getting older needed help.

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So we took the opportunity to move back to northern Wisconsin.

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It really wasn't a career move at all.

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It was it was purely a family move and incredibly thankful to to be able to do that.

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And we're both both my wife and I still work work virtually.

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And we we couldn't live here.

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We couldn't I couldn't run over to my folks on the weekends or at those early or late

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hour phone calls that you dread.

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You know, I couldn't be doing that idea.

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I'd be days away.

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So it was good.

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A good move, but, you know, we live near the footprint of one of the very earliest million

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acre fires in American history.

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The Peshtigo Fire was just north and east of us a little bit.

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1883, I want to say.

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So it's not like Wisconsin, the Midwest is is is foreign to fire.

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My career started in North Dakota.

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So it's I mean, it's it's not not too terribly far from from.

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Yeah, from what you expect for a wildland fire career.

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Beautiful.

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Well, you always kind of indicated where you grew up.

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So let's talk about the early life a little bit.

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What did your parents do?

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How many siblings?

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Yeah, really mundane early life.

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My dad was a realtor for the most part, successful in with that enough that my mom could be a

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stay at home mom.

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We lived in in Arizona at the time.

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And but they had both grown up in in Minnesota.

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I was born in Minnesota, but we'd moved to Arizona to be closer to my grandparents.

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So after my grandparents were gone, they made the call to head back to the woods as a

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eighth grade 13 year old.

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I was rather unhappy about that decision.

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Moved from a really a suburb of Phoenix to a small town and 300 people and school where

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everybody had been together since kindergarten.

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It that yeah, it it but very stable, very.

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I mean, we didn't want for anything.

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My dad retired early.

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But then went back to work self employed really for his for his whole life.

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So it was it was just really simple and mundane, thankfully.

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Brilliant.

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What about the the fire service?

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Do you have any first responders or military in your family?

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None, none, zero.

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And I mean, it was it was a reflecting on it was a shock to me at the time.

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But I can only imagine how much of a shock it was to my folks.

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The original plan was military that that ended up not being a path that I followed.

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So law enforcement was next and that ended up being a path that I didn't end up following.

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And so maybe to a certain extent, they were a little relieved when I decided to do something

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that didn't involve getting shot at.

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So yeah, it.

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I went to school in northern Minnesota to be a to be a law enforcement ranger for the

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Park Service.

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And one of my early teachers, mentors just observed that, you know, maybe I didn't have

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the the personality to to really thrive in the law enforcement community.

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And I think he was spot on.

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I know today that I would struggle, of course, being a 19, 20 year old kid.

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It's this guy talking about.

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But thankfully, I listened to him and and really kind of kind of by chance in in in

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in the Park Service, I was working at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota,

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and they didn't have a fire crew at the time.

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So it was when when fires happened, the the ranger staff, the law enforcement rangers

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and the the intergrangers that had quals.

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I got my I got my basic fire training in college, really never planning on using it.

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It was like classic.

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Well, it's a little good on a resume and moved on.

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And so that first that summer was on a went out with a pick up 20 person hand crew, just

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a mix of folks from here, there and everywhere.

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And there's a type two crew back before there were distinctions between type two and type

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two I.A. and I hated every second of it.

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It's miserable, absolutely miserable.

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I now know that it was an amazing assignment.

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But for me at the time, it was it was horrible.

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But a couple of weeks went by and then I got a chance to do an engine assignment.

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And that that was the hook.

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I enjoyed that part of the work much more so than than hand crews.

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And I've never I've never pursued crews ever since I got I got my crew boss because he

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kind of had to, but never.

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I've always been been an engine guy, spent a little bit of time on Hell Attack, but it

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was it was the engine work that I really enjoyed.

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And even that assignment was it was it was at home.

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There's three type three firefighter twos on a type six engine bouncing across the prairie

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in western North Dakota on a grass fire and like the things we did.

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What about when you were in a school age prior to entering the fire service?

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Obviously, you know, especially on the hand crews, extremely physical profession.

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What were you playing as far as sports and exercise when you were younger?

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Absolutely nothing.

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I did I did nothing, especially, you know, the elementary school.

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Maybe the first part of middle school had a good group of friends and we were always

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physically active playing pick up football or baseball, but never any good at it.

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And then moving to rural northern Wisconsin, a small town, a class of I think my graduating

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class was 26 people.

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The only offerings were football, baseball, basketball.

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And not only did I have no aptitude in those.

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I really am being that angry 13 year old and outsider at that in a really tight knit community.

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I had no desire to be on a team with any of them.

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So I spent my time in the woods and on the lakes.

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I I did I did no physical.

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Well different physical stuff, I guess, looking back on it.

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But I like to say that that I'm in and it's true, I'm in better shape today than I ever

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was then.

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The only thing that that.

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Yeah, I barely got by.

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And it was mostly ego driving me up that hill, not not strength or endurance or any sort

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of training.

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It came to that much later in life.

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Was that one of the reasons then why you couldn't stand the hand crew?

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Because I would assume that was probably one of the most arduous assignments of any wildland

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firefighting group.

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It's a good piece of it for sure.

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And and and pick up hand crews are are rough at best.

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There's no crew cohesion time built into it.

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I was working for a former hotshot.

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And yeah, it it it and that's that's really been a struggle with with with with my part

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of the wildland community.

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The engine world we we tend to get away with with not being as physically fit.

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And it's it's super unfortunate.

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But I didn't I didn't know it at the time.

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And I certainly wasn't driven to I mean, we had the same physical training requirements

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and we had the same hour of PT a day.

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I never valued that hour of PT a day.

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Certainly never knew what to do with it.

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And I think that was a big piece of the problem.

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My my my colleagues that did have experience in high school sports, I mean, that's that's

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how they designed their PT programs is based on their high school football coach.

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What did they do?

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And I not only didn't have that, I didn't want that.

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So any excuse that I had to not PT, I would readily take and not proud of that.

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Believe me, not not proud of that.

236
00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:41,640
And I definitely have come to a very different place with that today.

237
00:17:41,640 --> 00:17:44,000
And over the years, but definitely today.

238
00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:47,720
Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't good.

239
00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:55,180
The pack test for me, a lot of folks talk about how how how easy it is.

240
00:17:55,180 --> 00:17:58,200
It was a struggle for me every year.

241
00:17:58,200 --> 00:18:02,560
And during it, I would berate myself for not getting ready for it.

242
00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:08,680
And then the next day, I'd be right back into those same old habits and get through it every

243
00:18:08,680 --> 00:18:11,680
every every year.

244
00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:14,440
Yeah.

245
00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:18,560
And it's I've come to think about even that really differently.

246
00:18:18,560 --> 00:18:21,680
I wear my my my pack test vest every day.

247
00:18:21,680 --> 00:18:29,500
I definitely am not hiking at the pace for a pack test, but distance and and weight.

248
00:18:29,500 --> 00:18:35,400
And that's the thing is it's a it's an NWCG minimum standard to pass the pack test.

249
00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:38,480
And I always and I think many of us treat it as that thing that you have to do.

250
00:18:38,480 --> 00:18:41,480
If it's a minimum standard, then why can't you do it every day?

251
00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:45,280
You know, minimum standards should be something you should be able to meet at the drop of

252
00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:49,600
a hat, not something that you just do once in a while.

253
00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:55,520
So yeah, come come come quite a ways there, I think.

254
00:18:55,520 --> 00:19:04,280
After a lot of a lot of pain and suffering and ego and yeah.

255
00:19:04,280 --> 00:19:07,200
How often do you have to qualify with a pack test?

256
00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:09,240
Annually, annually.

257
00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:10,560
Yeah.

258
00:19:10,560 --> 00:19:14,720
Even now, the qualifications that I hold today, I only do the moderate.

259
00:19:14,720 --> 00:19:23,240
I don't have to stay arduous, but it's my fitness now isn't about work.

260
00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:31,560
My fitness now is about living as long as I can after this profession is done.

261
00:19:31,560 --> 00:19:34,680
And that mindset made all the difference.

262
00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:35,680
Yeah.

263
00:19:35,680 --> 00:19:39,520
Well, again, it's it's it's comparable.

264
00:19:39,520 --> 00:19:44,320
Now, if you're doing virtual consultation from a desk, you're not going to suddenly

265
00:19:44,320 --> 00:19:47,280
have to leap out the window and go drag someone from a building.

266
00:19:47,280 --> 00:19:48,920
You know, that's when people are OK.

267
00:19:48,920 --> 00:19:49,920
Yeah.

268
00:19:49,920 --> 00:19:52,680
And that shift to longevity, obviously, is important.

269
00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:55,720
It's always baffled me, though, and you use the word minimum standards.

270
00:19:55,720 --> 00:19:59,600
That's what Florida calls their firefighter one and two minimum standards.

271
00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:01,560
So I've said this so many times.

272
00:20:01,560 --> 00:20:03,040
They've labeled it for you.

273
00:20:03,040 --> 00:20:06,960
This is as shit as you should ever be in your entire career.

274
00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:10,120
But then you get into the career and they're like, oh, we don't have any standards for

275
00:20:10,120 --> 00:20:11,120
you now.

276
00:20:11,120 --> 00:20:15,260
You can get fat and out of shape and no one's going to hold you accountable.

277
00:20:15,260 --> 00:20:19,760
But when you look at ocean lifeguards, when you look at the wildland fire community, you

278
00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:21,280
do hold people to a standard.

279
00:20:21,280 --> 00:20:23,600
You know, is it the perfect standard?

280
00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:27,200
I mean, there could be argument yes and no for that, but it is a standard.

281
00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:29,420
It's not an easy standard either.

282
00:20:29,420 --> 00:20:35,760
So what is your lens on the municipal fire service and the lack of these standards?

283
00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:41,880
Well, I guess the honest answer is I don't know.

284
00:20:41,880 --> 00:20:49,200
I don't have much of a lens into the municipal fire service much, a little bit, mostly through

285
00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:54,920
the volunteer fire community where, yeah, no standards.

286
00:20:54,920 --> 00:21:01,800
I think my struggle with fitness in particular is when you establish a minimum and that's

287
00:21:01,800 --> 00:21:08,920
all you establish and that truly is all we've established is we have the work capacity test,

288
00:21:08,920 --> 00:21:10,680
the pack test.

289
00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:17,520
Any effort to really raise the bar has been either ignored or resisted actively.

290
00:21:17,520 --> 00:21:21,240
And so the minimum becomes the maximum.

291
00:21:21,240 --> 00:21:28,000
That's all you ever rise to.

292
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:34,920
And there are plenty and there are plenty of folks and I'd like to think I've joined

293
00:21:34,920 --> 00:21:37,760
this community later in my career that don't accept that.

294
00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:43,480
So work to change it culturally.

295
00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:50,160
But as far as our organizations are concerned, with the exception of smoke jumpers, pack

296
00:21:50,160 --> 00:21:52,240
test is it.

297
00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:56,120
Pack test is it.

298
00:21:56,120 --> 00:21:59,360
And again, if we treated it like a minimum standard, something you could do at the drop

299
00:21:59,360 --> 00:22:02,540
of a hat, then I'd be relatively okay with it.

300
00:22:02,540 --> 00:22:08,280
But it's something that you do once a year and you just get your way through it.

301
00:22:08,280 --> 00:22:09,280
That's not a minimum.

302
00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:12,120
That's become your maximum.

303
00:22:12,120 --> 00:22:17,320
That's the best I can do, not the minimum that I can do.

304
00:22:17,320 --> 00:22:18,480
Absolutely.

305
00:22:18,480 --> 00:22:20,760
I agree completely.

306
00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:26,040
You enter then, you find yourself leaning into the engine side.

307
00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:30,840
Walk me through the journey that takes you and any career fires that you would consider

308
00:22:30,840 --> 00:22:37,920
were particularly interesting as you progress through.

309
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:47,680
So I finished up college mostly for family expectation reasons.

310
00:22:47,680 --> 00:22:49,480
I finished out my four-year degree.

311
00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:53,080
I studied history mainly because what else?

312
00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:54,080
I don't know.

313
00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:55,080
It was interesting.

314
00:22:55,080 --> 00:22:56,680
I liked history.

315
00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:58,180
So I studied that.

316
00:22:58,180 --> 00:23:04,760
And when I finished up with that, it was still in the days where we were seasonal employees.

317
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:08,120
You spent your summer season, you went and did a winter season, and you did a summer

318
00:23:08,120 --> 00:23:09,120
season.

319
00:23:09,120 --> 00:23:12,800
You had to put in your time seasonally before you could get a permanent gig.

320
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:17,840
But that really started to change in 2000, 2001.

321
00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:19,760
And so I made the switch.

322
00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:24,880
I did a season with the park service on an engine in Arizona.

323
00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:29,000
It didn't roll to a single fire, but enjoyed it.

324
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:31,040
Enjoyed the work.

325
00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:35,040
Did prescribed fire, did plenty of project work, ran saws.

326
00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:37,680
But it was quiet back then.

327
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:43,200
It was, like I said, it didn't roll to a single fire.

328
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:47,840
But then I got picked up permanently with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Northern

329
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:48,840
California.

330
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:50,560
Moved to Tule Lake, California.

331
00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:52,560
Kind of sight unseen.

332
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:58,440
I joke often that I did know that in that day, when you got an offer, you took it.

333
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:00,520
You didn't wait for the better one.

334
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:02,140
You took it.

335
00:24:02,140 --> 00:24:08,440
So the first put in for all kinds of permanent jobs, the first offer I got was to Tule Lake.

336
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:11,880
Drove up there, rolled in in the middle of the night.

337
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:15,320
And I was expecting what everybody thinks of Northern California.

338
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:19,820
Lakes, mountains, or not lakes, rivers, mountains, trees.

339
00:24:19,820 --> 00:24:22,520
That is not Tule Lake, California.

340
00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:29,000
Tule Lake is flat farmland, high desert, juniper, and sagebrush.

341
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,960
And I told myself I'd put in my year and I'd be gone.

342
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:36,560
Ended up staying in that community for the next nine years.

343
00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:40,760
It was, it became a very comfortable place to live.

344
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:42,400
And a lot of that had to do with the work.

345
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:45,680
I started with Fish and Wildlife.

346
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:53,280
Went to the Park Service there on an interagency Type 3 engine.

347
00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:54,280
Loved it.

348
00:24:54,280 --> 00:25:01,360
Took a short stint back here to Wisconsin to be closer to family and pursue a bit of

349
00:25:01,360 --> 00:25:03,840
a relationship, which fell apart quickly.

350
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:11,300
And moved back to California with that next job offer six, eight months later.

351
00:25:11,300 --> 00:25:13,100
And just stayed.

352
00:25:13,100 --> 00:25:17,400
I got my first captain's job really quickly.

353
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:24,920
Went with Fish and Wildlife on a Type 3 engine there really quickly.

354
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:30,440
But in those days, like a 600 hour season was amazing.

355
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:34,560
That was like crazy overtime, especially for engines.

356
00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:37,280
Hotshots had been there for a long time, but engines not so much.

357
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:41,640
We spent a lot of time at home, initial attack.

358
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:43,480
And I enjoyed that life.

359
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:51,080
So two, three fire assignments, all four assignments a year were fine.

360
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:58,340
Nothing really crazy fire-wise.

361
00:25:58,340 --> 00:26:04,440
The Rimfire was one of my division trainee assignments.

362
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:06,280
An important fire for me personally.

363
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:10,720
I met my wife on that fire, or who is now my wife on that fire.

364
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:14,160
Had no clue, totally oblivious of what happened when it happened.

365
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:21,120
But that one was important and it's one of the larger ones in my career.

366
00:26:21,120 --> 00:26:29,880
But early on too, one of my mentors was adamant that each of us have not just an operations

367
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:34,440
path but a non-operations path.

368
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:37,560
I tried out ComTech, Comm Unit leader.

369
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:41,360
Didn't really enjoy that side of it.

370
00:26:41,360 --> 00:26:46,240
But then I got involved with Type 3 teams as team safety.

371
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:50,480
And that started to click and I started to do that gig.

372
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:53,280
And I enjoyed it a lot.

373
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:58,140
Started to do that in southern Oregon.

374
00:26:58,140 --> 00:27:03,640
And really that's the position and the qualification that I've pursued since.

375
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:08,200
It's just Type 3 teams, smaller organization.

376
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:12,760
Kind of noticing that trend that the larger the organization is, the less I like it.

377
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:17,760
But a Type 3 team really appealed to me.

378
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:21,080
They weren't as long duration fires.

379
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:22,680
They were interesting.

380
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:23,680
They were different.

381
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:29,280
Yeah, I enjoyed that part of the career.

382
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:43,040
And as far as big major fires, every year we'd go down south, southern California.

383
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:48,000
For every Santa Ana wind event, I don't know why, just luck of the draw I guess, we'd go

384
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:55,120
to the San Bernardino and spent time on the San Bernardino.

385
00:27:55,120 --> 00:28:03,600
And so certainly not being on Esperanza, but being on that forest in the aftermath of that

386
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:05,080
was formative.

387
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:11,680
And I guess really when I think about the formative points in my career, it usually

388
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:14,640
isn't on the traumatic event.

389
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:21,360
It's being there, being around in the days after.

390
00:28:21,360 --> 00:28:24,080
And Esperanza was one of those examples.

391
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:30,160
I didn't know I endured the others.

392
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:38,360
But yeah, it has an impact when you see other people suffering.

393
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:45,080
I think it was the Esperanza fire where we and Anaheim actually were on the bridges as

394
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:48,080
they were going underneath, if I'm not mistaken.

395
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:49,080
What year was that?

396
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:51,880
Because I was at Anaheim 05 to 08.

397
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:53,180
Oh boy.

398
00:28:53,180 --> 00:28:57,080
What year was Esperanza?

399
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:00,440
I want to say, I feel horrible for not knowing this.

400
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:01,440
I'm a historian.

401
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:02,440
Yeah, sorry.

402
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:03,440
I put you on the spot that I'm just trying to figure out.

403
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:08,120
I think it was that fire because I remember we were saluting and we had the flag up and

404
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:09,120
everything on the overpass.

405
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:10,120
I want to say 07.

406
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:11,120
Might have been 08.

407
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:13,960
That's probably what it was then.

408
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:15,720
So we're speaking of that then.

409
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:18,120
You have a background in history.

410
00:29:18,120 --> 00:29:20,580
You enter the fire service.

411
00:29:20,580 --> 00:29:27,560
Talk to me about that kind of evolution of you starting to see that there were maybe

412
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:35,120
long standing issues that were leading to some of these firefighter deaths.

413
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:40,600
When I finished studying history and I knew that I would be pursuing fire and I almost

414
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:41,720
just bagged it.

415
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:55,160
But it really was a long time in my career before I really came back to history, to my

416
00:29:55,160 --> 00:30:05,920
enjoyment of it, my value of it, my study of it.

417
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:12,880
Definitely wasn't driving things, but I guess the way that I'd approach your question is

418
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:17,720
and Esperanza was an important piece of this.

419
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:24,520
I was not in for South Canyon.

420
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:29,520
That wasn't part of my awareness.

421
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:31,760
It was before my time.

422
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:36,760
30 Mile was an interesting one.

423
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:44,640
Again, it was decades later before I actually learned some lessons from 30 Mile beyond professional

424
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:46,260
liability insurance.

425
00:30:46,260 --> 00:30:57,360
That was the lesson that you're on your own when something bad happens.

426
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:00,380
Kramer just reinforced that.

427
00:31:00,380 --> 00:31:07,480
But Esperanza was a different beast.

428
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:15,560
At that point in my career, I was teaching much more often, teaching fire freshers especially.

429
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:22,960
Learning from events was important to me then.

430
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:25,480
An interesting thing happened with Esperanza.

431
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:34,160
The organization, Forest Service in California published their report of the accident.

432
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:41,600
Then a couple weeks later, the four other captains on that strike team published a rebuttal.

433
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:45,280
They got together and said, this thing is bullshit.

434
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:46,920
This is what happened.

435
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:53,880
I stopped teaching, really stopped reading serious accident investigations that came

436
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:56,360
out of the organization.

437
00:31:56,360 --> 00:32:00,920
I started teaching what the captains had to say.

438
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:11,320
That became a fork in the road for me, which is really ironic considering what I do today.

439
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:20,800
The 30 Mile Kramer and Esperanza are held up as really the events that led to a real

440
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:25,560
distrust in us of them.

441
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:33,960
Us mainly being frontline incident commanders, fire line leaders, and then trusted on one

442
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:43,280
day and then completely distrusted and in at least one instance almost two criminally

443
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:48,120
prosecuted the next.

444
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:55,760
Even then I was asking myself, man, how horrible is it to be thinking that at least Watson

445
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:58,360
Hezger doesn't have to go through that?

446
00:32:58,360 --> 00:32:59,360
He's dead.

447
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:00,880
What could we do to him?

448
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:01,880
That's a relief?

449
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:06,880
How can that be?

450
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:15,000
Thankfully there were a lot of people, a grassroots effort and a more top-down effort coming

451
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:22,840
together at that time to realize how messed up all that was.

452
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:30,640
What Esperanza did for me was it taught one of my mentors how to deal with the aftermath

453
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:33,640
of those days.

454
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:51,160
I tell the story all the time.

455
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:56,960
May, I promise you the number of emotions that come up on this show is crazy.

456
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:03,000
Just no apologies, no rush when you're able to.

457
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:18,880
In 2009, as captain on the MODOK, active and active captain, we were actually teaching

458
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:22,360
L280 at the time.

459
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:32,720
As often happens, one of these damn things goes off and you hear something bad happens.

460
00:34:32,720 --> 00:34:41,480
Some of us, we don't actually hear anything and they say, oh, well, this is really a one

461
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:42,480
moon job.

462
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:51,720
We goThey're destroying Fort Hell and we don't know a lot of this stuff.

463
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:56,480
L280 a little bit, which took a while to come back on when he was in school.

464
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:59,360
It built well-rounded firefighters.

465
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:03,120
And on one of those trips to the San Bernardino,

466
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:06,360
a late season fire had a backseat full of apprentices

467
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:07,720
and one of them was caught.

468
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:15,320
And at the time it was, I'm sure it was a,

469
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:17,720
it was a busy enough assignment.

470
00:35:17,720 --> 00:35:18,640
It was a good assignment.

471
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,600
It got to know all three of those apprentices

472
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:24,680
and kept in pretty close contact with one.

473
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:29,680
And that's, that next summer,

474
00:35:30,240 --> 00:35:34,240
Tom went to work for Chester Hell Attack.

475
00:35:34,240 --> 00:35:38,520
And later that summer,

476
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:42,160
they were conducting a proficiency repel.

477
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:44,240
Repelling out of helicopters isn't exactly something

478
00:35:44,240 --> 00:35:45,060
you do very often.

479
00:35:45,060 --> 00:35:50,060
So they built in a proficiency check system.

480
00:35:50,060 --> 00:35:55,060
So every so often they take a stand down

481
00:35:56,980 --> 00:35:58,300
from whatever assignment they were on.

482
00:35:58,300 --> 00:36:01,660
They'd go do a proficiency repel, stay current on it.

483
00:36:01,660 --> 00:36:04,900
High risk, low frequency event, classic.

484
00:36:04,900 --> 00:36:08,860
It's exactly what you do to deal with those kinds of events.

485
00:36:08,860 --> 00:36:12,100
But that day, something went very wrong.

486
00:36:12,100 --> 00:36:17,100
And during the repel, his gear misconfigured Tom fell.

487
00:36:17,100 --> 00:36:22,100
So he wasn't my apprentice, didn't know him well at all.

488
00:36:24,100 --> 00:36:29,100
But his captain, well, you can only imagine

489
00:36:29,100 --> 00:36:30,100
what his captain was dealing with.

490
00:36:30,100 --> 00:36:35,100
So I got a phone call the next day asking if I would go

491
00:36:35,100 --> 00:36:40,100
to the Bay Area, go to Hayward, California.

492
00:36:40,100 --> 00:36:45,100
And at first it was deliver Tom's possessions to his parents.

493
00:36:48,100 --> 00:36:53,100
And at the time, we didn't have a,

494
00:36:54,100 --> 00:36:59,100
well, we didn't have any structure to deal with those,

495
00:36:59,100 --> 00:37:00,100
that aftermath.

496
00:37:00,100 --> 00:37:05,100
So my mentor, Bob Bell, I didn't know Bob well at all

497
00:37:06,100 --> 00:37:06,940
at that point.

498
00:37:06,940 --> 00:37:09,100
He had worked on the MODOC before me.

499
00:37:09,100 --> 00:37:11,100
I had worked on the MODOC before my time.

500
00:37:11,100 --> 00:37:16,100
But Bob, the person really, I mean, he was an amazing guy.

501
00:37:18,300 --> 00:37:22,380
So anytime there's an event like that, who do you call?

502
00:37:22,380 --> 00:37:24,100
You call the amazing people that you know.

503
00:37:24,100 --> 00:37:25,540
And Bob was always that guy.

504
00:37:27,180 --> 00:37:31,420
And so through several events, but Esperanza being one of them,

505
00:37:31,420 --> 00:37:33,900
Bob was one of those guys that knew how to deal

506
00:37:33,900 --> 00:37:35,680
with those days after.

507
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:38,000
And so Bob was there.

508
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:43,000
And on the way down, I learned that the other MODOC employee

509
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:48,000
that was being sent to Hayward as a family liaison

510
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:52,000
was our public affairs specialist.

511
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:57,680
That did not go over well.

512
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:02,200
Like, what are we doing?

513
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:03,440
What are we doing?

514
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:10,440
And that's, it turns out that I did what humans do

515
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:13,400
in the absence of information.

516
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:17,320
I make shit up and I could only imagine

517
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:19,000
what the force service was doing,

518
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:20,920
sending a public information officer

519
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:22,560
to be the family liaison.

520
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:27,720
Where's the spin on this one gonna be like?

521
00:38:27,720 --> 00:38:31,520
I learned after the fact, I learned really quickly actually

522
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:36,520
that they picked Jim to go not because he was

523
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:38,840
a public affairs specialist, but because he had lost

524
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:40,200
his own son in an accident.

525
00:38:41,240 --> 00:38:44,560
And he could relate to Tom's parents in ways

526
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:46,480
that I could never relate to.

527
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,080
And thankfully, and when I mentioned earlier,

528
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:54,240
that guy called up years later, decades later to say,

529
00:38:54,240 --> 00:38:56,000
hey, you got anything interesting to work on?

530
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:57,200
It was him.

531
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:01,360
He became a mentor of mine and eventually became my boss

532
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:02,720
before he retired last year.

533
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:07,600
An amazing individual, but so I'm in this,

534
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:10,360
I'm down in Hayward and here's Jim and Bob

535
00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:13,920
doing amazing things with Tom's parents.

536
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:17,160
But they were alone.

537
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:20,200
There was no support, no structure.

538
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:22,720
And in fact, all the support and structure that we did have

539
00:39:22,720 --> 00:39:24,400
came from Fremont Fire Department.

540
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:27,280
So those guys were amazing.

541
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:32,280
Tom was their academy.

542
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:37,400
He was one of their instructors and young leaders in that.

543
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:43,960
And they stepped up and did what we couldn't do.

544
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:45,880
They paid for everything.

545
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:47,680
They provided the honor guard.

546
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:49,200
They did everything.

547
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:54,200
Here we were, Tom's own organization.

548
00:39:55,840 --> 00:40:00,680
And so the two of us that went down to deliver stuff,

549
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:02,800
we never left.

550
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:05,760
We're like, no, Bob and Jim need help.

551
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:06,720
We're staying.

552
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:12,800
And so long story, hopefully a little shorter for you,

553
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:16,120
ended up spending the time between then

554
00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:19,920
and Tom's funeral with his parents

555
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:24,920
and a grieving organization and people trying to figure out

556
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:28,320
how to take care of, how even to bring them home.

557
00:40:29,720 --> 00:40:31,960
We had no plan for any of that.

558
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:37,520
And I'd like to think that it was Tom,

559
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:42,520
it was that experience that really propelled things forward.

560
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,200
The honor guard for the Forest Service was forming.

561
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:48,680
At the time Esperanza really kicked that off.

562
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:52,280
It was really powerful San Bernardino driven movement.

563
00:40:55,240 --> 00:40:57,160
But we were still trying to figure out

564
00:40:57,160 --> 00:40:58,800
whether we were the Forest Service

565
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:02,920
or we were growing into something else,

566
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:05,480
something different.

567
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:10,480
And so today we use the term Fire Service pretty generally,

568
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:13,800
but it was different then, at least it seemed to me,

569
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:15,160
and still seems to me.

570
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:20,280
We had to learn the hard way over and over and over again.

571
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:24,000
And Bob and Jim deserve a ton of credit

572
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,320
for experiencing that aftermath.

573
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:28,640
They didn't just go back to business as usual,

574
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:31,160
like I did or tried to.

575
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:33,560
They stuck with it.

576
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:37,000
They started to push it.

577
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:41,440
They stuck with it, they started to push the organization

578
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:44,040
to think about what we're asking our folks to do

579
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:47,000
and how we're gonna handle it the day after,

580
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:48,360
the day after the bad days.

581
00:41:50,240 --> 00:41:52,920
It seems, and to a certain extent I think it was true

582
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:56,480
that we were operating under this belief

583
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:59,360
that once we got the,

584
00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:06,480
either the bad actor, the stupid person,

585
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:08,000
the dead guy out of the way,

586
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:09,560
that the system was fine again

587
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:13,440
and we won't have this happen ever again.

588
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:16,040
And that's really where the historian in me kicks in is,

589
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:19,440
it's like, and I came to this later,

590
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:21,960
but Mark Twain has a great quote.

591
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:24,960
He says that, history does not repeat itself,

592
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:27,080
but it sure does rhyme.

593
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:29,040
And when you look at these things, they're different.

594
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:30,240
Every one of them is different.

595
00:42:30,240 --> 00:42:31,520
People are different.

596
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:33,080
So the events are different,

597
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:35,120
but there are things that rhyme.

598
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:38,560
There are things that look and feel and smell

599
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:42,760
an awful lot like the previous iteration of that.

600
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:47,760
And that's really where I came to this whole,

601
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:55,840
well, that's what started it, but yeah.

602
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:03,200
There's a lot more to that,

603
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:05,680
but I'll pause there.

604
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:08,680
Is that what, what do you think?

605
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:13,440
Yeah, no, I mean, that's so powerful to hear.

606
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,720
I mean, even again, the emotions that come out,

607
00:43:16,720 --> 00:43:19,440
one of the things that I experienced

608
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:21,040
in the last place I worked

609
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:25,800
where the culture was horrendous was we lost one of our own.

610
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:28,560
And I saw people kind of unmoved by it.

611
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:29,640
And it was someone I got hired with.

612
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:32,720
So we'd only been on barely a year when he passed.

613
00:43:32,720 --> 00:43:34,680
And I remember thinking the converse.

614
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:37,840
Like I feel it when a firefighter dies

615
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:39,160
no matter where they are,

616
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:41,880
whether they're in Esperanza or whether they're in,

617
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:44,840
we just had one take his own life in Miami beach.

618
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:46,560
Like I feel that.

619
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:48,040
So it just baffles me.

620
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:49,240
And I've said this so many times,

621
00:43:49,240 --> 00:43:52,800
how there seems to be a kind of shoulder shrugging

622
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:55,160
when it happens in your own agency.

623
00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:58,520
How can you be the chief of a department locally here?

624
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:00,080
They've lost several to suicide

625
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:02,120
and then still be so unmoved by it

626
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:04,320
and still sleep soundly in your bed

627
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:06,880
when you have men and women on the front line

628
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:09,760
that will travel sometimes across the country

629
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:12,960
to simply go to the funeral of a fallen firefighter.

630
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:22,200
It took a while.

631
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,720
Like I said, 30 mile and in Kramer,

632
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:30,480
I don't know, maybe it's that

633
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:34,600
it wasn't so in your face back then.

634
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:37,000
Like the social media didn't exist.

635
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:43,440
The first firefighter funeral I went to was Esperanza.

636
00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:45,000
So Esperanza was a big deal.

637
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:47,600
And like I said, hanging out with the folks

638
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:52,600
after meeting two of them in particular

639
00:44:53,240 --> 00:44:58,240
became more than, certainly more than acquaintances,

640
00:44:58,240 --> 00:45:00,080
acquaintances, colleagues for sure.

641
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:06,480
I needed something to connect it, I guess.

642
00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:14,680
But once that door was open

643
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:18,880
and I definitely saw it at Esperanza

644
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:21,720
where everybody that was standing there,

645
00:45:21,720 --> 00:45:24,080
I mean, not a dry and the crowd,

646
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:27,760
but I still felt that real strong.

647
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:29,440
And I looked at the honor guard folks

648
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:32,080
and I still have no idea how they do it.

649
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:37,200
I have no idea how they do what they do.

650
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:41,280
That, I mean, shoot, I can't even talk about it today

651
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,200
and not get choked up for it.

652
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:48,200
But, and that's important for that role.

653
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:51,840
For the rest of us standing there,

654
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:56,840
it, and I, Tom's mom made all the difference.

655
00:45:56,840 --> 00:46:19,840
There was no going back after being around her.

656
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:32,840
And so one of the next kind of pivotal thing in this,

657
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:39,080
well, there's one part of that story

658
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:39,920
that I do wanna tell

659
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:42,360
because I think it's a super important one.

660
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:48,800
So after we got, we did what we do

661
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:53,680
and Bob kind of became an ad hoc type three IC

662
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:55,840
and the rest of us started filling roles

663
00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:58,680
and we were working with Fremont Fire.

664
00:46:58,680 --> 00:47:02,600
And the whole goal was to get Tom home

665
00:47:04,240 --> 00:47:06,800
to the absolute best of our ability.

666
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:11,800
And one of the people that came down to help kind of,

667
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:17,040
given that kind of surge capacity

668
00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:19,640
and for some specialty skills,

669
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:22,760
a guy by the name of Ken Hood came down

670
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:27,760
and he had a specific mission to do with the helicopter

671
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:33,400
that wanted to pay tribute in their own way

672
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:40,320
given how Tom died.

673
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:46,320
And Ken came down and I like did what he needed to do

674
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:51,320
in like minutes to arrange for this whole event,

675
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:55,480
the flyover during the funeral.

676
00:47:57,520 --> 00:48:00,520
And at the time, we weren't talking about,

677
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:02,920
well, barely about trauma at all,

678
00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:08,000
but because of his previous experience,

679
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:10,560
Ken had been close to a couple of accidents himself.

680
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:14,880
He knew, just like Bob knew, just like Jim knew,

681
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:16,560
through their experience, they knew

682
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:18,440
that he was gonna be a hero.

683
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:19,760
And so he was a hero.

684
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:21,600
And so he was a hero.

685
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:22,960
And so he was a hero.

686
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:24,360
And so he was a hero.

687
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:25,600
And so he was a hero.

688
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:26,920
And so he was a hero.

689
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:28,240
And so he was a hero.

690
00:48:28,240 --> 00:48:30,680
And so through their experience, they knew.

691
00:48:30,680 --> 00:48:35,440
But Ken, Bob and Jim were doing their thing

692
00:48:35,440 --> 00:48:37,800
focused on the mission and where it belonged.

693
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:42,800
But Ken had the presence of mind to stay,

694
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:46,800
to stick around, but not to get sucked

695
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:49,120
into the swirl of the event.

696
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:53,960
His focus was on us.

697
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:55,600
And I don't remember what I was doing,

698
00:48:55,600 --> 00:48:57,800
but it felt really important at the time.

699
00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:01,640
And he walked by and he said, let's go for a walk.

700
00:49:01,640 --> 00:49:04,120
And I was like, not, sorry, too busy.

701
00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:05,640
He's like, no, let's go for a walk.

702
00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:09,240
And he was, he pushed.

703
00:49:09,240 --> 00:49:10,880
But that walk was a really important one.

704
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:14,080
It was really the first, my first example

705
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:19,080
of someone who I came to really respect

706
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:28,080
and paying attention to the other stuff.

707
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:33,920
And I've always, like we have, we commit to,

708
00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:39,000
and I think we're doing a better job today

709
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:42,040
than we ever have from learning from these bad days.

710
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:45,040
But it's always about the event itself.

711
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:47,640
It's always about the equipment

712
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:52,640
or the burn over or the accident itself.

713
00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:01,720
But what Ken did that day was an incredibly powerful moment

714
00:50:01,720 --> 00:50:05,360
that has, that story has never been told.

715
00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:11,320
But really that's, there are tens, hundreds,

716
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:14,400
thousands of those stories that taken together

717
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:19,400
that arc of history has gotten us to where we are today.

718
00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:22,840
And we're certainly not perfect, but man,

719
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:27,840
it is such a difference between 2009 and 2024

720
00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:33,360
in how wildland organizations approach

721
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:36,800
the death of our own.

722
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:42,440
We'll learn the hard way.

723
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:45,160
Thankfully learned from a lot of other folks too.

724
00:50:45,160 --> 00:50:49,680
Don't get me wrong, we certainly didn't figure it out

725
00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:50,520
on our own.

726
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:54,720
Couple of decades of war teaches a lot

727
00:50:54,720 --> 00:50:56,640
about this kind of stuff.

728
00:50:56,640 --> 00:51:01,480
And lots of those lessons have been absorbed.

729
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:04,880
We still have a long way to go, certainly not perfect.

730
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:06,160
Certainly not even close to perfect,

731
00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:10,000
but that was an important piece that day.

732
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:13,200
But the other thing that really stuck out to me

733
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:16,440
in that one, especially after how impactful

734
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:18,920
the Esperanza accident investigation was,

735
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:25,040
before we left, we got a commitment that,

736
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:27,760
and I knew what the report was gonna say.

737
00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:31,080
I knew that the report was gonna blame Tom for his own death.

738
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:34,000
And it's like, if you're gonna say that,

739
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:35,680
then you're gonna look his mom in the eye

740
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:37,280
and you're gonna tell her that.

741
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:42,280
And that was a commitment that we got

742
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:43,640
from regional leadership.

743
00:51:47,040 --> 00:51:50,560
Fast forward months, and I'm sitting in the back

744
00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:53,120
of a classroom in Northern California teaching,

745
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:56,040
and like you always do when you're not up,

746
00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:57,440
you're sitting in the back of your room

747
00:51:57,440 --> 00:52:00,760
and an email comes up and there's an attachment in the email

748
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:07,760
is the accident investigation.

749
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:10,680
I knew that it hadn't been delivered to those folks

750
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:13,160
and here it was, getting circulated.

751
00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:15,800
And I scrolled down far enough to see who wrote it

752
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:20,120
and looked up the name, walked outside.

753
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:22,240
And I don't remember the conversation.

754
00:52:22,240 --> 00:52:25,480
Thankfully, the person whose name was at the top of that,

755
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:27,280
it actually wasn't the full investigation,

756
00:52:27,280 --> 00:52:29,440
it was the human factors analysis.

757
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:32,880
The name at the top of it was a guy by the name of Jim Savland.

758
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:40,880
Very proficient in handling people under that kind of stress.

759
00:52:43,280 --> 00:52:45,640
And he handled it amazingly.

760
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:47,560
Thankfully, it wasn't the Deputy Regional Forester

761
00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:49,520
or the Regional Forester that I called.

762
00:52:49,520 --> 00:52:50,960
Probably wouldn't have gone quite as well,

763
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:54,880
but Jim, again, became one of my mentors.

764
00:52:54,880 --> 00:53:01,880
He and his colleague Ivan that wrote the human factors analysis,

765
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:04,960
Jim was like, have you even read it?

766
00:53:04,960 --> 00:53:07,520
And I had to say, no.

767
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:09,360
Have you given it to his parents?

768
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:12,200
And he had to say no.

769
00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:14,000
So we both kind of came to that place and he's like,

770
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:15,800
just look at it.

771
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:18,080
I hope you'll see that it's different than what you expect.

772
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:19,400
And sure enough, it was.

773
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:22,480
It was very different than what I expected.

774
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:29,440
And that's where the whole, the real, the left turn happened

775
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:35,880
with coming back to learning my way through those bad days,

776
00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:38,880
seeing that it could be done differently.

777
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:43,440
And what Jim and Ivan were doing was different.

778
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:44,840
It wasn't blaming the dead.

779
00:53:44,840 --> 00:53:50,680
It was helping me understand how this could happen to Tom.

780
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:53,480
And not probably most importantly,

781
00:53:53,480 --> 00:54:01,840
but definitely most importantly, it was all about acknowledging

782
00:54:01,840 --> 00:54:06,840
that I'm as susceptible to human performance,

783
00:54:06,840 --> 00:54:08,160
human factors as Tom was.

784
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:16,240
And I better start thinking about what to do about that.

785
00:54:16,240 --> 00:54:19,160
And that was an important shift.

786
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:20,920
That was an important shift.

787
00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:28,480
Went from all I got to do is be a great firefighter

788
00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:33,720
and everything will be fine to, it's not quite that simple.

789
00:54:33,720 --> 00:54:37,320
When I look at, for example, what we've just talked about,

790
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:40,160
what you've just told us about, when I look at the law

791
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:43,000
enforcement community that do everything they were trained

792
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:47,440
to do and then they get thrown under the bus and charged,

793
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:51,320
or simply just not supported, or like I said,

794
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:54,800
in my particular case with this last department,

795
00:54:54,800 --> 00:54:58,560
there wasn't any of this support behind let's do the right thing

796
00:54:58,560 --> 00:55:02,200
for the firefighter that we just lost.

797
00:55:02,200 --> 00:55:07,240
I saw and felt viscerally the mental health impact of that,

798
00:55:07,240 --> 00:55:09,800
the organizational betrayal, the tribe

799
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:14,760
that you had sworn to possibly die for turning their back

800
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:15,840
on you.

801
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:19,040
What have you observed when it was handled poorly

802
00:55:19,040 --> 00:55:22,600
of the impact of the men and women around?

803
00:55:22,600 --> 00:55:28,720
Yeah, it's a lot of my work now is really

804
00:55:28,720 --> 00:55:31,240
centered around learning from events,

805
00:55:31,240 --> 00:55:33,080
learning from our past.

806
00:55:33,080 --> 00:55:39,560
And in that 30-mile Kramer-Esperanza time period,

807
00:55:39,560 --> 00:55:46,080
it was a really powerful, if that's

808
00:55:46,080 --> 00:55:50,000
how I'm going to be judged based on what I couldn't know,

809
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:57,320
what I couldn't have known, do I really want to do this?

810
00:55:57,320 --> 00:56:03,160
And especially in the Pacific Northwest, but other places,

811
00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:06,720
IAWF did a survey, and I don't remember the numbers,

812
00:56:06,720 --> 00:56:11,120
but it was a pretty significant amount of folks.

813
00:56:11,120 --> 00:56:13,280
When Ellery Staniels was charged,

814
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:17,520
said I'm done being a Type 3 incident commander.

815
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:21,600
I will not be pursuing that.

816
00:56:21,600 --> 00:56:22,880
I didn't feel that way.

817
00:56:22,880 --> 00:56:25,040
I was still at that point where I was like, OK,

818
00:56:25,040 --> 00:56:26,120
I just got to be really good.

819
00:56:26,120 --> 00:56:27,000
I got to be better.

820
00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:32,840
And I loved, in the 30-mile abatement plan,

821
00:56:32,840 --> 00:56:36,000
they came up with a simulation.

822
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:38,280
It's a Type 3 IC simulation.

823
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:42,000
And for qualified current Type 3s,

824
00:56:42,000 --> 00:56:43,520
I can understand how it would feel

825
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:47,640
like a questioning of their confidence,

826
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:49,920
like they had to prove themselves again,

827
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:55,080
despite all of their solid work before.

828
00:56:55,080 --> 00:56:57,160
So I could see that from that perspective,

829
00:56:57,160 --> 00:56:58,760
but I wasn't a qualified.

830
00:56:58,760 --> 00:57:00,840
I was pursuing that qualification,

831
00:57:00,840 --> 00:57:06,840
and I thought it was fantastic.

832
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:11,240
I thought it was a great, it was a move from kind of that,

833
00:57:11,240 --> 00:57:13,080
sit in the classroom, watch the PowerPoints,

834
00:57:13,080 --> 00:57:18,200
hear the war stories to actual, and the California cadre

835
00:57:18,200 --> 00:57:20,840
is really invested in it.

836
00:57:20,840 --> 00:57:25,720
And my boss told the story of when he did it.

837
00:57:25,720 --> 00:57:27,920
He got to the end of it, and they said, OK, Chris,

838
00:57:27,920 --> 00:57:29,080
you're done.

839
00:57:29,080 --> 00:57:30,680
And he turned around and yelled,

840
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:32,280
I'm not done yet.

841
00:57:32,280 --> 00:57:36,080
When somebody does that, that is realistic training.

842
00:57:36,080 --> 00:57:38,800
That is a person in the moment, and that

843
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:44,080
is what we can aspire to when it comes to learning and training

844
00:57:44,080 --> 00:57:46,840
for the fire service.

845
00:57:46,840 --> 00:57:54,120
And so there were things that came out of it,

846
00:57:54,120 --> 00:57:59,560
but it really didn't overcome what I've come to know now

847
00:57:59,560 --> 00:58:10,520
as moral injury and a broader sense of who

848
00:58:10,520 --> 00:58:13,080
was hurt after these events.

849
00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:22,880
And so the organization was seeing

850
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:26,720
the aftermath of that in a very important part

851
00:58:26,720 --> 00:58:29,360
of my career and my evolution.

852
00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:37,520
And so there were really two groups of folks,

853
00:58:37,520 --> 00:58:42,480
and Jim and Ivan that I mentioned were part of that.

854
00:58:42,480 --> 00:58:48,240
There was another group of folks, Steve Holtenbeck,

855
00:58:48,240 --> 00:58:50,680
Randy Drager, others.

856
00:58:50,680 --> 00:58:53,200
And it's one of those really cool examples

857
00:58:53,200 --> 00:58:56,000
of organizational change.

858
00:58:56,000 --> 00:58:58,880
We often say that grassroots is best.

859
00:58:58,880 --> 00:59:01,560
Grassroots change, something that starts at the field

860
00:59:01,560 --> 00:59:04,240
is super important.

861
00:59:04,240 --> 00:59:07,320
But what I learned through this is that sometimes the grass

862
00:59:07,320 --> 00:59:09,680
just gets mowed.

863
00:59:09,680 --> 00:59:13,080
The grassroots effort is important,

864
00:59:13,080 --> 00:59:17,760
but if it isn't paired with executive,

865
00:59:17,760 --> 00:59:20,680
with senior leadership that leaves similar things,

866
00:59:20,680 --> 00:59:22,720
not necessarily the same things, but they're

867
00:59:22,720 --> 00:59:25,400
moving towards the same north star,

868
00:59:25,400 --> 00:59:27,800
really amazing things can happen.

869
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:30,880
So thankfully, at the time, we had a chief that

870
00:59:30,880 --> 00:59:42,040
was not blind to what we feared was going to happen,

871
00:59:42,040 --> 00:59:42,840
was happening.

872
00:59:42,840 --> 00:59:45,280
And that's that we were losing capacity

873
00:59:45,280 --> 00:59:48,880
to how we were approaching these things after the bad days.

874
00:59:48,880 --> 00:59:51,720
We're losing the ability to fulfill

875
00:59:51,720 --> 00:59:56,560
the mission of wildland fire in the organization.

876
00:59:56,560 --> 01:00:00,520
So chief being open to something different,

877
01:00:00,520 --> 01:00:03,920
Ivan and Jim pushing from this direction,

878
01:00:03,920 --> 01:00:06,840
Steve and Randy pushing from that direction,

879
01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:11,200
and a boatload of other people, a boatload of other people

880
01:00:11,200 --> 01:00:16,560
really pushing hard to switch from this retributive

881
01:00:16,560 --> 01:00:23,480
after a bad day, name, blame, shame, fire, punish, prosecute,

882
01:00:23,480 --> 01:00:31,400
or at best retrain people to a learning mindset,

883
01:00:31,400 --> 01:00:34,120
recognizing that the people that experience these events

884
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:40,760
have the most to share with us in the aftermath

885
01:00:40,760 --> 01:00:41,680
of those events.

886
01:00:41,680 --> 01:00:44,760
And if you're going to go after them, why in hell

887
01:00:44,760 --> 01:00:46,760
would they ever share anything with you?

888
01:00:49,200 --> 01:00:53,000
And so this retributive, go after them, punish them,

889
01:00:53,000 --> 01:00:56,960
prosecute them, just drove learning underground.

890
01:00:56,960 --> 01:01:00,480
And a ton of it's been lost.

891
01:01:00,480 --> 01:01:02,480
A ton of it's been lost.

892
01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:04,840
And a real powerful example of this,

893
01:01:04,840 --> 01:01:07,040
and I certainly don't blame the guys

894
01:01:07,040 --> 01:01:10,120
that were at the base of the tree with Andy Palmer

895
01:01:10,120 --> 01:01:12,560
when he died.

896
01:01:12,560 --> 01:01:15,720
That story has never been told.

897
01:01:15,720 --> 01:01:18,200
We don't know what happened.

898
01:01:18,200 --> 01:01:20,080
And part of me is glad.

899
01:01:20,080 --> 01:01:22,120
Imagine if we knew that story.

900
01:01:22,120 --> 01:01:24,560
If we knew everything about how that tree was cut,

901
01:01:24,560 --> 01:01:27,200
our focus would have been on that damn tree.

902
01:01:27,200 --> 01:01:27,840
Tree's down.

903
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:29,920
It's not going to kill anybody again.

904
01:01:29,920 --> 01:01:31,880
But instead, because we couldn't focus there,

905
01:01:31,880 --> 01:01:33,880
we had to look at the organization's response

906
01:01:33,880 --> 01:01:36,120
to somebody getting traumatically injured

907
01:01:36,120 --> 01:01:37,600
on the fire line.

908
01:01:37,600 --> 01:01:42,600
And we started thinking about things like tourniquets.

909
01:01:42,600 --> 01:01:44,280
Never would have thought about that

910
01:01:44,280 --> 01:01:46,600
if it hadn't been for Iraq and Afghanistan,

911
01:01:46,600 --> 01:01:48,480
and it's learned a ton about tourniquets,

912
01:01:48,480 --> 01:01:51,880
but then needing one and not having it.

913
01:01:51,880 --> 01:01:55,520
The coordinating a response to get a kid out of the forest

914
01:01:55,520 --> 01:01:57,280
as fast as possible.

915
01:01:57,280 --> 01:02:04,080
Managing bleeds that are unimaginable.

916
01:02:04,080 --> 01:02:06,080
That's kind of what that forced us to do is,

917
01:02:06,080 --> 01:02:08,600
if we couldn't focus on the tree,

918
01:02:08,600 --> 01:02:10,160
we had to focus on something.

919
01:02:10,160 --> 01:02:14,280
And great things have come from that.

920
01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:16,760
The fact that we didn't have a medical incident

921
01:02:16,760 --> 01:02:22,720
report until that event, how is that even imaginable?

922
01:02:22,720 --> 01:02:23,800
But it is.

923
01:02:23,800 --> 01:02:24,280
It's true.

924
01:02:26,840 --> 01:02:29,760
EMTs paramedics on the fire line?

925
01:02:29,760 --> 01:02:30,280
Rare.

926
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:36,680
I put myself through EMT in the aftermath of that, right?

927
01:02:36,680 --> 01:02:39,400
Just so that I didn't have to stand there

928
01:02:39,400 --> 01:02:41,600
with my hands in my pockets wondering

929
01:02:41,600 --> 01:02:44,720
what the hell I should do.

930
01:02:44,720 --> 01:02:46,720
We're in a very different place today.

931
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:48,560
Again, we're not perfect.

932
01:02:48,560 --> 01:02:50,000
We haven't got it all figured out.

933
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:50,680
We can do better.

934
01:02:50,680 --> 01:02:51,440
We can do better.

935
01:02:51,440 --> 01:02:52,680
We are working to do better.

936
01:02:52,680 --> 01:02:59,680
And it's better than it was in a lot of ways, not every way.

937
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:03,360
Well, what were the systemic problems?

938
01:03:03,360 --> 01:03:05,920
And then how were you, and again,

939
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:09,480
this boatload of people, able to start moving the needle?

940
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:10,880
Because I see this.

941
01:03:10,880 --> 01:03:13,560
One of the problems we have in the municipal fire services,

942
01:03:13,560 --> 01:03:14,760
we're so segmented.

943
01:03:14,760 --> 01:03:15,680
We're so fractured.

944
01:03:15,680 --> 01:03:16,520
We're siloed.

945
01:03:16,520 --> 01:03:18,800
Very few talk to each other.

946
01:03:18,800 --> 01:03:21,240
I mean, maybe one or two will go to conferences and knowledge

947
01:03:21,240 --> 01:03:21,720
share.

948
01:03:21,720 --> 01:03:23,760
But overall, we all know that there's

949
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:25,880
a lot of places where cities and counties don't even

950
01:03:25,880 --> 01:03:29,960
talk to each other, which is pure insanity to me.

951
01:03:29,960 --> 01:03:33,200
And so this issue is rife all over the country.

952
01:03:33,200 --> 01:03:35,440
I mean, even just the firefighter work week,

953
01:03:35,440 --> 01:03:37,880
which I harp on about all the time,

954
01:03:37,880 --> 01:03:40,560
the fact that the Northeast is working 42 hours

955
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:45,480
and California is working 56 and the federal guys are working 72,

956
01:03:45,480 --> 01:03:47,240
we don't even have a standardized work week,

957
01:03:47,240 --> 01:03:49,720
even though they're all human beings doing a job.

958
01:03:49,720 --> 01:03:53,800
I would argue that a 42-hour work week is the maximum.

959
01:03:53,800 --> 01:03:57,200
Someone required to do what we have to do should be working.

960
01:03:57,200 --> 01:03:59,760
Unless, God forbid, it's a catastrophe

961
01:03:59,760 --> 01:04:02,880
and it's an all-hands event.

962
01:04:02,880 --> 01:04:08,280
I have seen over and over again, if I'm taking the gloves off,

963
01:04:08,280 --> 01:04:11,960
ego and cowardice a lot from people

964
01:04:11,960 --> 01:04:14,640
who are supposed to be leaders who should be advocating

965
01:04:14,640 --> 01:04:16,160
for their people.

966
01:04:16,160 --> 01:04:18,800
What are you seeing as far as the barriers

967
01:04:18,800 --> 01:04:20,000
that you were encountering?

968
01:04:20,000 --> 01:04:22,520
And then how were you able to circumnavigate them

969
01:04:22,520 --> 01:04:27,320
to actually make it better for the wildland firefighters?

970
01:04:27,320 --> 01:04:33,680
One of my go-to teachers, he talks

971
01:04:33,680 --> 01:04:41,840
about how the antidote of fear isn't courage.

972
01:04:41,840 --> 01:04:46,600
It looks a lot more like imagination.

973
01:04:46,600 --> 01:04:49,440
The antidote to fear is imagination.

974
01:04:49,440 --> 01:04:55,120
And I think that's what I see in this is a lot

975
01:04:55,120 --> 01:05:00,280
of really great people thinking differently about the problem.

976
01:05:00,280 --> 01:05:08,360
And how we go about change is one thing.

977
01:05:08,360 --> 01:05:13,520
The implementation is often clunky and slow and redundant

978
01:05:13,520 --> 01:05:18,840
and messy.

979
01:05:18,840 --> 01:05:22,320
But if you take a step back before the implementation

980
01:05:22,320 --> 01:05:26,880
and you look at how people were thinking about doing something

981
01:05:26,880 --> 01:05:29,640
to try to make things better, I think

982
01:05:29,640 --> 01:05:32,760
you see the bright side of the story.

983
01:05:32,760 --> 01:05:35,040
The implementation is one thing.

984
01:05:35,040 --> 01:05:37,560
And that often sinks the idea.

985
01:05:37,560 --> 01:05:40,600
But that's where this one in particular.

986
01:05:40,600 --> 01:05:44,000
And it connects to a common interest of ours

987
01:05:44,000 --> 01:05:45,200
in human performance.

988
01:05:45,200 --> 01:05:53,840
But so with this, you had those two groups, that grass roots

989
01:05:53,840 --> 01:05:57,400
group, grass roots group, and that top-down group

990
01:05:57,400 --> 01:06:01,240
with the chief, some senior leadership folks,

991
01:06:01,240 --> 01:06:04,200
all saying we need to move towards this North Star.

992
01:06:04,200 --> 01:06:07,160
And this North Star is learning that our goal

993
01:06:07,160 --> 01:06:11,640
after the event isn't to punish, isn't to blame.

994
01:06:11,640 --> 01:06:13,200
It is to learn.

995
01:06:13,200 --> 01:06:16,880
The last one doesn't matter anymore.

996
01:06:16,880 --> 01:06:19,080
The next one is what matters most.

997
01:06:19,080 --> 01:06:22,040
And we need to learn everything we can so that we can approach

998
01:06:22,040 --> 01:06:25,040
the next one better.

999
01:06:25,040 --> 01:06:29,520
And so at one point, the idea of the Forest Service having

1000
01:06:29,520 --> 01:06:34,680
an honor guard was like, why would we have that?

1001
01:06:34,680 --> 01:06:37,040
We're the Forest Service.

1002
01:06:37,040 --> 01:06:40,400
But those folks, and it was a really weird time.

1003
01:06:40,400 --> 01:06:44,240
You hear a lot today about how, well, the organization

1004
01:06:44,240 --> 01:06:48,600
says that I'm a forestry technician, not a firefighter.

1005
01:06:48,600 --> 01:06:51,240
I didn't really accept that at that time.

1006
01:06:51,240 --> 01:06:54,600
We were like, OK, that's what the job title is.

1007
01:06:54,600 --> 01:06:57,000
I mean, my signature line today doesn't have anything

1008
01:06:57,000 --> 01:06:58,760
to do with what my job title is.

1009
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:01,680
We defined our own identity.

1010
01:07:01,680 --> 01:07:05,480
And for me and for a lot of us, that identity

1011
01:07:05,480 --> 01:07:07,680
was I'm a Forest Service Fire Engine Captain.

1012
01:07:07,680 --> 01:07:10,200
That is who I am.

1013
01:07:10,200 --> 01:07:14,520
For the folks that spearheaded, that doggedly pursued

1014
01:07:14,520 --> 01:07:18,080
that honor guard, that was their identity.

1015
01:07:18,080 --> 01:07:22,120
They didn't accept the fact that the job title on a piece

1016
01:07:22,120 --> 01:07:24,280
of paper or on their pay stub was going to hold them back

1017
01:07:24,280 --> 01:07:26,360
from living that.

1018
01:07:26,360 --> 01:07:27,560
I admire them for that.

1019
01:07:27,560 --> 01:07:29,240
I admire the people that are striving

1020
01:07:29,240 --> 01:07:30,480
for change in that arena, too.

1021
01:07:30,480 --> 01:07:33,320
Don't get me wrong.

1022
01:07:33,320 --> 01:07:38,640
So when I see those people and all the people

1023
01:07:38,640 --> 01:07:43,880
that were pulled into their slipstream

1024
01:07:43,880 --> 01:07:46,160
as they're moving these changes through the organization

1025
01:07:46,160 --> 01:07:49,680
and that shift from the retributive serious accident

1026
01:07:49,680 --> 01:07:53,240
investigation to the learning review,

1027
01:07:53,240 --> 01:07:54,880
seeing how it could be different,

1028
01:07:54,880 --> 01:07:56,720
seeing how we could change how we treated

1029
01:07:56,720 --> 01:08:00,000
people after their worst days, we

1030
01:08:00,000 --> 01:08:02,000
started to see a bit of a glimmer.

1031
01:08:02,000 --> 01:08:07,600
And that was done mainly through the facilitated learning

1032
01:08:07,600 --> 01:08:10,320
analysis and the learning review,

1033
01:08:10,320 --> 01:08:12,800
and both of them being accepted by the organization

1034
01:08:12,800 --> 01:08:15,800
as a replacement of the serious accident investigation.

1035
01:08:18,800 --> 01:08:22,520
In a really rare instance in government,

1036
01:08:22,520 --> 01:08:25,480
the thing was deleted.

1037
01:08:25,480 --> 01:08:27,240
We aren't doing that anymore.

1038
01:08:27,240 --> 01:08:31,560
We are doing it differently on this day and at this time.

1039
01:08:31,560 --> 01:08:35,520
Culturally, lots of changes also had to come along,

1040
01:08:35,520 --> 01:08:41,920
but it was an important effort for us to,

1041
01:08:41,920 --> 01:08:44,120
and some really recognized the need

1042
01:08:44,120 --> 01:08:48,880
to make a really solid split between what was

1043
01:08:48,880 --> 01:08:51,080
and what will be.

1044
01:08:51,080 --> 01:08:55,440
And what that led to, I think, is a really important mindset

1045
01:08:55,440 --> 01:08:56,240
shift.

1046
01:08:56,240 --> 01:09:01,320
If we're going to accept that we can learn our way

1047
01:09:01,320 --> 01:09:04,120
through the worst days, that means

1048
01:09:04,120 --> 01:09:09,120
that it isn't about better rules, better policies,

1049
01:09:09,120 --> 01:09:13,360
better procedures, or better hard hats or seat belts.

1050
01:09:13,360 --> 01:09:19,000
It's about figuring out what it is to be human.

1051
01:09:19,000 --> 01:09:29,040
And so after I finally looked at the human factors analysis

1052
01:09:29,040 --> 01:09:32,080
and the study of human factors, you've

1053
01:09:32,080 --> 01:09:35,000
got to give credit to that origin story with Ted Putnam

1054
01:09:35,000 --> 01:09:39,800
and the aftermath of South Canyon.

1055
01:09:39,800 --> 01:09:48,640
His hill he died on, figuratively, was just that.

1056
01:09:48,640 --> 01:09:51,120
It's the human factor that matters.

1057
01:09:51,120 --> 01:09:54,640
It's not about rules and policies and procedures

1058
01:09:54,640 --> 01:09:57,360
to get ourselves out of, to keep ourselves out

1059
01:09:57,360 --> 01:09:58,440
of situations like this.

1060
01:09:58,440 --> 01:10:04,240
We need thinking people.

1061
01:10:04,240 --> 01:10:07,200
And he recognized the human factor at South Canyon

1062
01:10:07,200 --> 01:10:11,160
and really got that ball rolling for many people.

1063
01:10:11,160 --> 01:10:14,200
So we're all standing on the shoulders of giants with this.

1064
01:10:14,200 --> 01:10:18,640
So that, I think, there's one shift

1065
01:10:18,640 --> 01:10:22,400
in stopping what we were doing and doing something else.

1066
01:10:22,400 --> 01:10:25,120
But the more important fundamental, I think,

1067
01:10:25,120 --> 01:10:27,960
is the recognition that we're human,

1068
01:10:27,960 --> 01:10:32,760
that we don't know that we're wrong until we find out that,

1069
01:10:32,760 --> 01:10:35,200
oh, crap, we were wrong.

1070
01:10:35,200 --> 01:10:40,720
And by that point, we're quite a ways down the road

1071
01:10:40,720 --> 01:10:43,640
and oftentimes too far down the road to get out in time.

1072
01:10:43,640 --> 01:10:47,160
So the study of human factors, the study of human performance.

1073
01:10:47,160 --> 01:10:52,320
So I went to work for Ivan and Jim.

1074
01:10:52,320 --> 01:10:56,840
And we're mainly doing accident investigation at the time,

1075
01:10:56,840 --> 01:10:58,320
still calling it that.

1076
01:10:58,320 --> 01:11:01,360
But really, what I was doing is I

1077
01:11:01,360 --> 01:11:06,840
was getting a crash course in human factors, how we think,

1078
01:11:06,840 --> 01:11:11,000
how we approach risk, what risk even meant.

1079
01:11:11,000 --> 01:11:13,760
I used the word without ever really

1080
01:11:13,760 --> 01:11:17,400
understanding what it meant.

1081
01:11:17,400 --> 01:11:21,640
And so that shift, recognizing that not only are the people

1082
01:11:21,640 --> 01:11:27,040
that have bad days on the line are humans, oh my.

1083
01:11:27,040 --> 01:11:29,640
I trusted them the day before.

1084
01:11:29,640 --> 01:11:34,520
I can, and I need to trust them the day after.

1085
01:11:38,440 --> 01:11:42,280
That was a real subtle shift.

1086
01:11:42,280 --> 01:11:45,400
It wasn't something that you could just publish a new thing

1087
01:11:45,400 --> 01:11:47,760
and it would happen.

1088
01:11:47,760 --> 01:11:51,240
And it was a lot of really powerful.

1089
01:11:51,240 --> 01:11:53,360
And I don't mean position powerful,

1090
01:11:53,360 --> 01:11:57,000
but personality powerful people, people that you trusted,

1091
01:11:57,000 --> 01:12:00,800
people that you looked up to, people like Bob,

1092
01:12:00,800 --> 01:12:08,440
to imagine a different place and then go

1093
01:12:08,440 --> 01:12:11,840
about creating a different place.

1094
01:12:11,840 --> 01:12:14,360
And there's lots of things that structure things,

1095
01:12:14,360 --> 01:12:17,280
like just having our Wild on Fire Lessons Learn Center,

1096
01:12:17,280 --> 01:12:21,480
a place to house the learning.

1097
01:12:21,480 --> 01:12:24,520
You could talk a lot about whether people are learning

1098
01:12:24,520 --> 01:12:28,200
from events or not, but it's really an important piece

1099
01:12:28,200 --> 01:12:30,880
to have a place, have a library, have a repository,

1100
01:12:30,880 --> 01:12:32,480
have an organization that invests

1101
01:12:32,480 --> 01:12:36,000
in capturing those stories and sharing them with people.

1102
01:12:36,000 --> 01:12:37,720
That's not insignificant.

1103
01:12:37,720 --> 01:12:39,440
Otherwise, we're all just figuring it out.

1104
01:12:39,440 --> 01:12:44,440
One of the most important elements, I think, of so many,

1105
01:12:44,440 --> 01:12:46,920
especially when we're looking at line of duty deaths

1106
01:12:46,920 --> 01:12:50,120
or near misses or, again, if you want to turn all the way

1107
01:12:50,120 --> 01:12:52,960
to the other side, elite human performance,

1108
01:12:52,960 --> 01:12:56,160
that is, in my opinion, a massive elephant in the room

1109
01:12:56,160 --> 01:13:00,000
that so many ignore is the impact of sleep deprivation.

1110
01:13:00,000 --> 01:13:01,800
So I'm just going to leave it right there

1111
01:13:01,800 --> 01:13:02,920
and give you the mic back.

1112
01:13:02,920 --> 01:13:05,480
What's your kind of entire philosophy on that

1113
01:13:05,480 --> 01:13:07,240
and the impact of sleep deprivation?

1114
01:13:07,240 --> 01:13:09,600
What kind of entire philosophy on that

1115
01:13:09,600 --> 01:13:11,160
and the impact on your community?

1116
01:13:12,560 --> 01:13:16,320
So interestingly enough, when I worked for Ivan,

1117
01:13:16,320 --> 01:13:18,560
I worked for him for a year.

1118
01:13:18,560 --> 01:13:21,720
He was the most traveled person in the Forest Service.

1119
01:13:21,720 --> 01:13:23,160
I was the second.

1120
01:13:23,160 --> 01:13:27,200
I had to get my travel card credit when it bumped up

1121
01:13:27,200 --> 01:13:29,000
because we were traveling so much.

1122
01:13:30,160 --> 01:13:32,960
We'd leave on a Sunday.

1123
01:13:32,960 --> 01:13:34,200
We'd go to a forest.

1124
01:13:34,200 --> 01:13:35,360
We'd teach.

1125
01:13:35,360 --> 01:13:36,320
We'd meet people.

1126
01:13:36,320 --> 01:13:38,760
We'd be there all week and get home on a Saturday.

1127
01:13:42,240 --> 01:13:44,440
It was not good.

1128
01:13:44,440 --> 01:13:46,520
Ivan's wife, a ton of credit.

1129
01:13:47,480 --> 01:13:49,720
She hit him upside the head with a two by four

1130
01:13:49,720 --> 01:13:52,880
and said, you can't do this.

1131
01:13:55,080 --> 01:13:56,120
This is not sustainable.

1132
01:13:56,120 --> 01:13:57,000
You're going to lose something.

1133
01:13:57,000 --> 01:13:58,400
You're going to lose your career.

1134
01:13:58,400 --> 01:14:00,480
You're going to lose a relationship.

1135
01:14:00,480 --> 01:14:01,320
Make a call.

1136
01:14:02,560 --> 01:14:05,080
And I wasn't in a relationship at the time,

1137
01:14:05,080 --> 01:14:07,160
but I remember at the end of the detail,

1138
01:14:07,160 --> 01:14:09,280
I was going back to my crew

1139
01:14:09,280 --> 01:14:12,680
and I called up Ivan and said, look,

1140
01:14:14,640 --> 01:14:18,400
I am not an asset to my crew going back like this.

1141
01:14:19,400 --> 01:14:21,720
I hadn't dealt with a ton of psychological stuff,

1142
01:14:21,720 --> 01:14:26,120
but that aside, on top of that, I was exhausted.

1143
01:14:26,120 --> 01:14:27,680
And part of me was really looking forward

1144
01:14:27,680 --> 01:14:29,840
to getting back with the crew,

1145
01:14:29,840 --> 01:14:32,200
but the other part of me was dreading it.

1146
01:14:32,200 --> 01:14:35,800
So as part of our evolution,

1147
01:14:35,800 --> 01:14:39,600
one of the things that we were really strong on at the time

1148
01:14:39,600 --> 01:14:42,320
was going out and learning from amazing people,

1149
01:14:44,480 --> 01:14:45,640
leaders in the field.

1150
01:14:45,640 --> 01:14:49,640
So Ivan said, okay, we're going to send you

1151
01:14:49,640 --> 01:14:52,640
to the Human Performance Institute in Florida,

1152
01:14:53,760 --> 01:14:57,360
and you're going to take their performance course.

1153
01:14:57,360 --> 01:15:02,360
And that was super important.

1154
01:15:04,960 --> 01:15:08,640
A lot of, not a lot of, some of the key players in this

1155
01:15:08,640 --> 01:15:10,240
had that experience under their belt.

1156
01:15:10,240 --> 01:15:12,720
They'd gone there, they had learned about physical,

1157
01:15:12,720 --> 01:15:14,400
mental, emotional, and spiritual fitness

1158
01:15:14,400 --> 01:15:17,360
from Olympic level athletic coaches.

1159
01:15:17,360 --> 01:15:20,000
That's what the Human Performance Institute is all about.

1160
01:15:20,000 --> 01:15:22,040
First, I was like, you're going to send me

1161
01:15:22,040 --> 01:15:24,520
to learn from a tennis coach?

1162
01:15:24,520 --> 01:15:26,480
But thankfully by that point,

1163
01:15:26,480 --> 01:15:28,720
I had been surprised by how many people

1164
01:15:28,720 --> 01:15:31,320
I could learn from that it was an amazing experience.

1165
01:15:31,320 --> 01:15:34,840
It was a great group of folks, top of their field.

1166
01:15:34,840 --> 01:15:39,600
Jim Lair was still teaching at that point.

1167
01:15:42,080 --> 01:15:47,080
And it was truly, well, it was my first real exposure

1168
01:15:47,080 --> 01:15:51,000
into the idea of human performance.

1169
01:15:51,000 --> 01:15:56,000
It was the realization or not realization,

1170
01:15:56,000 --> 01:15:59,760
I'm sure I knew it, but it was the kind of that moment

1171
01:15:59,760 --> 01:16:01,640
of acceptance that, holy crap,

1172
01:16:01,640 --> 01:16:04,600
I am not physically where I need to be.

1173
01:16:04,600 --> 01:16:06,520
I'm not mentally where I need to be.

1174
01:16:06,520 --> 01:16:07,960
I'm not emotionally where I need to be.

1175
01:16:07,960 --> 01:16:10,960
And I'm certainly isn't spiritually where I need to be.

1176
01:16:11,720 --> 01:16:14,400
So it was very much a mindset shift.

1177
01:16:14,400 --> 01:16:18,400
It was the start of one, it wasn't the finish.

1178
01:16:18,400 --> 01:16:21,120
If there ever is a finish in that,

1179
01:16:21,120 --> 01:16:25,120
but it was that realization that human performance

1180
01:16:25,120 --> 01:16:30,120
is the path forward, recognizing those things.

1181
01:16:33,120 --> 01:16:38,120
And I can't say at the time that sleep was acknowledged

1182
01:16:39,840 --> 01:16:41,000
for the impact it had.

1183
01:16:41,000 --> 01:16:45,000
I think that the sleep probably revolution,

1184
01:16:45,000 --> 01:16:46,840
it's more than that.

1185
01:16:46,840 --> 01:16:49,280
The evolution, it's more than an evolution,

1186
01:16:49,280 --> 01:16:52,400
but the recognition of the importance of sleep

1187
01:16:52,400 --> 01:16:55,080
in recent years is so important.

1188
01:16:58,120 --> 01:17:03,120
And yet it's one of those that, well,

1189
01:17:03,120 --> 01:17:05,000
we just haven't been imaginative enough

1190
01:17:05,000 --> 01:17:06,360
going back to that idea.

1191
01:17:06,360 --> 01:17:08,400
Like, how do we deal with that?

1192
01:17:10,400 --> 01:17:14,720
I remember the long, one of those trips to San Bernardino,

1193
01:17:14,720 --> 01:17:18,360
the first sleep trailer ever slept in.

1194
01:17:18,360 --> 01:17:23,360
Being on night shift, trying to sleep in hot,

1195
01:17:23,880 --> 01:17:25,480
smoky conditions.

1196
01:17:25,480 --> 01:17:28,200
And the sleep trailer was an amazing evolution.

1197
01:17:30,840 --> 01:17:33,360
Packing, I don't know how many people

1198
01:17:33,360 --> 01:17:36,280
into one of those things in this day and age

1199
01:17:36,280 --> 01:17:39,520
with what we understand with communicable diseases

1200
01:17:39,520 --> 01:17:40,880
is probably not a good plan.

1201
01:17:40,880 --> 01:17:43,400
I don't know, they've evolved there.

1202
01:17:43,400 --> 01:17:45,640
It's been a long time since I've slept in one,

1203
01:17:45,640 --> 01:17:49,600
but that was like one of those acknowledgements

1204
01:17:49,600 --> 01:17:54,600
that sleep is a thing, it's important.

1205
01:17:55,840 --> 01:17:58,000
COVID taught us a lot about that one too.

1206
01:17:59,240 --> 01:18:01,120
There's work to be done on it yet,

1207
01:18:01,120 --> 01:18:03,920
but there was a realization, I think,

1208
01:18:03,920 --> 01:18:08,200
that hoteling people up, if you can,

1209
01:18:08,200 --> 01:18:11,120
if it doesn't pose a driving risk

1210
01:18:11,120 --> 01:18:14,920
to get folks into hotels instead of fire camps,

1211
01:18:14,920 --> 01:18:17,640
isn't more expensive.

1212
01:18:17,640 --> 01:18:19,440
That you should consider that as an option

1213
01:18:19,440 --> 01:18:22,120
was, I think, a surprise to a lot of folks.

1214
01:18:22,120 --> 01:18:24,440
The excuse had always been, it's too expensive.

1215
01:18:26,440 --> 01:18:28,280
Of course, too expensive when you're talking

1216
01:18:28,280 --> 01:18:29,440
about human performance things

1217
01:18:29,440 --> 01:18:31,160
is always an interesting excuse.

1218
01:18:31,160 --> 01:18:34,680
But again, it's, are we imaginative enough

1219
01:18:34,680 --> 01:18:37,800
to think of how we could do business different

1220
01:18:37,800 --> 01:18:42,800
in a way that doesn't increase risk, but at the same time,

1221
01:18:43,080 --> 01:18:45,040
recognizes the importance of sleep,

1222
01:18:45,040 --> 01:18:46,520
the importance of nutrition,

1223
01:18:49,360 --> 01:18:51,520
the importance of mental fitness.

1224
01:18:54,160 --> 01:18:58,640
We're just, and it's been underway for years,

1225
01:18:58,640 --> 01:18:59,880
but really in the grand scheme of things,

1226
01:18:59,880 --> 01:19:02,120
certainly in the arc of history,

1227
01:19:02,120 --> 01:19:06,120
we're just getting this stuff figured out.

1228
01:19:06,120 --> 01:19:07,880
How do you do it?

1229
01:19:07,880 --> 01:19:11,200
And it's been an interesting experience

1230
01:19:11,200 --> 01:19:14,360
working for a variety of agencies over the years

1231
01:19:14,360 --> 01:19:16,960
at NWCG and at the Fire Center in Boise.

1232
01:19:22,360 --> 01:19:27,360
It's almost like there's a fear that by learning,

1233
01:19:29,800 --> 01:19:32,320
by studying something, we'll discover something

1234
01:19:32,320 --> 01:19:33,720
that we can't do anything about,

1235
01:19:33,720 --> 01:19:35,920
or we don't know how to do anything about it.

1236
01:19:35,920 --> 01:19:40,400
Really re-imagining how we approach large scale fires

1237
01:19:40,400 --> 01:19:44,880
so that we can handle, or we can address sleep deprivation.

1238
01:19:44,880 --> 01:19:46,800
Like, what does that look like?

1239
01:19:46,800 --> 01:19:49,200
That's where imagination comes in.

1240
01:19:49,200 --> 01:19:52,720
Without it, you just sit there and spin.

1241
01:19:52,720 --> 01:19:54,080
You grind on it.

1242
01:19:54,080 --> 01:19:56,080
And you may have the best of intentions,

1243
01:19:56,080 --> 01:20:00,200
but if you can't see a way to implement something different,

1244
01:20:02,200 --> 01:20:03,120
what do you got?

1245
01:20:03,120 --> 01:20:08,120
So again, certainly not there.

1246
01:20:08,520 --> 01:20:10,320
There has been evolutionary change,

1247
01:20:10,320 --> 01:20:13,240
some revolutionary change, but mostly evolutionary change.

1248
01:20:14,760 --> 01:20:18,200
Working long shifts on the MODOC, driving home,

1249
01:20:18,200 --> 01:20:22,440
our station was 30 miles from where most of us lived,

1250
01:20:23,880 --> 01:20:26,480
or at least parked our vehicles and then drove more home.

1251
01:20:26,480 --> 01:20:29,760
And those 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m. mornings driving home,

1252
01:20:29,760 --> 01:20:34,760
the idea of 24-hour shifts were unheard of

1253
01:20:36,360 --> 01:20:38,760
for the Forest Service in California at the time.

1254
01:20:39,720 --> 01:20:41,240
I won't say that they're normal now,

1255
01:20:41,240 --> 01:20:43,360
but they're a heck of a lot more normal.

1256
01:20:43,360 --> 01:20:46,080
People figured out how to do it, how to pay people,

1257
01:20:46,080 --> 01:20:48,840
how to house people, how to deal with it.

1258
01:20:48,840 --> 01:20:51,480
Long road ahead of us to get that dialed in,

1259
01:20:51,480 --> 01:20:53,640
but they're trying.

1260
01:20:53,640 --> 01:20:55,640
It's an attempt.

1261
01:20:55,640 --> 01:21:00,640
We're struggling, and it's interesting on large fire,

1262
01:21:01,760 --> 01:21:04,760
where it seems like we get to a tipping point

1263
01:21:04,760 --> 01:21:09,760
where we reach where people have earned enough,

1264
01:21:09,760 --> 01:21:11,640
they've gotten enough overtime under their belts

1265
01:21:11,640 --> 01:21:14,880
for the year that they can stop worrying

1266
01:21:14,880 --> 01:21:16,000
about paying the bills,

1267
01:21:16,000 --> 01:21:19,720
and they can start worrying about their recovery.

1268
01:21:19,720 --> 01:21:22,200
They can stop worrying about their health,

1269
01:21:22,200 --> 01:21:27,200
they can stop worrying about maximizing their 16-hour days,

1270
01:21:28,640 --> 01:21:33,000
and start being okay with coming in off the line

1271
01:21:33,000 --> 01:21:34,600
at 12 or 13.

1272
01:21:34,600 --> 01:21:37,040
But if you don't reach that tipping point first,

1273
01:21:37,040 --> 01:21:42,040
it's a real, I mean, talk about a human factor.

1274
01:21:42,240 --> 01:21:44,280
You're asking people not to be thinking

1275
01:21:44,280 --> 01:21:45,360
about paying their bills

1276
01:21:45,360 --> 01:21:47,760
and taking care of their family at home.

1277
01:21:47,760 --> 01:21:48,880
It doesn't work that way.

1278
01:21:48,880 --> 01:21:52,400
The idea of keep work at work and life and home at home,

1279
01:21:53,840 --> 01:21:55,560
if it ever worked, I don't know that it worked

1280
01:21:55,560 --> 01:21:57,960
for my parents, but I sure heard it a lot

1281
01:21:57,960 --> 01:21:59,080
from that generation.

1282
01:22:02,720 --> 01:22:04,440
I don't think it works that way.

1283
01:22:04,440 --> 01:22:06,400
At least it doesn't work that way for me.

1284
01:22:07,600 --> 01:22:10,160
But once you can get past that tipping point,

1285
01:22:10,160 --> 01:22:14,800
and how can you address that in different ways?

1286
01:22:14,800 --> 01:22:17,400
I know a lot of folks are frustrated.

1287
01:22:17,400 --> 01:22:19,120
It ain't happening fast.

1288
01:22:21,600 --> 01:22:23,840
Well, what's interesting is going back

1289
01:22:23,840 --> 01:22:26,400
to that imagination conversation.

1290
01:22:26,400 --> 01:22:28,640
I went through my whole career.

1291
01:22:28,640 --> 01:22:31,240
I started this podcast two years before I transitioned out.

1292
01:22:31,240 --> 01:22:33,200
So that was 12 years in.

1293
01:22:33,200 --> 01:22:35,600
I never questioned the shifts.

1294
01:22:35,600 --> 01:22:37,800
I still believe the kind of fairy tales

1295
01:22:37,800 --> 01:22:39,080
that we have this amazing shift,

1296
01:22:39,080 --> 01:22:40,160
and we have all this time off.

1297
01:22:40,160 --> 01:22:41,880
And it was only when I took a step back,

1298
01:22:41,880 --> 01:22:45,160
and after two years of going to numerous,

1299
01:22:45,160 --> 01:22:47,480
numerous funerals that I questioned,

1300
01:22:47,480 --> 01:22:50,080
and I had a background as a coach and an athlete

1301
01:22:50,080 --> 01:22:53,520
and an ex-phys major, just enough to go,

1302
01:22:53,520 --> 01:22:55,280
something isn't right about this.

1303
01:22:55,280 --> 01:22:58,840
And then you look at the number of hours that we work,

1304
01:22:58,840 --> 01:23:02,240
bare minimum, 56, awake every third day.

1305
01:23:02,240 --> 01:23:04,640
And then you go, well, why?

1306
01:23:04,640 --> 01:23:08,040
When your barista taps out at 40 hours in Starbucks,

1307
01:23:08,040 --> 01:23:10,240
why are we working this way?

1308
01:23:10,240 --> 01:23:13,480
And so ironically, it's counterintuitive,

1309
01:23:13,480 --> 01:23:18,480
the answer, when you actually change the work week

1310
01:23:18,480 --> 01:23:20,760
to one that is healthy,

1311
01:23:20,760 --> 01:23:22,960
your retention goes through the roof.

1312
01:23:22,960 --> 01:23:24,120
And we can start saying this now,

1313
01:23:24,120 --> 01:23:25,680
because in Florida, this has happened.

1314
01:23:25,680 --> 01:23:29,960
So at 2472, your recruitment goes through the roof.

1315
01:23:29,960 --> 01:23:33,640
So if you're one of the first fire departments to do this,

1316
01:23:33,640 --> 01:23:35,840
then you will get all the candidates,

1317
01:23:35,840 --> 01:23:36,680
I tell you that right now,

1318
01:23:36,680 --> 01:23:38,480
because Gainesville and some of these other departments

1319
01:23:38,480 --> 01:23:39,720
are seeing it.

1320
01:23:39,720 --> 01:23:41,800
But then the overtime,

1321
01:23:41,800 --> 01:23:44,720
the attrition, you're training these young people

1322
01:23:44,720 --> 01:23:46,000
and then you're losing them.

1323
01:23:46,000 --> 01:23:49,480
The workman's comp claims, the line of duty deaths,

1324
01:23:49,480 --> 01:23:53,080
the medical disabilities, the lawsuits from mistakes,

1325
01:23:53,080 --> 01:23:55,720
these are millions and millions and millions of dollars.

1326
01:23:55,720 --> 01:24:00,720
So the progressive, thoughtful leaders are going,

1327
01:24:00,800 --> 01:24:02,560
well, this is how we fix it.

1328
01:24:02,560 --> 01:24:04,240
We give them more time off.

1329
01:24:04,240 --> 01:24:05,880
And then I will wait a second,

1330
01:24:05,880 --> 01:24:06,920
we're gonna pay them less

1331
01:24:06,920 --> 01:24:08,960
and release these crazy responses to that.

1332
01:24:08,960 --> 01:24:10,800
But no, you invest in your people.

1333
01:24:10,800 --> 01:24:13,200
And if you take the wildland community, for example,

1334
01:24:13,200 --> 01:24:17,480
and you kind of imprint it on the airline industry,

1335
01:24:17,480 --> 01:24:18,960
you can't tell a pilot,

1336
01:24:18,960 --> 01:24:20,600
oh, well, you know, to make the extra money,

1337
01:24:20,600 --> 01:24:23,400
just fly back as well without sleep.

1338
01:24:23,400 --> 01:24:24,480
No one would go for that,

1339
01:24:24,480 --> 01:24:27,400
but that's exactly what we're doing in the fire service.

1340
01:24:27,400 --> 01:24:29,320
And, you know, from what I understand,

1341
01:24:29,320 --> 01:24:31,640
the wildland community is suffering from recruitment

1342
01:24:31,640 --> 01:24:33,480
the same as the municipal.

1343
01:24:33,480 --> 01:24:36,880
So the way that we attract young people back

1344
01:24:36,880 --> 01:24:38,320
is to invest in them.

1345
01:24:38,320 --> 01:24:40,920
The way that we stop them having to work overtime

1346
01:24:40,920 --> 01:24:42,040
is to pay them a wage

1347
01:24:42,040 --> 01:24:44,920
where they don't need to work overtime and then cap it,

1348
01:24:44,920 --> 01:24:47,520
you know, and then have an extra group

1349
01:24:47,520 --> 01:24:49,240
that works when they go home.

1350
01:24:49,240 --> 01:24:52,720
So when you compare what we are asked to do

1351
01:24:52,720 --> 01:24:55,280
in wildland, in municipal, you know,

1352
01:24:55,280 --> 01:24:57,840
in police and dispatch and corrections,

1353
01:24:57,840 --> 01:24:59,920
and you compare that, especially the fire service,

1354
01:24:59,920 --> 01:25:01,200
because obviously our hours

1355
01:25:01,200 --> 01:25:03,720
are just insane compared to most people's,

1356
01:25:03,720 --> 01:25:07,160
and you compare that to your supermarket,

1357
01:25:07,160 --> 01:25:10,480
your supermarket, you know, your coffee shop,

1358
01:25:10,480 --> 01:25:14,160
your accountant, they wouldn't dream of working 56 hours.

1359
01:25:14,160 --> 01:25:15,960
They wouldn't dream of saying at 5 p.m.,

1360
01:25:15,960 --> 01:25:19,000
hey, you can't go home, stay another 24 hours.

1361
01:25:19,000 --> 01:25:21,440
They wouldn't stand for it, yet we have.

1362
01:25:21,440 --> 01:25:24,200
So the answer is just purely,

1363
01:25:24,200 --> 01:25:27,120
you've got away with this shit for so many years,

1364
01:25:27,120 --> 01:25:29,200
but we're at a point now where you've got to change,

1365
01:25:29,200 --> 01:25:32,160
or you will literally have the next, you know,

1366
01:25:32,160 --> 01:25:35,360
thousand acre fire and literally not enough firefighters

1367
01:25:35,360 --> 01:25:37,480
to deal with it, or God forbid,

1368
01:25:37,480 --> 01:25:39,400
numerous fatalities on that fire

1369
01:25:39,400 --> 01:25:41,440
because they're so sleep deprived.

1370
01:25:41,440 --> 01:25:43,680
You know, I'm sure if you kind of, you know,

1371
01:25:43,680 --> 01:25:46,520
reverse engineered what happened in California,

1372
01:25:46,520 --> 01:25:48,960
that sleep was part of that issue as well.

1373
01:25:48,960 --> 01:25:51,040
So you've got, you know, homes destroyed,

1374
01:25:51,040 --> 01:25:52,760
you've got firefighters killed.

1375
01:25:52,760 --> 01:25:55,280
At what point do we say enough is enough?

1376
01:25:55,280 --> 01:25:57,920
We have to invest in our firefighters

1377
01:25:57,920 --> 01:26:00,520
if we're gonna ask them to do the things that we do.

1378
01:26:01,560 --> 01:26:04,880
One of my teachers, a guy by the name, Brian Johnson,

1379
01:26:04,880 --> 01:26:07,080
has really helped me think about this.

1380
01:26:07,080 --> 01:26:09,160
One of his things is he says that

1381
01:26:09,160 --> 01:26:10,920
your day starts the night before.

1382
01:26:12,000 --> 01:26:13,440
And that's again, a mindset shift.

1383
01:26:13,440 --> 01:26:16,280
It's acknowledging that how you spend your evening

1384
01:26:16,280 --> 01:26:19,320
the night before at home and on fire

1385
01:26:20,600 --> 01:26:23,640
is going to dictate your performance the next day.

1386
01:26:23,640 --> 01:26:26,000
It's going to contribute to your performance the next day,

1387
01:26:26,000 --> 01:26:29,680
the physical fitness as well as your nutrition,

1388
01:26:29,680 --> 01:26:32,160
but how you spend your evening

1389
01:26:32,160 --> 01:26:37,160
and how you spend your night sleeping is important.

1390
01:26:37,760 --> 01:26:41,640
And I think for the most part,

1391
01:26:41,640 --> 01:26:46,640
my work has been about getting people to acknowledge

1392
01:26:47,960 --> 01:26:51,240
that when their sleep is disrupted,

1393
01:26:51,240 --> 01:26:54,680
when their physical fitness isn't where you need it to be,

1394
01:26:56,040 --> 01:27:00,160
and your mental fitness isn't where you need it to be,

1395
01:27:00,160 --> 01:27:01,280
once you realize that,

1396
01:27:01,280 --> 01:27:03,520
once you need it to be performing at optimal

1397
01:27:03,520 --> 01:27:06,720
or your worst day's peak level,

1398
01:27:06,720 --> 01:27:08,960
it's too late to build that.

1399
01:27:08,960 --> 01:27:11,160
So you gotta be thinking ahead

1400
01:27:13,040 --> 01:27:16,560
and invest in those things before you need it.

1401
01:27:18,720 --> 01:27:21,360
That mindset shift I think is an important one.

1402
01:27:21,360 --> 01:27:26,360
Because it gets us, I hope, first, it's the first part

1403
01:27:32,080 --> 01:27:37,080
of acceptance and commitment therapy is like accept it.

1404
01:27:38,160 --> 01:27:40,920
Accept that your performance sucks

1405
01:27:40,920 --> 01:27:42,560
or is at least going to be diminished

1406
01:27:42,560 --> 01:27:46,520
if these things aren't in order, if they aren't in line.

1407
01:27:46,520 --> 01:27:48,160
Accept that.

1408
01:27:48,160 --> 01:27:49,480
And once you accept it,

1409
01:27:49,480 --> 01:27:51,720
I think you can figure out what to do about it.

1410
01:27:52,600 --> 01:27:56,560
I hope, and that's been trying for years.

1411
01:27:56,560 --> 01:27:59,200
I think there's some really good examples

1412
01:27:59,200 --> 01:28:01,360
of movement in that direction.

1413
01:28:02,240 --> 01:28:05,520
Some terrifying resistance to movement

1414
01:28:05,520 --> 01:28:07,200
in that direction as well.

1415
01:28:11,280 --> 01:28:14,240
It is thinking about the problem differently.

1416
01:28:15,480 --> 01:28:19,080
And it's such an important thing for us to be doing.

1417
01:28:19,080 --> 01:28:23,720
I think about, I was listening to one of your earlier podcasts

1418
01:28:23,720 --> 01:28:24,560
with a friend of mine,

1419
01:28:24,560 --> 01:28:26,880
and he was talking about evacuations of people,

1420
01:28:28,000 --> 01:28:30,720
getting people evacuated soon enough

1421
01:28:30,720 --> 01:28:32,720
so that they can't be impacted by fire.

1422
01:28:35,840 --> 01:28:37,880
That's solving the problem.

1423
01:28:37,880 --> 01:28:41,040
If you can evacuate people soon enough

1424
01:28:41,040 --> 01:28:43,200
so that when the fire impacts their community,

1425
01:28:43,200 --> 01:28:44,880
they aren't there to get hurt or killed.

1426
01:28:44,880 --> 01:28:45,880
That's solving the problem.

1427
01:28:45,880 --> 01:28:48,080
That's an important thing for us to do.

1428
01:28:48,080 --> 01:28:50,160
But what if we thought differently?

1429
01:28:50,160 --> 01:28:54,760
And as Russell Lakoff says,

1430
01:28:54,760 --> 01:28:56,520
what if we dissolved the problem?

1431
01:28:57,560 --> 01:28:58,800
And what he meant by that is,

1432
01:28:58,800 --> 01:29:01,360
what if we thought about community planning,

1433
01:29:01,360 --> 01:29:04,680
zoning, insurance, in such a way

1434
01:29:04,680 --> 01:29:08,080
that fire hits the edge of the community

1435
01:29:08,080 --> 01:29:10,640
and the community is impacted by it at all?

1436
01:29:10,640 --> 01:29:11,840
You dissolve the problem.

1437
01:29:11,840 --> 01:29:13,520
You don't need to evacuate people.

1438
01:29:13,520 --> 01:29:15,680
You don't need firefighters to risk themselves

1439
01:29:15,680 --> 01:29:18,600
getting between those flames and those people.

1440
01:29:18,600 --> 01:29:21,280
If you dissolve the problems, what would that look like?

1441
01:29:22,600 --> 01:29:23,440
What would that look like?

1442
01:29:23,440 --> 01:29:26,280
So thinking about it from that perspective,

1443
01:29:26,280 --> 01:29:30,280
what would dissolving this problem look like?

1444
01:29:30,280 --> 01:29:33,720
How can we not need folks like you and others

1445
01:29:33,720 --> 01:29:36,640
and our shock crews to work thousands of hours

1446
01:29:36,640 --> 01:29:37,480
of overtime a year?

1447
01:29:37,480 --> 01:29:39,880
What would that look like and how do we attain that?

1448
01:29:42,200 --> 01:29:44,200
And I don't think it's by hiring more.

1449
01:29:44,200 --> 01:29:45,840
Because that's the tricky thing with this.

1450
01:29:45,840 --> 01:29:47,920
And it's also the tricky thing with paying people better.

1451
01:29:47,920 --> 01:29:50,280
Don't get me wrong, pay people better.

1452
01:29:53,040 --> 01:29:55,560
But if you're not looking at the other parts of the system,

1453
01:29:55,560 --> 01:29:58,880
the other parts of the work environment,

1454
01:29:58,880 --> 01:30:01,400
the purposeful work, the meaningful work,

1455
01:30:01,400 --> 01:30:04,520
the people that you end up working for,

1456
01:30:04,520 --> 01:30:05,600
you're just getting paid better

1457
01:30:05,600 --> 01:30:07,680
to deal with a crappy work environment.

1458
01:30:07,680 --> 01:30:09,400
You're getting paid better to deal with work

1459
01:30:09,400 --> 01:30:12,720
that is mind numbing instead of purposeful.

1460
01:30:12,720 --> 01:30:14,360
And you're getting paid better to deal

1461
01:30:14,360 --> 01:30:15,760
with that crappy supervisor.

1462
01:30:16,920 --> 01:30:18,640
Is that enough?

1463
01:30:18,640 --> 01:30:20,480
And maybe it is, maybe it is.

1464
01:30:20,480 --> 01:30:23,240
Maybe it'll get us to the point where we can shift our focus

1465
01:30:23,240 --> 01:30:28,240
from pay to building human performance before we need it.

1466
01:30:30,920 --> 01:30:32,400
Building capacity and resilience

1467
01:30:32,400 --> 01:30:35,680
and people that we want to follow,

1468
01:30:35,680 --> 01:30:37,320
doing work that we want to do.

1469
01:30:38,160 --> 01:30:39,080
Not because of the paycheck,

1470
01:30:39,080 --> 01:30:42,920
but because it's meaningful, purposeful work.

1471
01:30:42,920 --> 01:30:44,680
And for me, that's when I fell out of love

1472
01:30:44,680 --> 01:30:46,880
with this organization and this profession

1473
01:30:46,880 --> 01:30:50,000
is when I didn't have anything to do with pay.

1474
01:30:52,040 --> 01:30:53,480
I make enough.

1475
01:30:53,480 --> 01:30:55,480
I got to the point in my career where I make enough,

1476
01:30:55,480 --> 01:31:00,480
but by that time, I don't feel the purposeful work

1477
01:31:00,480 --> 01:31:01,320
that I used to.

1478
01:31:02,960 --> 01:31:04,480
Sometimes think I got my high three,

1479
01:31:04,480 --> 01:31:08,080
why don't I go back as a GSA engine captain again?

1480
01:31:08,080 --> 01:31:11,080
I finished out my career there.

1481
01:31:11,080 --> 01:31:12,920
Maybe that would be the way to go.

1482
01:31:12,920 --> 01:31:14,920
They don't want, they wouldn't want me.

1483
01:31:14,920 --> 01:31:19,680
They use this analogy a lot.

1484
01:31:19,680 --> 01:31:24,680
Let's take, for example, the paramedics, EMTs,

1485
01:31:24,680 --> 01:31:27,720
and obviously a lot of the US is fire and EMS together.

1486
01:31:29,040 --> 01:31:32,040
We run on so many calls that we shouldn't run.

1487
01:31:32,040 --> 01:31:37,040
So for example, there are embedded telehealth groups

1488
01:31:37,040 --> 01:31:40,840
that can handle some of the lower acuity calls.

1489
01:31:40,840 --> 01:31:42,240
There's a proactive solution.

1490
01:31:42,240 --> 01:31:44,520
Now we should still be working 42 hour work weeks.

1491
01:31:44,520 --> 01:31:47,160
Don't get me wrong, but let's hit it from both sides.

1492
01:31:47,160 --> 01:31:49,000
Law enforcement, why they always look like

1493
01:31:49,000 --> 01:31:50,440
they're going to war.

1494
01:31:50,440 --> 01:31:53,360
Well, where is the conversation of why are streets

1495
01:31:53,360 --> 01:31:55,480
of America riddled with gangs?

1496
01:31:55,480 --> 01:31:57,760
Why do we have the homelessness and the addiction?

1497
01:31:57,760 --> 01:32:00,440
Why are our children literally rehearsing

1498
01:32:00,440 --> 01:32:02,280
for their own murder?

1499
01:32:02,280 --> 01:32:03,720
Why are we not addressing that?

1500
01:32:03,720 --> 01:32:05,720
We're just putting it all on the shoulders of the cops

1501
01:32:05,720 --> 01:32:06,680
and say, do better.

1502
01:32:06,680 --> 01:32:08,920
Well, we take away your funding by the way.

1503
01:32:08,920 --> 01:32:10,480
So I agree completely.

1504
01:32:10,480 --> 01:32:14,880
When I've spoken to Jason Ramos and Ben Strahan and Rex

1505
01:32:14,880 --> 01:32:18,080
and all these other great wildland people have had on,

1506
01:32:18,080 --> 01:32:19,760
we're talking about prescribed burns.

1507
01:32:19,760 --> 01:32:23,120
We're talking that a local town will oppose.

1508
01:32:23,120 --> 01:32:26,040
I used to work for Disney's fire department

1509
01:32:26,040 --> 01:32:28,520
and they would oppose them doing any kind of prescribed

1510
01:32:28,520 --> 01:32:30,880
burns because God forbid there's smoke in the parks,

1511
01:32:30,880 --> 01:32:32,480
it will ruin the magic.

1512
01:32:32,480 --> 01:32:34,800
So instead these firefighters are out there

1513
01:32:34,800 --> 01:32:37,320
traipsing through these swamps.

1514
01:32:37,320 --> 01:32:39,360
We're just waiting for a fatality there one day,

1515
01:32:39,360 --> 01:32:42,160
these muck fires that are under their feet,

1516
01:32:42,160 --> 01:32:44,600
rather than just as one of my friends was educating me,

1517
01:32:44,600 --> 01:32:48,200
checkering the surrounding areas and that way,

1518
01:32:48,200 --> 01:32:49,840
there's fire breaks everywhere.

1519
01:32:49,840 --> 01:32:52,440
So, and I'm not a wildland firefighter.

1520
01:32:52,440 --> 01:32:54,400
I've worked in Anaheim, I did some of the training

1521
01:32:54,400 --> 01:32:55,640
and I was on a truck company.

1522
01:32:55,640 --> 01:32:58,160
So you guys go fight the fires out in the fields,

1523
01:32:58,160 --> 01:32:59,320
we'll protect the buildings.

1524
01:32:59,320 --> 01:33:01,200
Good luck, enjoy the overtime.

1525
01:33:02,640 --> 01:33:03,880
So I agree 100%.

1526
01:33:03,880 --> 01:33:07,080
It's never, it's not just that one side, it's both.

1527
01:33:07,080 --> 01:33:09,080
And now you've got this, as you said,

1528
01:33:09,080 --> 01:33:13,680
grassroots and top down approach with all the things.

1529
01:33:13,680 --> 01:33:15,440
If we had a healthier nation,

1530
01:33:15,440 --> 01:33:18,120
if we're talking about the obesity epidemic,

1531
01:33:18,120 --> 01:33:21,720
the whole EMS system would be more appeased.

1532
01:33:21,720 --> 01:33:24,920
So a thousand percent, it's not one conversation,

1533
01:33:24,920 --> 01:33:26,760
it's all of the conversations together

1534
01:33:26,760 --> 01:33:29,000
that will improve everyone.

1535
01:33:29,000 --> 01:33:34,000
But the guy I mentioned, Russell Aykoff, he's,

1536
01:33:34,680 --> 01:33:36,640
well, I don't think he's with us anymore,

1537
01:33:36,640 --> 01:33:40,240
but a forefront of systems thinking.

1538
01:33:40,240 --> 01:33:43,640
That's what this is, is it's not a one solution

1539
01:33:43,640 --> 01:33:44,640
to one problem.

1540
01:33:46,640 --> 01:33:51,640
It is a system of a network of efforts,

1541
01:33:51,800 --> 01:33:53,560
interventions here, there,

1542
01:33:53,560 --> 01:33:56,000
unintended outcomes are gonna happen.

1543
01:33:56,000 --> 01:33:59,840
That is the nature of a complex system.

1544
01:34:01,400 --> 01:34:06,120
But boy, those unintended outcomes are possible,

1545
01:34:06,120 --> 01:34:09,840
but so are those interventions that have amazing,

1546
01:34:09,840 --> 01:34:12,120
positive influence throughout the system.

1547
01:34:12,120 --> 01:34:14,560
Telehealth is such an interesting one to me.

1548
01:34:15,680 --> 01:34:19,080
Pre-COVID, we wouldn't even talk about it.

1549
01:34:19,080 --> 01:34:21,200
We didn't even know about it.

1550
01:34:21,200 --> 01:34:22,920
And one of the struggles that we've had

1551
01:34:22,920 --> 01:34:27,240
with mental health services for our rural communities,

1552
01:34:27,240 --> 01:34:30,360
for firefighters, is that they just don't have professionals

1553
01:34:30,360 --> 01:34:31,600
in those communities.

1554
01:34:32,640 --> 01:34:37,560
The idea of telehealth dramatically changes that equation.

1555
01:34:38,440 --> 01:34:42,080
And even in communities, I live near Klamath Falls,

1556
01:34:42,080 --> 01:34:47,080
and my one attempt at trying to go down that path

1557
01:34:47,680 --> 01:34:51,240
didn't go well, not because the dock that I connected to

1558
01:34:51,240 --> 01:34:56,240
wasn't a good person or a profession in their arena.

1559
01:34:58,840 --> 01:35:00,840
It just wasn't my arena.

1560
01:35:00,840 --> 01:35:04,440
It wasn't this profession.

1561
01:35:04,440 --> 01:35:07,440
So I'm hopeful for those things.

1562
01:35:08,800 --> 01:35:13,360
I mean, I'm also on the downside of my career,

1563
01:35:15,000 --> 01:35:18,240
and I'm not naive enough to think that it'll happen

1564
01:35:18,240 --> 01:35:22,520
prior to my being done, but I would like to think

1565
01:35:22,520 --> 01:35:27,000
that the groundwork, and a lot of more than groundwork,

1566
01:35:27,000 --> 01:35:30,280
has been laid, and that people are thinking

1567
01:35:30,280 --> 01:35:31,760
about this imaginatively.

1568
01:35:34,520 --> 01:35:36,720
Well, you mentioned a little while ago

1569
01:35:36,720 --> 01:35:40,120
about working through some emotional issues as well.

1570
01:35:40,120 --> 01:35:43,280
I think the wildland community doesn't get the same exposure,

1571
01:35:43,280 --> 01:35:45,560
but Ben and some of the other guys have told me

1572
01:35:45,560 --> 01:35:48,560
about the numerous suicides and the addiction,

1573
01:35:48,560 --> 01:35:49,840
especially in the seasonal work.

1574
01:35:49,840 --> 01:35:51,760
You're part of this tribe, you have this purpose,

1575
01:35:51,760 --> 01:35:54,200
and then you're off, kind of like the crab fishermen

1576
01:35:54,200 --> 01:35:56,280
that we see in Alaska.

1577
01:35:56,280 --> 01:35:59,920
Talk to me about what you're seeing professionally

1578
01:35:59,920 --> 01:36:02,600
through your community, and then if you'd like to

1579
01:36:02,600 --> 01:36:05,320
walk me through your own mental health journey,

1580
01:36:05,320 --> 01:36:06,480
the highs and the lows.

1581
01:36:06,480 --> 01:36:17,480
So I think, and Bob and myself actually are good examples

1582
01:36:17,480 --> 01:36:20,320
of where we were.

1583
01:36:23,560 --> 01:36:29,880
And it was a necessary step, where good people

1584
01:36:31,240 --> 01:36:34,400
recognized the need and sought out

1585
01:36:34,400 --> 01:36:37,720
in their own way to make things just a little bit better.

1586
01:36:37,720 --> 01:36:41,400
I'd like to think that I can look back on my career

1587
01:36:41,400 --> 01:36:46,720
and I can see those events, those efforts,

1588
01:36:46,720 --> 01:36:52,120
and for the most part, I can look at them

1589
01:36:52,120 --> 01:36:58,640
and be at least content that what comes before

1590
01:36:58,640 --> 01:37:00,800
was necessary for what comes next.

1591
01:37:00,800 --> 01:37:05,480
And so when I look at where we're at today,

1592
01:37:07,640 --> 01:37:10,960
one of the real positive signs that I'm seeing is that

1593
01:37:13,520 --> 01:37:15,640
for a long time, the excuse was,

1594
01:37:15,640 --> 01:37:17,840
well, you're not a mental health professional,

1595
01:37:17,840 --> 01:37:22,840
so you can't or you shouldn't be talking about mental health.

1596
01:37:25,040 --> 01:37:29,040
And so I think that's a good example of where we are.

1597
01:37:29,040 --> 01:37:34,040
And while I get what they're worried about,

1598
01:37:36,400 --> 01:37:41,400
there are conditions, there are the ends of the spectrum

1599
01:37:42,760 --> 01:37:47,760
where dysfunction needs professional, trained,

1600
01:37:47,760 --> 01:37:55,760
experienced intervention, and that isn't me.

1601
01:37:55,760 --> 01:38:00,760
For a long time, we approached those ends of the spectrum

1602
01:38:00,760 --> 01:38:01,760
by outsourcing it.

1603
01:38:03,200 --> 01:38:06,440
And in a lot of ways, our organizations,

1604
01:38:06,440 --> 01:38:08,040
the employee assistance programs,

1605
01:38:08,040 --> 01:38:09,560
have gotten a real bad rap.

1606
01:38:09,560 --> 01:38:14,560
And I get it, like I said, in many ways,

1607
01:38:14,560 --> 01:38:19,560
in the aftermath of Tom's accident, there was a day.

1608
01:38:23,760 --> 01:38:27,960
And it was a good tipping point.

1609
01:38:27,960 --> 01:38:32,360
Thankfully, my boss was also my mentor and friend,

1610
01:38:32,360 --> 01:38:36,000
and he recognized what was going on.

1611
01:38:36,000 --> 01:38:40,720
But what I had to tell myself was that I'm gonna call,

1612
01:38:40,720 --> 01:38:43,960
I'm gonna get an appointment with the doc

1613
01:38:43,960 --> 01:38:47,960
so that I can honestly with integrity tell my crew

1614
01:38:47,960 --> 01:38:49,400
that they should do the same.

1615
01:38:50,720 --> 01:38:53,000
I'm not gonna advocate for them to ask for help

1616
01:38:53,000 --> 01:38:54,520
if I'm not gonna ask for help.

1617
01:38:55,640 --> 01:38:59,200
So went through the process and it wasn't great,

1618
01:38:59,200 --> 01:39:00,360
it wasn't horrible.

1619
01:39:01,480 --> 01:39:05,360
Called the EAP number, got connected with the doc

1620
01:39:05,360 --> 01:39:07,400
in Klamath Falls.

1621
01:39:07,400 --> 01:39:14,400
And walk in and the office is set up, not at all,

1622
01:39:15,080 --> 01:39:19,240
what I expected a psychologist's office to look like.

1623
01:39:20,160 --> 01:39:24,400
It looked more like a kindergarten classroom.

1624
01:39:24,400 --> 01:39:25,800
And there's a reason for that.

1625
01:39:25,800 --> 01:39:28,240
Her specialty was child sex abuse.

1626
01:39:30,760 --> 01:39:34,880
But she was in the system, she was available,

1627
01:39:34,880 --> 01:39:37,280
she was a psychologist.

1628
01:39:39,600 --> 01:39:41,960
And she was very open and honest.

1629
01:39:41,960 --> 01:39:45,240
She was like, look, I don't know, I'll try.

1630
01:39:46,240 --> 01:39:48,320
I'll listen, I'll try.

1631
01:39:49,360 --> 01:39:52,520
But I don't know what you're dealing with.

1632
01:39:52,520 --> 01:39:55,920
I don't know how to approach your circumstance.

1633
01:39:57,120 --> 01:40:00,960
So if you're willing to try, we'll go, we'll do it.

1634
01:40:00,960 --> 01:40:04,000
But if you want to try to find a different doc,

1635
01:40:04,000 --> 01:40:05,600
we'll support you with that too.

1636
01:40:07,280 --> 01:40:10,880
And so, like I said, I really didn't wanna do it

1637
01:40:10,880 --> 01:40:11,720
in the first place.

1638
01:40:11,720 --> 01:40:14,760
So it's like, no, we're here, let's do it.

1639
01:40:14,760 --> 01:40:15,920
Let's get it over with, right?

1640
01:40:15,920 --> 01:40:16,960
And it was that mindset.

1641
01:40:16,960 --> 01:40:21,960
It wasn't let's get to a place of dealing with anything,

1642
01:40:23,680 --> 01:40:26,200
moving from dysfunction to function.

1643
01:40:26,200 --> 01:40:30,640
It was just go through the motions, get it done, moving on.

1644
01:40:30,640 --> 01:40:33,120
And that's the tricky part with things like

1645
01:40:33,120 --> 01:40:37,120
our Employee Assistance Program is in order to,

1646
01:40:37,120 --> 01:40:42,120
like those are, like today, if that were to go down

1647
01:40:42,680 --> 01:40:46,680
and I reached out through EAP for a doc for,

1648
01:40:49,160 --> 01:40:53,160
I don't know, marriage counseling or something like that.

1649
01:40:53,160 --> 01:40:55,080
And I walked in and I recognized

1650
01:40:55,080 --> 01:40:57,520
that the doc just isn't the right one.

1651
01:40:57,520 --> 01:40:59,480
I mean, I've done this with a lot of people

1652
01:40:59,480 --> 01:41:01,920
and I've done this with healthcare doctors.

1653
01:41:03,000 --> 01:41:05,800
Just for whatever reason, one doesn't click,

1654
01:41:05,800 --> 01:41:08,000
I go find another one, right?

1655
01:41:08,000 --> 01:41:12,080
But when you're not in balance,

1656
01:41:12,080 --> 01:41:15,280
when you're on those ends of the spectrum,

1657
01:41:15,280 --> 01:41:17,560
the function dysfunction spectrum,

1658
01:41:17,560 --> 01:41:21,800
like those are not, like you're not thinking like that.

1659
01:41:21,800 --> 01:41:24,920
So at least that was it.

1660
01:41:24,920 --> 01:41:29,920
And so one of the real positive changes that I've seen is,

1661
01:41:34,520 --> 01:41:36,720
well, we've made some significant changes

1662
01:41:36,720 --> 01:41:38,440
to our Employee Assistance Programs.

1663
01:41:39,800 --> 01:41:41,440
It's too early to tell if it'll help,

1664
01:41:41,440 --> 01:41:43,000
I think too early to tell.

1665
01:41:44,840 --> 01:41:47,480
But I think one of the most positive changes

1666
01:41:47,480 --> 01:41:51,520
that I've seen is an acknowledgement that we need,

1667
01:41:51,520 --> 01:41:52,840
at least at this stage,

1668
01:41:52,840 --> 01:41:57,400
it's not for clinical treatment itself,

1669
01:41:57,400 --> 01:41:59,760
but an acknowledgement that we need

1670
01:41:59,760 --> 01:42:02,360
mental health professionals, trained psychologists,

1671
01:42:02,360 --> 01:42:05,880
stress psychologists, trauma trained clinicians,

1672
01:42:07,880 --> 01:42:11,680
on, in the organization to advise,

1673
01:42:11,680 --> 01:42:16,680
to evaluate, to test the AAP programs and other things,

1674
01:42:16,680 --> 01:42:19,680
to build to a better place.

1675
01:42:20,720 --> 01:42:22,840
I've tested the AAP program a lot.

1676
01:42:22,840 --> 01:42:25,280
I call it up, I tell them I got a problem,

1677
01:42:25,280 --> 01:42:27,280
and I time them to see how quickly

1678
01:42:27,280 --> 01:42:28,560
they connect me to a doc.

1679
01:42:30,480 --> 01:42:34,280
I've tested that, but what can I do about it?

1680
01:42:35,240 --> 01:42:38,240
Not a whole lot, but if we're, if,

1681
01:42:39,640 --> 01:42:41,960
if, and I know it's a big if,

1682
01:42:41,960 --> 01:42:45,680
but I got a, I got a, I've met a couple of them,

1683
01:42:45,680 --> 01:42:47,240
I know one of them really well.

1684
01:42:48,320 --> 01:42:49,760
I gotta give them a chance,

1685
01:42:49,760 --> 01:42:52,000
give them a chance to make the system better.

1686
01:42:52,000 --> 01:42:54,040
They know what they're talking about, I trust that,

1687
01:42:54,040 --> 01:42:55,800
at least with these, the two that I know.

1688
01:42:59,040 --> 01:43:00,360
But we gotta give them a chance,

1689
01:43:00,360 --> 01:43:02,160
we gotta give them a chance to make it better.

1690
01:43:04,160 --> 01:43:06,800
And it is a change, it is different.

1691
01:43:06,800 --> 01:43:08,520
It's a change that we're gonna make,

1692
01:43:08,520 --> 01:43:10,120
and I think that's a big change.

1693
01:43:10,120 --> 01:43:13,080
It is different, like, we've never done that.

1694
01:43:17,160 --> 01:43:20,120
But at the same time, we, in doing that,

1695
01:43:20,120 --> 01:43:22,680
in recognizing that we need those professionals

1696
01:43:22,680 --> 01:43:25,280
for that, those dysfunction times,

1697
01:43:25,280 --> 01:43:28,440
that we also need peers, we need coaches,

1698
01:43:28,440 --> 01:43:32,000
we need mentors for the, for maybe that,

1699
01:43:32,000 --> 01:43:35,040
the center of that spectrum of the dysfunctions

1700
01:43:35,040 --> 01:43:39,120
on this side, in here, a coach can do amazing things.

1701
01:43:39,120 --> 01:43:41,160
A mentor, a friend that, that,

1702
01:43:42,240 --> 01:43:47,240
that knows to shut up and listen, and not try to fix.

1703
01:43:48,120 --> 01:43:51,480
And that's huge, I mean, I can't count how many times

1704
01:43:51,480 --> 01:43:55,200
I've, I thought they were asking me to fix it.

1705
01:43:56,720 --> 01:43:58,520
My wife, how many times has she come to me

1706
01:43:58,520 --> 01:44:02,400
and to, to, to just vent about something,

1707
01:44:02,400 --> 01:44:04,560
but it looks like she's asking me to fix it,

1708
01:44:04,560 --> 01:44:07,320
so I try and we all know how that goes.

1709
01:44:07,320 --> 01:44:10,120
So just, just, just that building that skill

1710
01:44:10,120 --> 01:44:14,560
and mentors and friends and peer support is huge too.

1711
01:44:14,560 --> 01:44:17,560
And that didn't exist, it did not exist structurally.

1712
01:44:17,560 --> 01:44:19,560
There were a lot of good people like Ken,

1713
01:44:19,560 --> 01:44:23,200
like Bob, like Jim, that knew its importance.

1714
01:44:26,240 --> 01:44:29,360
Having it built into the system is not insignificant.

1715
01:44:32,280 --> 01:44:34,120
I've sat on here a few times.

1716
01:44:34,120 --> 01:44:39,120
I've heard the EAP horror stories so often,

1717
01:44:39,720 --> 01:44:41,880
and like you said, they might be okay in their field,

1718
01:44:41,880 --> 01:44:42,920
some of them probably not,

1719
01:44:42,920 --> 01:44:44,560
because it's a low bid system as well.

1720
01:44:44,560 --> 01:44:48,560
But they've sat in front of child psychologists,

1721
01:44:48,560 --> 01:44:51,640
marriage counselors when they're going with a trauma issue,

1722
01:44:51,640 --> 01:44:53,480
not a marriage issue.

1723
01:44:53,480 --> 01:44:56,640
And I've heard them, people have burst into tears,

1724
01:44:56,640 --> 01:44:59,240
they've been told to get out, I can't help you.

1725
01:44:59,240 --> 01:45:02,680
And what saddens me so much is those are the ones

1726
01:45:02,680 --> 01:45:06,120
that I heard, how many will I never have the opportunity

1727
01:45:06,120 --> 01:45:08,440
to hear because that was the last ditch.

1728
01:45:08,440 --> 01:45:11,640
They found the courage to ask for help.

1729
01:45:11,640 --> 01:45:14,000
They were handed a piece of paper, they called the number,

1730
01:45:14,000 --> 01:45:17,000
they sat in front of a person, they got that response,

1731
01:45:17,000 --> 01:45:19,680
and they were like, well, I must be bat shit crazy then.

1732
01:45:19,680 --> 01:45:21,760
Let me just go finish the job.

1733
01:45:21,760 --> 01:45:23,360
And I even did, I just wrote my second book,

1734
01:45:23,360 --> 01:45:25,480
and there's an element of that in there

1735
01:45:25,480 --> 01:45:28,280
because I think it's so important for us to understand.

1736
01:45:28,280 --> 01:45:31,560
The woman that did my psychological exam in Orange County

1737
01:45:31,560 --> 01:45:36,360
when I worked there, her office was chaotic.

1738
01:45:36,360 --> 01:45:38,560
There's no way in hell that that woman was gonna give

1739
01:45:38,560 --> 01:45:40,680
solid psychological advice when she couldn't even

1740
01:45:40,680 --> 01:45:42,560
keep her room clean, you know what I mean?

1741
01:45:42,560 --> 01:45:45,360
So this is the danger is there are some incredible

1742
01:45:45,360 --> 01:45:47,800
culturally competent clinicians out there

1743
01:45:47,800 --> 01:45:49,600
who we absolutely need to trust.

1744
01:45:49,600 --> 01:45:52,840
Brooke Bartlett in California is a perfect example.

1745
01:45:52,840 --> 01:45:55,800
But on the other side of the extreme,

1746
01:45:55,800 --> 01:46:01,720
it's an extremely dangerous place to just throw the dice

1747
01:46:01,720 --> 01:46:04,400
and hope that these counselors on your list are worth a shit

1748
01:46:04,400 --> 01:46:06,680
when as you said, you've got someone in crisis

1749
01:46:06,680 --> 01:46:10,520
and that might be their very last ditch attempt

1750
01:46:10,520 --> 01:46:12,520
to get some help and then they walk out the door

1751
01:46:12,520 --> 01:46:13,360
and then that's it.

1752
01:46:14,840 --> 01:46:15,800
Yep.

1753
01:46:15,800 --> 01:46:20,800
And it's kind of that layered defenses idea.

1754
01:46:20,800 --> 01:46:25,800
Thankfully, I walked out of that room, went back to work

1755
01:46:29,800 --> 01:46:34,800
and there were lots of people paying attention, thankfully.

1756
01:46:34,800 --> 01:46:37,960
And I think this is one of our greatest weaknesses.

1757
01:46:37,960 --> 01:46:40,960
I think we've come a long way in recognizing

1758
01:46:40,960 --> 01:46:43,280
that the folks on scene of the drowning

1759
01:46:43,280 --> 01:46:45,880
or the motor vehicle accident or the burn over,

1760
01:46:45,880 --> 01:46:46,720
that they need help.

1761
01:46:46,720 --> 01:46:48,560
Yeah, copy that, let's go.

1762
01:46:48,560 --> 01:46:50,880
Let's get them the best help we can.

1763
01:46:52,200 --> 01:46:56,200
I think we've got a long way to go in recognizing that,

1764
01:46:56,200 --> 01:47:01,200
well, Saddleback, when Luke Sheehy got hit by a snag

1765
01:47:02,200 --> 01:47:07,200
on the Modoc, everybody on the force listened to that.

1766
01:47:09,680 --> 01:47:11,760
Dispatch listens to every one of them.

1767
01:47:13,160 --> 01:47:16,360
It's that those conceptor grings of that

1768
01:47:16,360 --> 01:47:21,360
bullseye, yeah, they're further out, but it's different.

1769
01:47:21,360 --> 01:47:22,200
It's different.

1770
01:47:22,200 --> 01:47:25,840
I think about dispatch, throughout the course of my career,

1771
01:47:25,840 --> 01:47:27,440
I've been asked to do a lot of workshops,

1772
01:47:27,440 --> 01:47:29,440
human performance learning workshops.

1773
01:47:29,440 --> 01:47:32,160
And whenever I get asked to come into a dispatch center,

1774
01:47:33,960 --> 01:47:35,160
I don't know what to do.

1775
01:47:35,160 --> 01:47:36,840
I don't know what to give.

1776
01:47:36,840 --> 01:47:41,040
Because my advice, the coaching advice that I give

1777
01:47:41,040 --> 01:47:44,920
through human performance is almost all about

1778
01:47:44,920 --> 01:47:47,920
physical and environmental.

1779
01:47:48,960 --> 01:47:52,040
Your dispatcher can't leave the console,

1780
01:47:52,040 --> 01:47:53,400
especially in our dispatch centers

1781
01:47:53,400 --> 01:47:55,200
where there's one or two of them.

1782
01:47:55,200 --> 01:47:56,200
They're stuck there.

1783
01:47:56,200 --> 01:47:57,360
It's a dark room.

1784
01:47:57,360 --> 01:47:58,720
They aren't getting the sunshine.

1785
01:47:58,720 --> 01:48:00,720
They aren't getting the physical exercise.

1786
01:48:00,720 --> 01:48:04,160
Like for an engine crew or a hotshot crew

1787
01:48:04,160 --> 01:48:07,720
that experiences something, fresh air exercise,

1788
01:48:07,720 --> 01:48:12,720
go get into nature, those are like,

1789
01:48:12,720 --> 01:48:15,720
easy, they're accessible.

1790
01:48:15,720 --> 01:48:19,120
They're part of the normal work.

1791
01:48:19,120 --> 01:48:20,320
And it helps.

1792
01:48:21,200 --> 01:48:23,600
It helps to be out in that environment.

1793
01:48:23,600 --> 01:48:26,320
I did EMS for a while on a volunteer basis.

1794
01:48:26,320 --> 01:48:27,760
And one of the most important things,

1795
01:48:27,760 --> 01:48:31,480
the reason why I think I didn't go down a bad path

1796
01:48:31,480 --> 01:48:34,160
with some of those experiences,

1797
01:48:34,160 --> 01:48:38,360
was the fact that our hospital was 30 miles away.

1798
01:48:38,360 --> 01:48:43,360
So the ride home after even the worst of them was,

1799
01:48:45,160 --> 01:48:49,160
and I was a young EMT with really experienced,

1800
01:48:49,160 --> 01:48:50,560
quite frankly, old guys.

1801
01:48:51,560 --> 01:48:55,560
But that ride home with those experienced old guys

1802
01:48:57,360 --> 01:49:02,360
was a debrief built into our normal work.

1803
01:49:02,360 --> 01:49:05,120
Not by design, but just by circumstance.

1804
01:49:05,120 --> 01:49:08,920
Being able to decompress with those guys on the way home

1805
01:49:08,920 --> 01:49:10,760
from the hospital was huge.

1806
01:49:13,120 --> 01:49:15,320
When those things can be built into the system,

1807
01:49:15,320 --> 01:49:17,720
I think you've got an advantage.

1808
01:49:17,720 --> 01:49:19,720
But when I look at dispatch centers in particular,

1809
01:49:19,720 --> 01:49:21,720
but it applies to other folks too.

1810
01:49:22,920 --> 01:49:25,920
Like those things aren't built into the system.

1811
01:49:25,920 --> 01:49:27,920
They're there to help you.

1812
01:49:27,920 --> 01:49:30,920
And I think that's a big part of the problem.

1813
01:49:30,920 --> 01:49:32,920
They're not built into the system.

1814
01:49:32,920 --> 01:49:34,920
They're at a disadvantage.

1815
01:49:36,320 --> 01:49:41,320
And how do we recognize what those further outrings need?

1816
01:49:44,920 --> 01:49:46,920
I'm thrilled to death that the folks

1817
01:49:46,920 --> 01:49:49,520
that are at the center of the bullseye,

1818
01:49:49,520 --> 01:49:51,920
that we're acknowledging that, that's a huge step.

1819
01:49:51,920 --> 01:49:53,920
Can't be undersold.

1820
01:49:56,920 --> 01:49:58,920
But I wasn't there the day Tom died.

1821
01:49:58,920 --> 01:50:00,120
I didn't see it.

1822
01:50:00,120 --> 01:50:03,120
I didn't have to go through what those folks did.

1823
01:50:04,720 --> 01:50:06,720
I wasn't a spotter, wasn't his buddy checker.

1824
01:50:06,720 --> 01:50:07,520
Can you imagine?

1825
01:50:13,120 --> 01:50:14,320
It's different.

1826
01:50:14,320 --> 01:50:15,720
It's not a competition.

1827
01:50:16,520 --> 01:50:18,720
It's not my drama is bigger than yours.

1828
01:50:18,720 --> 01:50:19,520
It's...

1829
01:50:19,520 --> 01:50:23,520
It's...

1830
01:50:26,120 --> 01:50:26,920
Yeah.

1831
01:50:29,320 --> 01:50:31,720
I had Beth Bauer Sox on the show.

1832
01:50:31,720 --> 01:50:34,920
She was the dispatcher, one of the dispatchers during the Paradise Fire.

1833
01:50:34,920 --> 01:50:36,920
And she was a Paradise resident.

1834
01:50:36,920 --> 01:50:39,120
And again, we talked about this very thing.

1835
01:50:39,120 --> 01:50:42,320
You know, you've got, let's say municipal firefights,

1836
01:50:42,320 --> 01:50:45,120
that's what I know, you know, I get banged out on an extrication.

1837
01:50:45,120 --> 01:50:46,120
So I get my gear out.

1838
01:50:46,120 --> 01:50:48,920
I may not be in nature, but again, you know, we get there.

1839
01:50:48,920 --> 01:50:51,520
We're pulling out tools, you know, it's physical exertion.

1840
01:50:51,520 --> 01:50:52,320
And on the way back...

1841
01:50:52,320 --> 01:50:53,120
The physical exertion.

1842
01:50:53,920 --> 01:50:54,320
Yep.

1843
01:50:54,320 --> 01:50:54,620
Yep.

1844
01:50:54,620 --> 01:50:57,420
You got this crew and maybe, you know, if I'm on the medic side

1845
01:50:57,420 --> 01:50:59,920
and I'm transporting that person, now I get to talk to the doctors

1846
01:50:59,920 --> 01:51:01,220
and nurses, how are they doing?

1847
01:51:01,220 --> 01:51:02,820
And there's a closure element too.

1848
01:51:03,420 --> 01:51:07,420
That dispatcher, not only are they in a dark room, chances are

1849
01:51:07,420 --> 01:51:09,420
they was dark when they entered the building.

1850
01:51:09,420 --> 01:51:11,120
It's dark when they leave the building.

1851
01:51:11,420 --> 01:51:13,520
They have no physical offload.

1852
01:51:13,920 --> 01:51:16,020
And then a lot of times like with Beth, you know, you got people

1853
01:51:16,020 --> 01:51:20,520
screaming in the phone and then it goes dead as that poor family

1854
01:51:20,520 --> 01:51:24,120
are burned over, you know, so I know it affected her immensely,

1855
01:51:24,120 --> 01:51:28,220
but that is definitely one of the, you know, the least discussed

1856
01:51:28,220 --> 01:51:30,820
groups in the first responder professions.

1857
01:51:31,220 --> 01:51:35,620
And I would argue again, they need, you know, shorter shifts.

1858
01:51:35,620 --> 01:51:38,420
They need the ability to go outside, you know, between calls if

1859
01:51:38,420 --> 01:51:41,920
they need to, you know, and again, does it have to be dark even?

1860
01:51:42,620 --> 01:51:45,420
You know, with technology these days, can they not, you know, put on,

1861
01:51:45,420 --> 01:51:47,620
you know, I mean, I don't know what it would be, but there's

1862
01:51:47,620 --> 01:51:50,220
got to be a way of still being able to see the screen clearly,

1863
01:51:50,220 --> 01:51:52,020
but letting some natural light in as well.

1864
01:51:52,020 --> 01:51:54,820
So their corona receptors in the rise, at least acknowledge, okay,

1865
01:51:54,820 --> 01:51:56,220
this is night, this is day.

1866
01:51:56,420 --> 01:52:00,420
So again, like you said, there's proactive, double-sided solutions,

1867
01:52:00,420 --> 01:52:03,820
but I feel like they really are left out and there's a huge

1868
01:52:03,820 --> 01:52:06,820
recruitment crisis in that profession too, because, you know,

1869
01:52:06,820 --> 01:52:09,620
they're understaffed and they're being forced to work extra hours

1870
01:52:09,620 --> 01:52:12,620
because you have to have someone there at that microphone.

1871
01:52:12,620 --> 01:52:19,020
Right. And if they aren't there, I'm not rolling, right?

1872
01:52:19,020 --> 01:52:22,820
I'm saying like that, I'm still sitting in the right seat of a truck,

1873
01:52:22,820 --> 01:52:30,020
but the point being is none of us can do the work without the other.

1874
01:52:30,020 --> 01:52:37,620
I started to refer to as enabling functions, the people that enable

1875
01:52:37,620 --> 01:52:42,220
others to do the core mission, whatever that core mission might be.

1876
01:52:42,220 --> 01:52:43,620
We call them support functions.

1877
01:52:43,620 --> 01:52:45,820
Like you don't need support, you're a big tough firefighter,

1878
01:52:45,820 --> 01:52:46,620
you don't need support.

1879
01:52:47,620 --> 01:52:48,820
It doesn't work that way.

1880
01:52:48,820 --> 01:52:50,220
They enable you.

1881
01:52:50,220 --> 01:52:51,620
You're not rolling without them.

1882
01:52:52,620 --> 01:52:55,020
We have a lot of autonomy in wildland fire.

1883
01:52:55,420 --> 01:52:57,020
That's one thing that you're not doing.

1884
01:52:57,020 --> 01:52:59,220
You're not rolling prior to a dispatch.

1885
01:53:01,820 --> 01:53:02,620
We need them.

1886
01:53:02,620 --> 01:53:06,820
It's not a nice thing.

1887
01:53:06,820 --> 01:53:08,220
Well, I want to be mindful of your time.

1888
01:53:08,220 --> 01:53:11,620
So before we make sure everyone knows where to find you and round out,

1889
01:53:11,620 --> 01:53:14,820
is there anything else that you want to impart before I let you go?

1890
01:53:15,820 --> 01:53:18,220
Oh boy, I don't know.

1891
01:53:18,220 --> 01:53:23,820
I almost said I always struggle with these kind of things.

1892
01:53:23,820 --> 01:53:25,620
I don't do these kind of things very often at all.

1893
01:53:25,620 --> 01:53:28,620
So I can't say I always struggle, but I do.

1894
01:53:28,620 --> 01:53:31,220
I know I will struggle, but I don't know.

1895
01:53:31,220 --> 01:53:34,220
I know I will wonder for the rest of the day

1896
01:53:35,620 --> 01:53:37,820
if there was any coherence in the rambling.

1897
01:53:40,020 --> 01:53:41,220
There was, I promise you.

1898
01:53:44,220 --> 01:53:46,620
So I guess to answer your question better.

1899
01:53:46,620 --> 01:53:48,620
No, I don't know.

1900
01:53:48,620 --> 01:53:49,220
There's...

1901
01:53:49,220 --> 01:54:04,420
Everyone's got a story for this and I don't know.

1902
01:54:04,420 --> 01:54:10,620
I'm sure I left people out, important people out, and I'm sorry for that.

1903
01:54:10,620 --> 01:54:18,420
I know there are other perspectives.

1904
01:54:18,420 --> 01:54:22,220
It's one of the things we try to do in our learning review work is acknowledge

1905
01:54:22,220 --> 01:54:25,620
that there is no one story.

1906
01:54:25,620 --> 01:54:29,620
It's one of the things we got wrong back in the day is trying to tell a nice,

1907
01:54:29,620 --> 01:54:34,220
neat, coherent story with the beginning, middle, and end where everybody agrees.

1908
01:54:34,220 --> 01:54:36,420
And life just isn't like that.

1909
01:54:36,420 --> 01:54:39,420
And I know that what I've seen, what I've experienced,

1910
01:54:39,420 --> 01:54:42,020
what I've done won't resonate with everybody.

1911
01:54:42,020 --> 01:54:44,620
And I'm glad in a lot of ways.

1912
01:54:44,620 --> 01:54:50,820
Whenever somebody says that they just can't understand why somebody would take their own lives,

1913
01:54:50,820 --> 01:54:53,620
I'm thrilled to death that they can't understand.

1914
01:54:53,620 --> 01:55:02,820
That is such a blessing, I think, I hope, that they don't understand.

1915
01:55:02,820 --> 01:55:05,420
It means they've never been there.

1916
01:55:05,420 --> 01:55:06,820
Do you have to have been there?

1917
01:55:06,820 --> 01:55:08,820
Do you have to have walked in those shoes to empathize?

1918
01:55:08,820 --> 01:55:13,220
No, I don't think you do.

1919
01:55:13,220 --> 01:55:16,620
And maybe that's the important next step is you find yourself saying,

1920
01:55:16,620 --> 01:55:18,220
that's just ain't my experience.

1921
01:55:18,220 --> 01:55:21,620
It still sucks.

1922
01:55:21,620 --> 01:55:27,220
Maybe I'm being too optimistic or OK.

1923
01:55:27,220 --> 01:55:29,820
Maybe.

1924
01:55:29,820 --> 01:55:32,220
But maybe there's more to it that we're not seeing,

1925
01:55:32,220 --> 01:55:39,220
but I'm not seeing that you're not seeing that we can understand if we choose to.

1926
01:55:39,220 --> 01:55:43,420
Well, I want to ask you then, seeing as you've kind of opened the door to that,

1927
01:55:43,420 --> 01:55:50,820
the old school mentality that you and I were probably hearing 10 years prior

1928
01:55:50,820 --> 01:55:54,420
was that suicide was cowardly, suicide was selfish.

1929
01:55:54,420 --> 01:55:57,020
How could they think of your family?

1930
01:55:57,020 --> 01:56:00,820
And in the last eight years, I've listened to hundreds,

1931
01:56:00,820 --> 01:56:03,220
hundreds and hundreds of people that were there.

1932
01:56:03,220 --> 01:56:05,420
Some went through with their attempts and survived,

1933
01:56:05,420 --> 01:56:09,020
most of whom, thank God, were stopped just before.

1934
01:56:09,020 --> 01:56:13,220
But I started to hear the same thing over and over and over again.

1935
01:56:13,220 --> 01:56:19,220
And the takeaway from this is when you reach that critical mass

1936
01:56:19,220 --> 01:56:25,620
of that perfect storm of negative factors, sleep deprivation, unaddressed childhood trauma,

1937
01:56:25,620 --> 01:56:29,620
organizational betrayal, the side effects from alcohol or meds,

1938
01:56:29,620 --> 01:56:35,820
all the things together, financial issues, that the brain at that point is distorted.

1939
01:56:35,820 --> 01:56:37,820
The reality is distorted.

1940
01:56:37,820 --> 01:56:44,020
And so many times I hear people say, I am the reason for my family's pain.

1941
01:56:44,020 --> 01:56:46,620
I am a burden to my loved ones.

1942
01:56:46,620 --> 01:56:50,420
And at that moment, in that moment of psychosis,

1943
01:56:50,420 --> 01:56:53,620
and I use that term affectionately, their reality is,

1944
01:56:53,620 --> 01:56:57,620
well, I'm in a profession where I'm willing to die for a complete stranger.

1945
01:56:57,620 --> 01:57:01,020
If I just remove myself, then my family will be happy.

1946
01:57:01,020 --> 01:57:04,020
Now, to the healthy brain, of course, that makes no sense.

1947
01:57:04,020 --> 01:57:05,420
But they're not there.

1948
01:57:05,420 --> 01:57:09,020
And in the same way as if I broke both my legs, I wouldn't be able to run.

1949
01:57:09,020 --> 01:57:10,820
I'm in a different place.

1950
01:57:10,820 --> 01:57:14,020
So with your experience, did you find yourself there?

1951
01:57:14,020 --> 01:57:18,420
And was there any kind of truth in what I've just said for you?

1952
01:57:18,420 --> 01:57:25,020
Well, absolutely.

1953
01:57:25,020 --> 01:57:34,820
So in a lot of ways, when I talk about Tom's accident

1954
01:57:34,820 --> 01:57:40,020
and I talk about that human factors analysis and how important that was,

1955
01:57:40,020 --> 01:57:45,820
when I finally calmed down enough to actually read it and see that it was different,

1956
01:57:45,820 --> 01:57:56,620
that was one of, it was a formative experience of what I've come to refer to as learning through the worst days.

1957
01:57:56,620 --> 01:58:03,020
When I encountered, I forget his first name, but it's Dr. Joyner,

1958
01:58:03,020 --> 01:58:09,420
and he described perceived burdensomeness.

1959
01:58:09,420 --> 01:58:16,220
It was a moment of, just like with Tom's human factors analysis, it's,

1960
01:58:16,220 --> 01:58:21,420
oh, that's what that was.

1961
01:58:21,420 --> 01:58:29,620
Understanding it, like you said, in the moment, it certainly didn't happen like that.

1962
01:58:29,620 --> 01:58:36,020
And I'm not advocating for like just doing your research when you're thinking of killing yourself.

1963
01:58:36,020 --> 01:58:38,220
That's not what I'm saying.

1964
01:58:38,220 --> 01:58:49,220
But in those moments of balance, of opportunity, I guess,

1965
01:58:49,220 --> 01:58:59,420
to think about those moments of disbalance, of unbalance, of dysfunction,

1966
01:58:59,420 --> 01:59:01,620
not hide from it.

1967
01:59:01,620 --> 01:59:06,620
And I think that's one of the important evolutions in American culture today.

1968
01:59:06,620 --> 01:59:11,420
And I can't give the fire service credit for it.

1969
01:59:11,420 --> 01:59:16,020
I can give a lot of veterans that aren't with us credit for it.

1970
01:59:16,020 --> 01:59:22,820
It wasn't that long ago that we did not talk about this, that we did not talk about suicide,

1971
01:59:22,820 --> 01:59:28,620
that we didn't even bury those that died by suicide in the same cemetery as with

1972
01:59:28,620 --> 01:59:31,420
the good people that didn't.

1973
01:59:31,420 --> 01:59:33,820
And I say that very tongue in cheek.

1974
01:59:33,820 --> 01:59:39,820
That's how, for a long time in our culture, we looked at it as they often,

1975
01:59:39,820 --> 01:59:41,420
so they aren't one of us.

1976
01:59:41,420 --> 01:59:42,420
They are an outsider.

1977
01:59:42,420 --> 01:59:52,420
We bury them outside of the consecrated ground in the,

1978
01:59:52,420 --> 01:59:58,220
with everybody else that aren't one of us.

1979
01:59:58,220 --> 02:00:00,620
That's how we dealt with it.

1980
02:00:00,620 --> 02:00:02,820
Well, I wasn't dealing with it.

1981
02:00:02,820 --> 02:00:04,020
We both know that.

1982
02:00:04,020 --> 02:00:06,220
It was ignoring it.

1983
02:00:06,220 --> 02:00:11,420
It was distancing ourselves from the connection and the reality of it.

1984
02:00:11,420 --> 02:00:20,220
And talking about it, acknowledging it as part of our community, our culture,

1985
02:00:20,220 --> 02:00:23,620
our profession isn't enough.

1986
02:00:23,620 --> 02:00:32,420
But it's absolutely unnecessary, necessary but insufficient.

1987
02:00:32,420 --> 02:00:39,620
I don't know how to crack the nut.

1988
02:00:39,620 --> 02:00:47,820
I know for me, it was a very complex mix.

1989
02:00:47,820 --> 02:00:54,420
And I think that's an important piece is that it isn't all about the job,

1990
02:00:54,420 --> 02:00:59,620
the job as part to deal with it.

1991
02:00:59,620 --> 02:01:08,820
But it's the human experience that there's all kinds of not good stuff.

1992
02:01:08,820 --> 02:01:12,020
And it all, there's all kinds of good stuff too.

1993
02:01:12,020 --> 02:01:18,820
And that's the, and part of the, again, part of the learning through it

1994
02:01:18,820 --> 02:01:31,820
is the realization that the dark is just part of it.

1995
02:01:31,820 --> 02:01:47,220
And you don't appreciate the light without it.

1996
02:01:47,220 --> 02:01:49,620
And I fall back on this all the time.

1997
02:01:49,620 --> 02:01:54,020
And sometimes it is a cop-out.

1998
02:01:54,020 --> 02:02:01,620
Sometimes it is a retreat to a safe space where I can just say as the historian,

1999
02:02:01,620 --> 02:02:09,620
knowing that we are part of a really long arc of history that we'll see.

2000
02:02:09,620 --> 02:02:15,820
But that historian's perspective, that stepping back and just observing,

2001
02:02:15,820 --> 02:02:31,420
we'll see, isn't being an active participant in making things better.

2002
02:02:31,420 --> 02:02:37,620
So I have to believe it's a little bit of both, that it's a little bit of we'll see,

2003
02:02:37,620 --> 02:02:41,220
and it's a little bit of try.

2004
02:02:41,220 --> 02:02:44,020
Try this, we'll see.

2005
02:02:44,020 --> 02:02:45,220
Try that, we'll see.

2006
02:02:45,220 --> 02:02:50,020
Try again, try again, try again, try again.

2007
02:02:50,020 --> 02:02:51,620
So what has worked?

2008
02:02:51,620 --> 02:03:01,020
What are some of the tools that you found that have moved the needle the other way?

2009
02:03:01,020 --> 02:03:10,620
I think it's, especially for your main audience, I struggle with this one.

2010
02:03:10,620 --> 02:03:18,420
I can't, I was talking to another colleague the other day who put it this way,

2011
02:03:18,420 --> 02:03:22,420
and I've put it this way many times throughout my career,

2012
02:03:22,420 --> 02:03:26,620
that he fell out of love with the profession.

2013
02:03:26,620 --> 02:03:28,420
And I know I did.

2014
02:03:28,420 --> 02:03:31,620
I know I've said that, but I don't know when.

2015
02:03:31,620 --> 02:03:35,420
I can't put my finger on what it was.

2016
02:03:35,420 --> 02:03:37,220
And maybe it doesn't matter.

2017
02:03:37,220 --> 02:03:49,620
The end result, though, was a really, at first, it was a really troubling shift in who I am,

2018
02:03:49,620 --> 02:03:51,620
who I want to be, what I want to do.

2019
02:03:51,620 --> 02:03:55,020
And I remember saying to myself over and over and over again,

2020
02:03:55,020 --> 02:03:59,620
I was like, what else could I possibly do?

2021
02:03:59,620 --> 02:04:02,420
This is what I've done my entire adult life.

2022
02:04:02,420 --> 02:04:09,220
What else could I possibly do?

2023
02:04:09,220 --> 02:04:18,420
And the real answer is I could do any kind of number of different things.

2024
02:04:18,420 --> 02:04:23,620
For a lot of reasons, I'm choosing to stay in my organization until I reach retirement.

2025
02:04:23,620 --> 02:04:27,020
A big piece of that is financial.

2026
02:04:27,020 --> 02:04:30,020
The golden handcuffs are real.

2027
02:04:30,020 --> 02:04:39,020
But I've also found what I often call one of the only positions that I can see within my organization

2028
02:04:39,020 --> 02:04:42,820
where that purposeful work is still there.

2029
02:04:42,820 --> 02:04:44,420
It's not fighting fire anymore.

2030
02:04:44,420 --> 02:04:45,820
It's not leading the crew.

2031
02:04:45,820 --> 02:04:49,220
It's not that.

2032
02:04:49,220 --> 02:04:51,220
But there's other purposeful work.

2033
02:04:51,220 --> 02:04:59,620
And I think that shift from what else could I possibly do to I can contribute,

2034
02:04:59,620 --> 02:05:11,820
I can not be a burden long enough to realize the insidiousness of that feeling of burdensomeness

2035
02:05:11,820 --> 02:05:16,620
to get through that.

2036
02:05:16,620 --> 02:05:25,020
You know, a reframe, I've always struggled with the idea of resilience as bouncing back,

2037
02:05:25,020 --> 02:05:32,220
as if Ben 1.0 was who I ever wanted to be again.

2038
02:05:32,220 --> 02:05:40,820
And one of the folks I learned from a ton, there's so many of these really great, smart people

2039
02:05:40,820 --> 02:05:42,620
that make stupid decisions.

2040
02:05:42,620 --> 02:05:48,820
And we end up thinking that what you learn from them might not be valid anymore

2041
02:05:48,820 --> 02:05:52,820
because of a completely different decision.

2042
02:05:52,820 --> 02:05:56,220
They ain't perfect, neither am I.

2043
02:05:56,220 --> 02:05:59,820
But Eric Greitin is one of the authors that I've learned a ton from.

2044
02:05:59,820 --> 02:06:04,620
He wrote the book Resilience, redefined for me resilience.

2045
02:06:04,620 --> 02:06:05,620
It's not bouncing back.

2046
02:06:05,620 --> 02:06:07,020
There's no such thing as bouncing back.

2047
02:06:07,020 --> 02:06:12,020
He called it moving through, moving through to who you are going to be,

2048
02:06:12,020 --> 02:06:19,420
moving through that experience and thinking about it in those lights made it OK to set aside

2049
02:06:19,420 --> 02:06:28,220
who I was, Captain64, to who I am and who I'm going to be.

2050
02:06:28,220 --> 02:06:34,420
I'd like it to be able to make that shift a little quicker maybe.

2051
02:06:34,420 --> 02:06:39,220
But I look at Bob, my mentor that I talked a lot about in the last couple of hours,

2052
02:06:39,220 --> 02:06:42,820
had to pull him away from his work when he was 57.

2053
02:06:42,820 --> 02:06:45,820
They had his assistant had to walk up to him.

2054
02:06:45,820 --> 02:06:48,620
He was dispatching air tankers.

2055
02:06:48,620 --> 02:06:51,620
And she had to walk up and said, Bob, it's time to go home.

2056
02:06:57,420 --> 02:07:04,220
And so having identity tied to that work that strongly was really tough for him.

2057
02:07:04,220 --> 02:07:08,220
My identity shift came quite a bit earlier and that sucks in its own way.

2058
02:07:08,220 --> 02:07:13,620
But it definitely has helped with instead of dreading what's next,

2059
02:07:13,620 --> 02:07:15,420
it's like, man, hurry up, get here.

2060
02:07:15,420 --> 02:07:19,220
I'm excited about what's next.

2061
02:07:19,220 --> 02:07:31,220
And in those not so great times, that I think was the most important thing.

2062
02:07:31,220 --> 02:07:35,420
That I think was the looking back on it.

2063
02:07:35,420 --> 02:07:41,220
And that's like that thing.

2064
02:07:41,220 --> 02:07:49,020
There was no excitement for what was going to come.

2065
02:07:53,620 --> 02:08:00,020
Yeah, that identity crisis is so prevalent, especially when it comes to transition out.

2066
02:08:00,020 --> 02:08:02,420
And we're not a firefighter.

2067
02:08:02,420 --> 02:08:04,620
We are, you know, you're Ben, I'm James.

2068
02:08:04,620 --> 02:08:05,420
And it's what we did.

2069
02:08:05,420 --> 02:08:06,820
And we're incredibly proud of it.

2070
02:08:06,820 --> 02:08:13,420
But I think it's so, so important and so healthy to find that next thing.

2071
02:08:13,420 --> 02:08:15,020
Because, you know, what else can I do?

2072
02:08:15,020 --> 02:08:19,420
Well, who would have thought, for example, that this idiot would just sit behind a microphone

2073
02:08:19,420 --> 02:08:24,420
and arguably be a force multiplier and do more good than I ever did in a uniform.

2074
02:08:24,420 --> 02:08:27,020
I was so proud of my service and I loved it.

2075
02:08:27,020 --> 02:08:32,220
But, you know, the universe kind of spat me out after 14 years on this bizarre tangent.

2076
02:08:32,220 --> 02:08:37,220
And, you know, I volunteered initially because I was hanging onto that bunker gear for dear life.

2077
02:08:37,220 --> 02:08:42,020
And then when I let go, I was like, oh, oh, yeah, that's just what I did.

2078
02:08:42,020 --> 02:08:46,220
And it was amazing. But who I am is someone who wants to serve.

2079
02:08:46,220 --> 02:08:49,020
And I can serve in so many different ways.

2080
02:08:49,020 --> 02:08:54,420
I'm serving now. I serve through the books that I write, you know, in all these different ways.

2081
02:08:54,420 --> 02:09:02,620
And so when you realize that, yeah, you are valuable and you don't need bunker gear or a shiny badge to define who you are,

2082
02:09:02,620 --> 02:09:06,620
you have value as a human being, your compassion, your empathy, your courage.

2083
02:09:06,620 --> 02:09:08,220
That is who you are.

2084
02:09:08,220 --> 02:09:13,020
That's what makes me laugh when people say things like, you know, the fire service, you know, the leather helmet.

2085
02:09:13,020 --> 02:09:15,020
So that's that's tradition.

2086
02:09:15,020 --> 02:09:17,020
No, that's not as a hat.

2087
02:09:17,020 --> 02:09:21,020
Tradition is courage and compassion and camaraderie.

2088
02:09:21,020 --> 02:09:25,020
You know, those, you know, empathy, those are the tradition of the fire service.

2089
02:09:25,020 --> 02:09:27,220
And they don't stay in the station.

2090
02:09:27,220 --> 02:09:30,220
They stay within you and you take them to the next thing you do.

2091
02:09:30,220 --> 02:09:31,820
So I couldn't agree more.

2092
02:09:31,820 --> 02:09:35,820
It's exciting to find out what that next chapter is going to look like.

2093
02:09:35,820 --> 02:09:38,020
Let that other bit go. You did it.

2094
02:09:38,020 --> 02:09:43,020
You did it well. But now it's time for a young fired up firefighter to fill your spot,

2095
02:09:43,020 --> 02:09:50,820
just like you did for someone else, and for you to take all that knowledge and experience and go and apply it in a different way.

2096
02:09:50,820 --> 02:10:00,220
When when your one of your previous guests reached out and said, hey, you should do this.

2097
02:10:00,220 --> 02:10:04,420
That's like, well, I don't do that work anymore.

2098
02:10:04,420 --> 02:10:06,620
What could I possibly contribute?

2099
02:10:06,620 --> 02:10:08,420
And I find myself doing it still.

2100
02:10:08,420 --> 02:10:14,220
I'm going to teach a class in a couple of months and I still leverage that.

2101
02:10:14,220 --> 02:10:21,020
I see three division suit, safety officer that those those pieces of identity.

2102
02:10:21,020 --> 02:10:23,020
So I want to go completely up.

2103
02:10:23,020 --> 02:10:24,420
I don't do that work anymore.

2104
02:10:24,420 --> 02:10:35,820
But you're making me think a little bit differently about about what the service is now.

2105
02:10:35,820 --> 02:10:44,620
We all got a transition to what's next or not.

2106
02:10:44,620 --> 02:10:54,820
I want all of us to transition to what's next with excited anticipation or shoot, even dread.

2107
02:10:54,820 --> 02:10:56,220
I'd rather you dread it.

2108
02:10:56,220 --> 02:11:01,020
That's OK. Yeah, absolutely.

2109
02:11:01,020 --> 02:11:03,820
Well, it has been an incredible conversation.

2110
02:11:03,820 --> 02:11:07,420
Before I let you go, if people listening want to reach out and I'm sure they will,

2111
02:11:07,420 --> 02:11:10,420
where are the best places to do that?

2112
02:11:10,420 --> 02:11:13,620
I have no idea how to answer that question.

2113
02:11:13,620 --> 02:11:19,820
I don't have a I don't have a presence out there other than my professional one.

2114
02:11:19,820 --> 02:11:27,420
I have no issues if folks want to reach out to to to me via via email.

2115
02:11:27,420 --> 02:11:32,020
I'm happy to share if you want my address said or.

2116
02:11:32,020 --> 02:11:36,820
Yeah, yeah, please feel free.

2117
02:11:36,820 --> 02:11:40,420
You'll get a chuckle out of this.

2118
02:11:40,420 --> 02:11:43,220
Captain six four was my identity for a long time.

2119
02:11:43,220 --> 02:11:46,020
And I guess it still is a little bit because B.

2120
02:11:46,020 --> 02:11:51,820
Iverson B IV er so on six four at Gmail dot com.

2121
02:11:51,820 --> 02:11:57,420
I am not that was not born in sixty four.

2122
02:11:57,420 --> 02:11:58,820
That is not where that came from.

2123
02:11:58,820 --> 02:12:03,620
So if anybody wants to chat, I'm happy to.

2124
02:12:03,620 --> 02:12:08,220
Just the guy trying to figure it out, but.

2125
02:12:08,220 --> 02:12:10,820
I love a good conversation.

2126
02:12:10,820 --> 02:12:14,620
Yeah, well, it's been an amazing conversation, so I want to thank you so much.

2127
02:12:14,620 --> 02:12:18,220
I mean, not just for the two hours that you've given us, but also,

2128
02:12:18,220 --> 02:12:21,020
as I always underline, that you're courageous and vulnerability.

2129
02:12:21,020 --> 02:12:26,220
I mean, this is so important for us to just be open when we do the things that we do.

2130
02:12:26,220 --> 02:12:27,420
It comes at a cost.

2131
02:12:27,420 --> 02:12:30,420
And don't get me wrong, that can be worked through, just like you said,

2132
02:12:30,420 --> 02:12:32,620
and resilience forged from it.

2133
02:12:32,620 --> 02:12:36,420
But the facade that we were raised on that men are, you know,

2134
02:12:36,420 --> 02:12:40,420
stone faced and emotionless is absolute rubbish.

2135
02:12:40,420 --> 02:12:46,020
And so each one of these conversations I have when people are unafraid to express their emotions

2136
02:12:46,020 --> 02:12:50,620
and be moved by loss and some of these other things, I think it's so important.

2137
02:12:50,620 --> 02:12:56,420
So I want to thank you so, so much for coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.

2138
02:12:56,420 --> 02:13:01,420
They are absolutely glad that I said yes.