Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. My
name is James Gearing and this is episode 162
and Happy New Year to you all. This week I bring
to you... An episode that I want to do for a
long time now, which is with my old truck crew
when I was out west in California, who I consider
the most cohesive crew I worked on. We worked
together for several years on the same truck
every single shift. These same men years, years
later came over and stood next to me when I married
Becky. So we've been through some horrendous
calls. We've been through some incredible, you
know, fires, you know, the highs and the lows,
as it were. And so I decided to sit us all down.
We got some beers, put up the microphones and
basically just let it run for what ended up being
a four hour conversation. This is obviously the
four of us discussing things. So these are opinions.
But I wanted to give an insight into. a cohesive
crew and what that looks like and what that sounds
like. So Terry, our truck captain, who is, uh,
uh, I guess Scottish American, you could say,
uh, Joe is Mexican American or engineer. Um,
Dickie, my partner is white, South African, and
obviously I'm British. So you have this international
crew, you have this bar set very high. Um, and
There's this banter. You're going to hear this
back and forth. And the way that we talk about
the firefighters that we admire and the way that
we're going to discuss about people that come
into the profession who aren't there to do good.
They're out there to just collect a paycheck.
So all these are discussed. But there's such
a facade on the fire service in one respect where
we're almost expected to be like choir boys.
And that's complete. basically if you're going
to ask men and women to go out there and do the
things that we do the reality is we decompress
by this this this humor and you know we have
low tolerance for people that aren't in this
profession to to go out there and hold themselves
to the highest level so you're going to hear
a lot of that um you know if people are offended
then that wasn't the intention but uh this is
a raw honest conversation so with that being
said i introduce to you myself dickie Joe and
Terry, enjoy. What do you want to talk about?
All right. Do the intro. Yeah, so this is the
professional intro. So we are sitting here in...
How do you describe this facility, Terry? This
is not the Flying W. This is not the Flying W.
It's the Flying Gma's house. And we are in the
city of Orange. Orange. Okay. So normally I'll
ask some intro questions to my guests and ask
them about their background. But I think that
what we need to do is explain to everyone listening.
Each other's background. So, Terry, I want you
to start. Tell me about Richard Sprout who's
sitting here, his background, where he came from.
He came from his mother way back when in not
so jolly old South Africa. And he wandered from
South Africa to California. In a line cloth?
Yes. He had a turban on at the time. I believe
it was a Yabangi turban. A Yabangi turban? Yes.
It was a Yabangi tribe turban? Yes. And he wanted
to apply for the fire department, and he had
understood that in California we hire a lot of
minorities, so he figured since he was African...
he'd stand a very good shot at it, which it worked
in his best interest. Did you actually put African
-American bits? Is everyone listening? You have
a light skin complexion, but you are half African
and half American. So did you put that down in
your app? I'm the son of an Irishman and an Italian
girl. And I was born and raised in South Africa,
but my mom is from America and my father was
from Zambia. So that's quite a mix. Yeah. Your
mother's from America. America. Chicago. That's
in Illinois, James. It's a state. Oh, really?
Go on. And then moved out here when I was 19.
And that was it. You didn't answer the question.
Did you check I am an African American on your
application? I did check African American, yes.
Because you are. Everyone listening. I am, on
paper. He is an African -American. He's more
African -American than anybody else I know. He
is. That's the truth. The others are all counterfeiters.
All right, so you get to flip the script. Tell
me about Captain Terry Wilson of Anaheim Truck
One, where he was born. This is Diggy Sprout
speaking. I finished, well, on my last... I think
I just finished probation. I got assigned to
Terry on truck one. And you're from West Anaheim,
yeah? Grew up in the city. I'm a Westie. Terry's
a Westie. He grew up in the city of Anaheim.
Worked in the city of Anaheim. And as a young
firefighter, I was given some advice. And that
was to work with the old firefighters and learn
from them everything you could because... They
had 20 -something years worth of teaching that
they could do. And that's what I chose to do.
Just 20? I was going to say, and the rest. She
was born out of the Westie tree back in 1926.
Anyhow, they come with a lot of experience. And
in this kind of job that we do, you can't teach
a lot of the stuff in a classroom. It has to
be real -life experience. And the saddest thing
in our profession is that the old guys retire
and they take that with them. And I just asked
Terry to share it with me before he left. And
so I bid truck one in order to learn from Terry.
And I always look back at those years we had
as the best years of my career. Not because of
you two. That was it. I came over to truck one
because I wanted to learn and I wanted to be
busy and get in the thick of it. and I was told
that Terry was the guy to learn from. That was
it. Cool. All right, so ahead of me is engineer,
now captain, Joseph Aldacoa. He was born in a
stable in Bethlehem, then moved to Mexico. No,
he was in that movie. Which one? Free Willy?
The cartoon. The only cost, maybe they didn't
get paid. Everybody's been in a movie there,
Jungle Book. Oh, shoot. You talking about Shrek?
I could be. There's been a couple of them you
qualify for. Oh, my God. I'm surprised Terry
hasn't been around since the movies were real.
They played the piano in the front? Yeah. So
anyway, tell us about where you were born and
your journey in the fire service. All right.
I was born here in... Southern California, Los
Angeles, not Mexico, not Bethlehem, and not some
far, far away. Well, it's LA. It's pretty far.
It is far. Especially if you don't live in LA.
You're a local, eh? I'm a local. East LA, I think.
So I was a late bloomer on this rig because I
was a firefighter, been a firefighter in Anaheim
since 2001, and came over to the truck with these
clowns in 2007. My journey in the fire service
was going through an academy in 98, getting hired
in Anaheim in 2001, and getting promoted and
having the blessing of working with these three
fine gentlemen and forming the Anaheim Fire Department's
version of the United Nations. The Brit, the
South African, the Mexican, and the American.
What country are pink people from? with the pink
panther i don't know i'm trying to think of different
uh i can't think of anything brilliant all right
well everyone knows about me hopefully after
150 whatever if you want to hear about you as
far as my basic shit so let's start at the beginning
um terry yes put you on the spot give you the
mic a little bit one of the things that i wanted
to highlight in this conversation when i stop
my freaking tears coming from my eyes from laughing
so hard thinking about joe doing free willy please
don't let it go free anyway um is i've heard
some fire departments are literally being sued
by people getting their feelings hurt so i want
to illustrate with this episode how a cohesive
crew which i think we were and i'll tell everyone
now my 14 years this is my favorite you know
period in the fire service how you can train
you know see some horrible stuff cry you know
go through troubles at home but the way that
we deal one the way we deal is through humor
so I want to illustrate that and show that firefighters
are not this callous group of people but this
is how we are and if I'm a lack of a better word
if I'm a piece of shit you're gonna pull me to
the side and you're gonna tell me hey I'm on
probation whatever play the game because you're
expecting me when the shit hits the fan to actually
be able to perform and excuse me in the how you
are in the station reflects how you are on a
call so Seeing as you had 30 -plus years in the
fire service, what was it like when you were
new to the fire service? I'm going to talk about
the negative things right now. We're going to
talk about a whole bunch of positive. What are
some of the negative things that you've seen
in the last 30 years as far as that element?
Well, I consider myself probably have grown up
in the fire service at probably the pinnacle
time. We went from riding around on the tailboard
in absolutely terrible equipment, junk. We had
equipment that would be strapped to the side
of the engine with somebody's used belt or a
piece of bailing wire. And that's exactly what...
I mean, Anaheim, when I came to Anaheim, it was
probably always near the top of pay, but we had
the terrible equipment. And to give you an idea,
when I hired on, the fire chief prior to the
fire chief that was there when I was there, but
the guy before him frowned on the guys using
their Scott Air Packs because they would have
to pay somebody to fill the bottles up. So when
I hired on, we never used a Scott Air Pack for
trash fires or car fires. You just dove in and
sucked it up and, you know, you did what you
had to do. Didn't you guys keep it like in a
compartment somewhere further back on the rig?
Yeah, they were in boxes. You'd have to get out
and take it out of the box. You had to take it
out of the box and put it on. It was never sitting
in a seat or anything like that. It was always
very inconvenient to put on. And if you put it
on, it was like you were going to get. kind of
ostracized a little bit for being uh a pussy
um that that's just you know kind of the way
it was and so you know we went through an academy
just like everybody else does but you know at
the end of the day you're working with people
and most of the people that i worked for or worked
with uh they came from the military so you you
you know guys that have had you know, a distinctive
style of being raised a certain way and being
around guys most of their lives. And, you know,
it's kind of like sports. I mean, for me, it
was very similar to being, you know, playing
football, you know, being part of a team. It
was very similar in that way. I found it attractive
in that way that, you know, being around people
that you respected was always enjoyable for me.
But, you know, when I say I think it was the
best times, I believe it was the best times.
You know, I got to experience riding a tailboard
before they even strapped you in. You know, it
was a time when the fire service was changing
and it was getting better equipment, safer equipment.
You know, safety standards were coming up. But
it was still being around a group of guys that,
that I respected in so many ways. Were these
veterans coming from the Vietnam War, a lot of
them? Some of them were Vietnam War. Some of
them were just military, not being any particular
war. But, you know, guys that had had, they came
from a different, you know, a lot of guys who
came from construction background, guys that
had a different path before. They just weren't
hired as firefighters. These guys came with experience
from another. portion of life and so they brought
something to the table um and you know there
was there was always something there you could
learn from just about anybody that you worked
with and uh that's you know we were always pretty
busy so had a lot of fires um you know it was
a great it was a phenomenal time i mean i i to
this day i think i i experienced the you know
the boon of the fire service. Best times of all.
I'll go to my grave thinking I worked during
the best times of the fire service. So how many
of those guys back then were successful in their
lawsuits for getting their feelings hurt? You
know, if I was to tell you what it was like back
then, I mean, if a guy today, if you were to
take a guy today and you put him... where I was
being called the things that I got called, they'd
probably go home crying to their mom. Would you
like to elaborate on some of those names? Oh,
I mean, you just... Terry, you can say these
things because it's a private podcast and you
won't be disciplined. Yeah, and there's an explicit
reason why I'm upset by this. You can say like
poo -poo head or whatever you want. I mean, the
things that would get said or insinuated or the
things that guys were able to get away with at
work at that time were pretty phenomenal. It
was amazing. Where was it coming from? Because
that's, I think, a big misunderstanding, misconception
about our profession is you hear like, oh, so
-and -so called me. For example, my dental care
was called into question several times. It's
only been fucking 10 minutes. Yes. But I know
that it's not that Dickie is truly concerned
about cavities in my mouth. It's the yellow color
that's more disturbing than anything. Recently,
where I live, my neighbor across the street,
their son got hired by LA County Fire Department.
And I was remembering hearing my daughter mentioning
something when she came in the house. She had
been outside talking with him. And he was kind
of, let's just say offended that the guys at
work were picking on him. And I immediately kind
of said, I want to go outside and talk with him
because I think he's missing the boat here on
it. And I would just... My wife cautioned me
to go out and having any conversation with him
because it wouldn't probably be productive. But
I always used to say, if they're not picking
on you, they don't like you. And so if they're
picking on you, it's kind of a good thing. And
it's the time to be very, very concerned is when
they stop picking on you. And that goes for anybody
at any rank. at all in the firehouse all the
way up to the fire chief so if they're not picking
on you it's a it's a means for caution and you'd
be very concerned about that because uh you know
everybody gets their we used to say everybody
has their moment in the barrel yeah and you hear
and that's the thing i've obviously been lucky
enough to talk to people from fire departments
you know all over the world now and that's the
same thing so it's universal Yep, everybody has
their moment in the barrel, and sometimes you
get stuck in it for a longer period of time than
others. But generally, at some point, everybody's
going to pick on one person. But for the most
part, it's always done in good nature. There
are times that it's a learning purpose, and then
there's other times it's just good fun. I would
say that most of the time, in our case, it was
pretty much always good fun. You don't want to
be in that position of being told you're deficient
in an area in front of about 13 other people
in the same room. It's kind of embarrassing.
So if it's to the point where you're being talked
about in that way, you're probably concerned
about something as well. But Terry, sorry. If
something was going on, it would be up to the
other people on the crew to pull that person
aside and say, hey, this is what's going on.
This is the expectation. This is how you can
change it and we'll get along a whole lot better.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, one thing, you know, there's
all kinds of isms that you learn along the way,
but one of them was, you know, it takes a lifetime
to build a good reputation and, you know, a short
period of time to... tear it all down. So, you
know, it's a, you kind of need to tread carefully
sometimes when you're, when you're not certain
you're building your reputation in a positive
fashion. Um, a lot of things can be, uh, not
forgot about for a while. You might, might say,
you know, and, um, I mean, I went through 32
years of, uh, of a career never, and I had lots
of things, you know, people that didn't like
me, I'll cut, you know, I had a battalion chief
that, had it out for me. And every time he turned
around, he would, he, you know, tried to get
me in trouble. And I never once threatened to
take him to court over anything. It was just,
he didn't like me and that's okay. Um, you know,
I, I, I kind of, I feel sorry for the guy today
to this day. I feel sorry for him because he's,
he's just, he was that unhappy of a person that
he, you know, the only bright spot in his day
was to be able to pick on me. And my guys. And
you know what? If your life is so miserable that
I'm the only bright spot in your day to pick
on that makes you feel better about yourself,
then I guess so be it. But, you know, I can't
imagine having the time in the firehouse to worry
about lawsuits and that sort of thing, to be
honest with you. You've got to have way too much
time on your hands for that sort of thing. And
you're missing the best part of the job if you're
doing that. Well, I can say, as someone who worked
for four departments, and I'm about to be a volunteer
now for a fifth, which is another experience,
but that's four probations. And people are like,
oh, doesn't it get old being on probation? And
I always tell people no, because the first department
I had no experience. Second one I only had a
year when I came to you guys. The third one,
it was, you know, what, five years? And then
the fourth was 10. But each time, I tell them,
these people I work with, no matter how competent
I think I am or I'm not, A, it's a new system
that I'm working under, and B, even if I'm a
damn rock star, even if God made the perfect
firefighter, they don't know who you are. So
that probation and that rookie period is where
you prove to them that I'm worthy of being on
your team. And during that time, it's bumpy sometimes.
I mean, I've had it where I'm a, you know 10
12 14 year firefighter getting a two -year guy
giving me shit who I know damn well is a turd
but I'm playing the game you know and you just
keep your mouth shut but get all butthurt because
you're being ridden because you're let's take
an example hypothetically not even off probation
you've decided that now you don't need to be
in uniform anymore or you're just going to take
naps whenever naps are great but you know there
is that game to play and it's because you're
proving to them that when You're on the fire
ground that you're not going to turn around and
your backup guy is gone or your hook guy on the
roof is gone, that you're going to be there when
it hits the fan. That's where this whole tradition
comes from is showing them that you're going
to be there for them. Well, you know, when I
mentioned it, part of the draw for me for the
fire service was that I enjoyed sports in school.
I enjoyed being around guys. that had a common,
you know, you have a common feeling, common thread
about, you know, what it is you enjoy in sports.
And part of that is that the idea behind it is
everybody's gone through the same thing before
you. It would be like if you went into Hell Week,
which is double sessions in football, and you
decided that somebody's being mean, making you
go to that second session every evening. And,
you know, Joe has been doing it for all these
years. And then Terry comes along and says, I
don't want to go to the second session. I think
it's being cruel and unusual punishment to me.
Therefore, I shouldn't have to go. Well, Joe's
never going to ever respect me for that. Go ahead,
Dickie. Go ahead. I think Terry is talking about
Joe and going back for a second helping. Second
session. I didn't mean to give Joe the microphone
to defend himself. Yeah, yeah. I will in time.
But the point being. I'm on fire tonight. The
point being, how could Joe ever respect me if
I decided that that second training session that
he's been doing for the last three or four years
in high school, and I come along and decide that
I'm too good to have to go to that second session.
How does that make Joe feel about me? It makes
him feel like. I'm some guy that doesn't think
I need to be at the same place that everybody
else was at one point in their career, which
that's what makes us all on the same team. When
you decide that you're a team of one, that's
a lonely place to be. And I can't imagine ever
being on or wanting to be part of a team of one.
I think when you're on a team of one, you have
forgotten or maybe you didn't ever know why you
even entered the fire service in the first place.
You've lost sight of your reason for being there.
And you really, really need to reexamine the
trajectory of your life and where you think you
want to go. Because you're part of the fire service,
first of all. You're there to serve. You're not
there to serve yourself. You're there to serve
the people that you work out in the field for,
that you sacrifice your time out there for. You're
there to serve your brothers and your sisters
that you're working side by side with. And at
the end of the night, if you want to do something
nice for yourself, yeah, you could serve yourself
as well at that point in time. But there's a
lot of people that come. well before you on that
list. And so if you've gotten to the point where
you're a team of one, you probably should be
looking for another line of work. Yeah, and I
agree 100%. I mean, we've both been shocked,
all of us in this room have been shocked, some
of the stories we've heard about that. You hear
stuff in the news about hazing and, oh, they
sprayed this man with a water hose in Navy SEAL
school. Yeah, that's what they do to make him
resilient to the stress they're going to do.
And I've had people on this podcast that we've
discussed the smorgasbord of skills and stressful
environments that we might be exposed to, whether
it's a mass shooting, whether it's some of the
calls we've seen a lot of, but a plane crash.
Kids stuck in a sewer. I mean, the list goes
on and on and on of what we might respond to.
And if you get your feelings hurt because someone
said that you've got eight months on, you should
probably be the one mopping the floor, then clearly
you're not there for the team, like you said.
And that selfish attitude, that's how we weed
people out. you know you you have to prove to
us and i've been that guy i've been that new
guy in numerous times where i've got to prove
to you senior officer that i'm worth being on
this team because we there's no no question to
me we're we're equivalent to special ops and
i've had navy seals and rangers and delta force
guys say i see fire service like us because you
have you're responsible for so much so therefore
what do the navy seals do do they hold people's
hands and say i hope i don't upset you today
no You get washed out. And that's what made me
so proud with Anaheim's probation when I went
through it is that we got rid of 25 % every single
class. Not to be dicks, but that was the washout
rate of the people that weren't there for us,
for the team. And then when it was left over
and you graduate the academy and you finish probation,
you have a sense of pride and accomplishment.
Like, you're it. You were the best of the crop
or the litter and you made it. And then you finish
probation and then from there on, you know you
have a career to build your reputation after
that but it doesn't take very long to ruin that
and that's always been the beauty of the fire
service is you answer to the brothers you answer
to the family and you know guys think that you're
worthwhile and you do your fair share of the
work and you're ambitious and you want to learn
then they help you and they guide you and they
show you down the right path but when People
make a decision that I'm not doing this so I
want to do something different. That's when the
problems start. The whole thing with the fire
service too is this whole sense of tradition.
A bunch of us, Terry being one that goes back
here, they go into New York and you see that
brotherhood. You have firefighters from all over
the country, all over the world that come together
and they welcome us with open arms. To see that
when we come, when I got hired in the fire service,
it is a brotherhood. We treat each other like
brothers. Brothers will bully the younger brother
around and boss him around or haze him a little
bit. But it's all out of love and respect, like
Terry said. And that's the thing. No one else
is allowed to fuck with that guy. That's your
younger brother. He's your guy. And only you
guys mess with him because he's yours. And that's
it. And if anyone else does, they've got to answer
to you. You take care of him. And none of it's
really done in malice. It's all done in good
fun and in good spirit. And if someone is out
of hand, just like a bigger brother should, we
pull them aside and we correct that action. trying
to turn it into a positive. That's where some
of the feelings seem to get hurt. And that's
where a lot of them don't understand or a lot
of individuals don't understand that it's like
we're not doing this to single you out, to pick
on you, to make you shine in a negative light.
It's so you correct the action so the behavior
changes. That's the only way it's going to happen.
So now with this hurt feelings and now it goes
to where it gets involved in lawsuits or people
could... lose their position or lose their career.
It's a little bit much from what I've only been
on for, well, I shouldn't say only, but 18 years
now. I've seen a lot change, and a lot of it
is with this administrative, you know, where
I remember talking to guys years ago that worked
for other departments where you had a problem
with somebody, let's go talk about it out back
in the station, you know, and just like brothers
do. Let's go handle it out back. No hurt feelings.
And now that's way out the window. Even say anything
close to that, you're going to be, you know,
some type of administrative investigation. So
it's a lot has changed. Well, I would tell you
that when I came on, the, if you had an issue,
like if you, you know, you were struggling with
your other firefighter. You're a four -man firefighter.
You were the three guy. I actually had that situation
where I was struggling with a guy after I'd been
on a year of the job. And I went to my boss,
and my boss says, did you talk to him about it?
And I said, well, yeah, I really hadn't talked
to him about it. And he goes, you need to go
talk to him about it first. Because there was
an unwritten rule in the fire service that says
you handle it at the lowest possible level. That
whatever the lowest possible level is, you don't
get staff involved in something that they don't
need to be involved in. And, you know, so I went
and talked to the guy about it. It didn't change
anything. So I just eventually just transferred
out of that house. I just stabbed him in the
bunk room. But, I mean, you know, that was just
one way of, you know, getting away from somebody
that was just their personality and yours were
never going to be a good mix. But when you talk
about hazing. You know, you get a probationary,
you get a guy that just comes here from that
nobody knows. You have to. If you're not going
to sit there and observe the guy 24 hours a day
and watch every little thing he does, you're
going to miss things. And you're going to miss
something and you're going to end up keeping
somebody who really shouldn't be here. Now, I
would say that. I was careful when I teased.
I would never tease a guy that I was questioning
whether he was going to make it or not. Is that
why you never teased Dickie? I never teased Dickie.
That's why I made it through the academy because
I was partnered with James and they never bothered
watching me. Well, you already had the handicap
stickers. They knew you were going to make it
through. The EDA. Yeah. Point being, you have
to at times. have to know whether this person
is going to be a person that's going to be trustworthy,
that you are willing to take chances with on
a job, because in the fire service, you're often
sent to go do something that could be very important,
that could have implications towards the safety
of the entire operation. And therefore, if you
send this guy who's maybe not trustworthy, do
you really trust that he got... the assignment
completely done. And so, you know, there are
things that you pick up on people when you do
watch somebody getting, you know, let's just
say teased a little bit about something. You
might get a reaction of, you know, right back
at you to where the person has no, you know,
no sense of humor. He's immediately taking offense
to it. Those are kind of warning signs that,
you know. This person may not fit in the group
because he doesn't really understand what it's
about. And that's the thing. It's not hazing.
I think hazing is when you're trying to be mean
to someone just because they knew. It was more,
I mean, we got on. It was pressure, like a stress
inoculation. You see what the guy or the girl
is made of. How do you handle stress? How is
your integrity? Can you think and be calm under
pressure? Or are you going to flash and scream
and go running? these things are all pretty much
i guess a social test but the end of the day
is we're going to be in situations and places
where our lives are going to depend on one another
and in a smoked out room with flames running
across the ceiling i can't tell if you're black
or white or green or you're a girl or a boy or
gay or straight it doesn't matter what matters
to me is knowing that you're there and that you
have my back and that you know what to do But
as soon as people start questioning, do you know
what to do? Or how committed are you? I think
that's when it starts scaring people. That's
what I call the only prejudice that belongs on
the fire service. You've got two types of firefighters.
Those that can and those that can't. That's it.
That's where it ends. And like you were saying,
when we're all bunkered up, you don't know. I
mean, no one knew that Dickie was African. No
one knew that I was. english but they knew that
we were both horrible firefighters and that we
shouldn't be on the fire but it's but it's true
you know it's that's what we care about and then
speaking of the the flashing for a second that's
also not pushing buttons when you know that guy's
going through a divorce or just lost their child
or whatever you know that's that's when we understand
a pullback but i don't think it's that unfair
to say hey you've just been here a few weeks
you should probably do the you know be the first
at the sink or you know first to finish or understand
that you need to know what's in every compartment
on that truck it's not stump to chump we all
went through and if i screw up that then i'm
i'm following i just tell people i love the truck
the compartment checks because it reminds me
where everything is you know the same as the
the inventory days you know so and let me show
you what i know let me impress you if you ask
me I'm going to show you and I'm going to impress
you. And you're going to go, damn, this kid's
got his shit together. You're right the first
time. Impress me. Exactly. So, Joe, what about
your perspective? Because we haven't had much
from you so far. He's busy eating. Well, I just
sum it up very simply. It's the fact that you're
depending on these people that we work alongside,
our brothers, we spend a third of our life with.
to save each other, to stand by each other. Through
our personal matters, through our professional
issues, we depend on one another. If I ever have
an issue, whether it be personal or professional,
I know I can call one of the brothers that I
work with, and they're going to be there for
me. That's one of the things that I love about
our career, about our profession, is that sense
of brotherhood. It's a very unique profession
where we don't have a 9 to 5 and go home on the
weekends, go home at night. We're around our
brothers, our sisters, 24 hours, however 10 days
a month. One third of your life, yeah. Yeah,
one third of our life. And we bond together and
these relationships that we carry on go beyond
our career into our retirement. I mean, Terry's
been retired like 30 years now and we still,
you know, come to the convalescent home and visit,
you know, so it goes a long way. So I just think
it's very, I think it's very important that these,
these relationships that we develop. I think
that's age discrimination. That's a protected
class. No, because I'm not discriminating. Once
you get past a certain age, it's okay. You can't
hear what you're saying. But that's one of the
things I think is very unique about our profession
is the bond that we develop with one another.
And, you know, you've been gone X amount of years.
You know that if any of us are going through
tough times, you reach out and you don't have
to. And I don't think that's going to be found
in very many professions where this relationship,
this bond, you know, we all shared a bond for
many years working together. And it's still...
still strong you know i just want to interrupt
for a second so for everyone to put it in context
i was only anaheim for three and a half years
we were on the truck for what two years i think
it was yeah 10 years later well i mean i guess
seven years at a time the people that i invited
to my wedding to be my entire wedding party apart
from my brother was the people sitting around
here and then jericho as well and my friend rob
but um that's how strong the bond is and that's
why i wanted us to to have this is to people
that understand that when you create that crew
and that tribe, as we talk about a lot on this,
you can't break those bonds. We're going to be
like this until we die. Hopefully Dickie will
go first. James, in all honesty, that's the biggest
problem that we have is that it's HR could never
understand. what we do so they're they're constantly
looking at us trying to figure out how we can
make the fire department a safer place for the
city so we can avoid lawsuits so we can do all
these things right they're trying to psychoanalyze
these fire guys and they'll never get it because
until you do it and actually live it it's foreign
to you and it's foreign to so many people That's
why there's so much kind of petty jealousy out
there at times with other labor groups. They
just don't. They see the guys sitting back catching
a movie a certain time of day, but they're not
there for all the other parts of the day that
we're all sacrificing side by side with. That's
a big part about it. We all put our effort in
at the same time. When one works, we all work.
Repeat that for me again. I was just going to
say, I love hearing that. It's been a while.
Well, usually it's like, you know, Joe and James
and Terry will be downstairs working on something.
Oh, Christ, okay. Terry, I beg to differ. Joe
is at the fridge. Dickie would work in times
of conflict. No, no. Stress working. No, no.
Yeah, well, labor groups struggle with us. Because
it's not a conventional job. It's not something
that you can... I'll just end it with this. When
you think about the worst thing you've ever seen,
those guys from the other departments or whatever
labor group or HR, whomever it might be, they're
never there for that. Ever. They don't have those
moments. you know inscribed in their brain for
the rest of their lives they have no idea what
it's about but the guys that you work side by
side with have those same moments that you have
so it's it's um you could say it's like being
at war you could say it's like being um at whatever
experience it was it but it's it bonds you together
and welds you together for the rest of your life
well you used this to hit on something that you
said you said one works we all work And I want
to talk about your leadership style in a second
and how you created us. I mean, you know, it
starts from the top. But what I've observed is
I've worked in other places and the LT always
seems to find paperwork to be doing with all
the hard work being done. And we were never washing
a bay or, you know, checking out the rig or training
without you. you know about fighting you to try
and be there ahead of you because you were always
yeah that was always the gig being a dick trying
to show us up and Fridays we would do the lawns
and the gardens and mow around the station and
if Terry beat us to the lawnmower or the edger
or whatever it was. It was a collective, fuck,
we blew it. And that was the thing. On a fire
on any other call, Terry had a tool in his hand.
That was it. You weren't going to get to do anything
and you were going to have to stand there and
look like an idiot. And James was pretty good
at that. But I frowned upon it. So it was always
like... It was a given that if there was work
to be done, it was going to be a fight to do
the work. Just the same as there's a fight to
do the dishes. Then you build a reputation of,
hey, this guy handles his shit and he gets it
done. And those are the people that you want
on your crew. I knew if we went past the reflective
surface that you'd be... Here we go. You'd be
taken. Like, who's that beautiful person in the
mirror? I could take the tool from you and get
the work done. That was always my moment of opportunity.
Just like if I wanted to get a tool from James,
I'd show up with a toothbrush. You know, James,
I got to say, though, I agree with a lot of what
Terry said, but I got to say there's a lot that's
changed since we've gotten hired. When I first
got hired, there was a lot more camaraderie.
amongst all of us there was sitting down chit
chat after uh after dinner after lunch sit around
talk about whatever talk about issues talk about
who's doing what at their house and getting to
that uh no that's the point i'm making is that
i knew we used to be able to play team sports
we used to be able to um there was a lot more
bonding well you get hurt doing team sports so
that's dangerous i have to edit this piece out
you can't play sports in the fire station but
go on sorry sir i just checked with my lawyer
go on oh did you okay so nowadays vicky just
pulled out his cell phone and that's the biggest
issue so everybody i pulled out the cell phone
to show you i wasn't going to go and update my
blog thank you okay show you a picture of yourself
yes thank you katie lang some selfies katie lang
So people are pulling out their cell phones,
so there's no more conversation around the table.
There's no more communication. You talk to somebody,
and you're lucky to hold their attention for
a couple of minutes before they're on their phone
looking at something, email, a text, or whatever
it may be. So we lost a lot of that communication
with social media and people just being busy.
We no longer sit around and play cards. We don't
sit around and there's no communication and bonding.
You throw in a TV in the kitchen or the dining
room where people are eating and then people
watch TV instead of talk. And then you throw
in the separate dorm rooms where each one has
their own room. Which is a good thing for the
sleep. You've got to be disciplined as a crew
not to hide out there. Yeah, I recall having
a cell phone because when I would leave it laying
around, there would always be a screensaver on
there that I don't know where it came from. But
I always had to hunt the guys down and say, you
bastards, get that. Was it David Hasselhoff by
chance? It could have been a Hoff or it could
have been Freddie. Have you ever seen a cell
phone like that? Since then. I've never seen
a rotary cell phone before. Oh, stop it. Stop
it. A lot of people don't know how to use a passcode
on your phone. Point being this. We had cell
phones 10 years ago. We didn't hover around the
cell phone. Point being this. You're hiring people
today, and you may get this with every hire you
get, They're all a product of that phone. Okay.
We had them then, but we weren't products of
the phone. Yeah. They do a lot more. The phone
came only as a, you know, we enjoyed each other's
company. We found value in each other more than
we did our phone. So therefore, we didn't feel
the need to. Boost our egos through the phone.
Yeah, which goes back to the banter and the hurt
feeling of being forced to talk to one another.
Obviously, that's how we decompress. Clearly,
you heard the racist slur from Dickie about my
people's dental habits. That's not racism. That's
a fact. Look at his teeth, how nice they are.
Exactly. I was told once that I had the best
teeth. Of an English person, the dentist that
I've seen. By my dentist that I've heard you
to. No, it was in Florida. Oh, well, I've seen
the people in Florida. Sorry, Florida. But that's
what living in America does for you. It makes
you better. So you're welcome. Why are your eyes
red? I'm tired. I'm guessing maybe we should
outlaw phones in the fire station. I would love
that. Or just promote conversation when you're
not using your phone. Because phones are a great
tool of using properly. Yeah. See, I was a big
fan of, you might recall this, but I was a big
fan about cooking in the station. I don't recall
that at all. Yeah. Putting slabs of meat on the
tiller truck and driving it. Yeah. That was the
greatest thing. 40 pound boxes. For the restaurant
depot. And then trying to sell it to the other
shifts. Yeah. I'll sell you a box of onions.
I was just waiting for the structure fire. We
had to take all the groceries off before we could
fly the ladder. 30 pounds of bacon. We ate good.
And we would have ice cream socials after dinner.
And the whole station, 14 guys, would be in the
kitchen. It would be a party. Yeah. It was a
party. I mean, it doesn't always have to be that
way. My position always was if you love the guys
you work for, you would work hard preparing a
meal that they're going to enjoy and that's going
to be good and that, you know, if it takes you
two hours to do it, it takes you two hours to
do it. But, you know, you always knew if you're
cared for because the guys. Go to the effort
of planning the day. If they have to miss a workout
to plan their meal and get it on board. If it
doesn't get on time, there's nothing you can
do about that. But at least if the guys went
out to the market early in the morning, they
got their shopping done, they at least had their
hearts in the right place. Then you knew they
cared about you. If they didn't and they just
left you hanging in the wind, then kind of told
you where you stood. I think the dishes are the
same as loading hoes. It's that feeling of you
just did something together and it doesn't matter
if you're washing up and wrestling at the sink
or if you're throwing five -inch back up. Yeah,
look at the end of the fire. I mean, everybody's
beat up, everybody's tired, everybody's wore
out, but you'd get eight or nine guys circle
around one rig putting everything back on that
rig. So that they could go back in service. And
then they would do it for the next one and the
next one. And sometimes, you know, at the end
of the day, there's nobody there to help the
last unit. But, you know, you still, you do for
others before you do for yourself. And then the
truckers would go back to the station and tear
the saws apart and clean it while the pumpies
would go to sleep after we loaded all their hose.
That's a fact. You're such a bitter lady. Or
they would go beep, beep, beep. But that was
the thing. It was my saw. I wanted to clean it.
Because I dirtied it. I got to play. Hopefully
you got to play. Oh, we always got to play with
you. Even when we cut the fruit for the next
house, we cut something. We'll see you on fire.
Yeah. I got a question for you. So I'm just going
to throw a tangent here. When I went from the
West Coast back to the East Coast, they not and
for everyone, don't get but hurt. If you're in
an agency where you are on the East Coast, where
you cut roofs, this is not for you. But several
that I work for. were terrified of getting on
the roof. Oh, if you put people on the roof,
it's going to collapse, but they'll put three
companies under and not even think about it.
So what is your view over the 30 years of the
effectiveness of vertical ventilation? Well,
vertical ventilation is a necessity. I mean,
you can't really perform any type of meaningful
rescue, and you can't give any type of meaningful
relief to the guys that are going in below you.
You know, that's the bottom line. It's part of
the job. If you're on a truck company, you better
get comfortable with being on the roof. And that's,
you know, that's the burden to that is you better
be knowing your area and knowing what your roofs
look like in your area and being comfortable
with being on the roof. The guys that I feel
sorry for are the guys that come in and work
one shift on a truck that are like scared shitless
that they're going to actually have to go up
on the roof and perform. And that's why, you
know, when I would work overtime and I'd be on
21, had a medic captain on the truck, they would
say, hey. I'd always go to them and say, hey,
do you want to swap today? Because I knew they
were very uncomfortable being on the truck. And
usually the guys on the truck were pretty happy
that I would. come over because you know you
you want to have somebody up on the roof that's
gives you a little confidence that you're going
in the right place doing the right thing do you
remember that um yes i know what you're gonna
say the well tell me what you're gonna say it's
probably not the same i don't think you were
there the day i was gonna talk about so firstly
when you came out no the other day that was a
tuesday no i was gonna say that time we were
up on the roof and uh it was super we were relatively
new um I wanted to work with Terry because he
had the reputation of being the best truck captain
and I wanted to learn from him. And, you know,
we'd been through fire academies and we've been
through our city's academy and, you know, just
enough to get yourself into a lot of trouble.
And you don't know how much is too much either.
So I remember getting up on a roof with Terry
and this is what I always admired about him is
he didn't say go over there. He'd say, follow
me. because for me as a rookie fireman or someone
with very little experience, I didn't know how
spongy it can be. Terry did, and I think those
two, it worked really well for me and really
bad for me because every call we ever went on,
when I would be getting scared, I'd look at Terry
and he'd go, you know, this is completely normal,
and I would just follow. and i never once worried
about my safety because i knew he was there and
i knew he knew what he was doing i knew mostly
what to do but i don't always know when to do
it or how to do it and i had him there now fast
forward a couple years terry leaves and now i'm
in the position and james in the position too
you're like i didn't pay close enough attention
to what you were doing i just accepted and i
trusted that you were watching me and i don't
know how much is too much anymore i don't know
the you know the warning signs but you have that
feeling inside but i didn't really pay attention
to it because i knew it was being taken care
of for me and i think that's my f up but also
a huge credit to you terry is i never worried
was i going to be safe because i had someone
taking care of that for me um but yeah being
on a truck or being a trucker and doing the vertical
ventilation that's one of those it's a high risk
procedure and if you don't know your building
construction or your first in or how to do it
properly you're going to get yourself in a lot
of trouble and at 13 years on now we don't get
the kind of fires that you did terry um there
is a huge deficit in our training there's not
such You can't just go to a building and start
cutting on the roof. And even if you could, if
it was an abandoned building, it's completely
different under fire conditions. Yeah. You never
get the full effect from it. But here's a funny
one I'll tell you before you guys came to work
for me. We got a Carl's Jr. up on Harbor Boulevard
by the 91 freeway. So we go up there one night
and 21 gets there ahead of us and it's a grease
fire on the stove down below. So the two guys
on 21, which was Kevin Sims and Woody. Just so
you know, Terry, I was on this fire watching
everything that happened. Carry on. So these
guys are up there and they're just beating on
this thing. They're beating on this ventilator
up on the roof trying to figure out how to get
the thing off. With a sledgehammer. And they're
just... tearing this thing apart trying to anyway
and uh i can recall looking at him and finally
i just went over and grabbed the thing and flipped
it's a hinged unit try before you pry it's a
hinged unit and all you have to do but it's that's
the thing if you've never been if you've never
been there and seen it it would be foreign to
you yeah but having been there before and seen
it it was fun watching somebody else struggle
with it for a little while Before you just kind
of flip it over, and then you stick the hose
down the vent. That was before I joined your
crew, but I was part of that crew. I wasn't part
of the ones banging it. But let me be very clear.
I didn't know which way it opened, so I didn't
know what they were doing was wrong either. So
I'm not going to pretend like I was like, oh,
they don't know what they're doing. I didn't
know either. But it is pretty funny, though.
All of a sudden, you see that thing flip over,
and it's like you look at people's eyes, and
it's like the light just went on. Yeah, it's
easy. Stop putting that thing in my face. What
about the microphone? It was fine. I lost my
train of thought now. You get focused on what
you're doing and it's pretty easy to not see
the bigger picture. And that's what it was like
having Terry with us. He was seeing the bigger
picture. We were doing what we were doing and
everything else was being taken care of. And
sometimes it was just a tap on the shoulder or
getting whacked in the helmet. It was like, hey,
do this. I'm like, fuck, I'm an idiot. Like,
oh, I should fuck out loud. I shouldn't have
done it. What was I thinking? So, and that's
what, you know, having that senior guy with you,
it makes all the difference. Otherwise. I think
the biggest thing too is what Terry was doing
for all of us is what we're doing now is that
whole succession planning. Because now. Look
at that millennial with his phone ding in there.
The last hour is ruined now. I'm going to have
to start from the beginning. Just shut the thing
off. He's got the Jitterbug app too. His grinder
just peeped again. I didn't know they still made
flip phones. It's from you. It's got the Ten
Commandments on it. The original. But we're going
to have these newer individuals that are looking
to us now. and are going to be, we're imparting
our knowledge on them. Same thing that Terry
had done for us. There's things that I didn't
know as a brand new engineer until I went over
there working for Terry that we're able to pass
on now to newer individuals, including how to
fill out an action report when I accidentally
hit a car. So remember that one? Who was driving
the back of that? No, it was on the tag axle
one. 66 -23. Yeah. The little one. I tried to
help out a cop on scene because cars were zooming
by him and I ended up smacking the side of a
Honda. And Terry didn't say anything the whole
time. I don't think Terry needed to say anything
because you were so upset with yourself. I wasn't
here. That was enough. Was that after me? Yeah,
it might have been. You mentioned before that
there are certain times that you don't play with
people in the firehouse when they're having bad
times or whatever. There's times you don't need
to say anything to people. And the silence is
painful as can be. Well, I can tell you why.
Because when I finally cooled down and I was
fine, Terry said, I was happy that you were so
pissed off at yourself. Because if you weren't
pissed off at yourself, then I would have been
pissed off at you for not caring enough. But
that's the thing. It felt like you just let your
dad down. Like if you did something stupid or
you messed up. Your grandfather, you mean. Yeah.
Yeah. You really, you're hard on yourself because
you let the crew down. And because the person
who drove the other car didn't think, you know,
knock it off. Didn't think, oh, Joe hit my car.
It was those firemen hit the car or fire guys.
And that was, can you stop it? I was wondering
why you paint your toes. Yeah. it was the ingrown
toenail i put some stuff on to make it better
did you very stop worrying about my toe when
does nail polish fix ingrown toenails it's not
nail polish it's not on the nail shut up anyhow
my sentiment was you you let everyone else down
when you mess up too it's not just yourself so
you know that you've messed up and yeah you harden
yourself like i don't need you to tell me i've
messed up I'm usually pretty pissed at myself.
But luckily I have you guys to tease me about
it afterwards. And yeah, I really appreciate
that. But it doesn't happen often, I'll just
say. I think the point that I would make to that
is we at times were less than easy on each other.
And so the hazing part of it, people think that's
a big deal. But really the reality of it is,
is that... We are smart enough to recognize when
you play and when you don't play. And that we
respect each other enough to know when you don't
need to say a word because somebody's already
butthurt enough in a real serious way. And that,
you know, that's just a party foul to go in there
and add insult to injury at that point in time.
Because, I mean, I knew I didn't need to say
anything to Joe because Joe was already. feeling
like he'd let the whole world down anyway. And,
you know, there's nothing I'm going to say at
that point in time that's going to make him feel
any better because he already feels bad enough.
So you're just better off just to let it go?
Yeah, and I caught on real quick is that when
you don't, if I would have showed no care in
the world about hitting another vehicle. and
this moved on and say, hey, this is part of the
job, then, yeah, that would have really, I would
have understood how that would have upset Terry.
Yeah, I would have lost a lot of respect for
you. Yeah. So, you know, that's a lot of times
where we take pride in our careers. You know,
we take pride where you don't want to make a
mistake. And if you do make a mistake, you own
up to it. And not just pass it off as, you know,
no big deal. You know, because we, you know,
I learned a lot. You know, I thought, okay, you
drive inherent risk. You do everything you can
not to wreck a piece of apparatus or wreck somebody's
property. And it was a big deal for me, you know,
because I was, like, having to fill out all this
paperwork, you know. And, you know, this poor
person's car looked like a... Wolverine took
the whole side of the quarter panel out. It looked
like someone opened it up with a can opener.
Yeah, and a little Honda against a fire truck.
It was no match. With excessive weight on the
front left side. It wasn't excessive weight.
Let me play devil's advocate for a second, though.
So you guys in Anaheim don't get a caddy day.
No. No, so it's a 56 -hour work week. So there
is a chance also. that maybe your cognition was
a little challenged after a shift after shift
after shift and your judgment was a little altered
too because i just sat down with a guy from new
jersey they do 24 72 that's something i talk
about on so many of the podcasts but that's a
factor too and we beat ourselves up like oh my
god how did i clip that you know that ball out
or the the car or whatever it was but that's
a you know a micro decision amongst all the other
things we've got going on we're going code three
you're watching for other traffic you know you're
assessing the the car and the damage and the
potential patient injuries as you're pulling
up and that's something that you know we need
to talk about and you know here in anaheim that's
a full 56 and we've got this you know little
clever shift pattern but That's something we
don't talk about. Line of duty deaths, accidents,
injuries, the effect of sleep deprivation. It's
pretty common to be working 72, 96, 100. Can
you stop? I'll just move forward. I talk loud
enough. You sat back. You started painting. Hang
on. Oh, my God. So you can quite easily work
72, 96, 120 hours straight, five days, night
straight. I was at one of your podcasts. I heard
that if you have less than two or four hours
sleep or something like that. 24 hours without
sleep, you are 0 .1 blood alcohol cognition.
Legally drunk. I once worked eight days in a
row on truck one. Can you imagine that? Yeah.
When we sign up, when we're opting to do this.
And that's, you know, there's somewhat ownership
there. It's the mandatories that get me. But
then I get a lot of people saying, well, if we
give more time off, they're just going to work
anyway. And my counter is if you staff your bloody
fire department properly, the overtime isn't
there to work in the first place. There'll be
some. There'll be a little boost if you need
it. You know, people get sick. We get hurt. People
get deployed on strike teams. But the day to
day running, you're not getting told after 24
hours. Oh, I'm sorry, Terry, by the way. You
can't go to your kid's birthday party. You need
to stay here for another 24 hours. You know what
I find interesting? I talk to guys at work quite
frequently, and they're working overtime almost
constantly. And it amazes me the amount of guys
that are off work on injury compared to when
I was a young guy. There was never any overtime.
I mean, people just didn't get. Didn't go through
those injuries. But, you know, I would equate
working multiple shifts in a row as like being
on jet lag. It's like after about 72 hours, you
start getting fuzzy in the brain a little bit.
It's like getting jet lag. And nodding off when
you're driving home. yeah yeah i mean do you
remember the i mean i know you do the pallet
fire we had oh yeah so i mean firstly i want
to give you that's one of the examples i've used
before but i want to give you a a kind of kudos
for that because i know it keeps pulling towards
you um so we pull up on this enormous pallet
fire which you know obviously god was probably
high that day because he's like i'm gonna make
a wood chip pile place next to the pallet fireplace
so one of our engines was stuck between the two.
Their supply line was burnt through. I'll never
forget that everyone else went moth to the flame
to the address. It was a good decision as we
normally do, but you looked at the map, you took
a step back, you backtracked around, cut a fence,
went around this lake, cut another fence to rescue
the engine, whose dials were all melting like
some Salvador Dali painting, and then proceeded
to attack the fire from that side. But that was
what that experience showed is that you were
able to step off the rig. Me and Dickie, especially
being brand new guys, we're just looking at the
fire. Dickie and I. Oh, sorry. Dickie and I stepped
off the rig. But that experience allowed you,
despite there being multiple rigs, to be able
to step back and do that. In my eyes at the time,
you know what I was thinking? I hope Dickie doesn't
come with us. No, I mean, I was wondering why.
Don't give James the soul. Just for your listeners,
when you say a pallet fire, this is a place that
built and repaired wooden pallets that are shipped
at the bottom of container trucks or 40 -foot
tractor trailers. And they had pallets stacked
30, 40 high. maybe even more. And I mean, tall,
tall stacks of pallets. I mean, these things
were probably 30 feet in the air. The question
that I had was, why are we going in to fight
fire to save a bunch of wooden pallets that haven't
quite completely burned yet? That was my question,
is why when these stacks of these things start
burning and they get unevenly balanced. who knows
which direction they're going to fall, is it
really worth sacrificing anybody's well -being
on a pallet fire? No, you're protecting exposures
is what you're thinking about. Yeah, you just
go on one side and the other side and lob a bunch
of water on it. Who gives a damn? But the problem
is that people get worked up over stuff and they
forget that... In a lot of parts of the country,
I think that they actually take a more sane approach
to it than we do sometimes. Because we expect
action right now. But I mean, if that had been
a volunteer fire department with that, they would
have put a couple monitors on the ground from
100 feet away and they'd lobbed water at it.
And nobody would have got hurt. I think also
a lot of that is we are very fortunate where
we work. that our response times and the staff
and the equipment we have is pretty exceptional.
We are very lucky to have that. So you get a
lot of rigs on scene very quickly, and everyone
wants to get engaged. Everyone wants to do something
to help out. That's why you get this job. And
you can often get yourself a little bit too close
too soon. especially with the types of fuels
that are burning nowadays. But you have areas
where the response times are a lot longer and
the fire's already flashed or there's already
been a collapse before you get a fighting force
on scene. And I think the accidents are substantially
less then. But we have better gear and we have
quicker response times and everyone has a cell
phone so we get there sooner. you know the fuels
have changed and they're hotter and they burn
faster so we get on scene and we're being aggressive
and we get there just in time to get ourselves
in a whole lot of trouble unless you take a step
back and see the bigger picture and that's risk
a lot to save a lot and risk very little to save
nothing and that's a huge thing taking that global
view of everything that was one thing i learned
from terry too is you'd have since we worked
with two other apparatus at our station, is getting
these calls, and everybody wants to be the first
one on the fire, and getting the call where Terry
says, hold on, and the other two rigs turn left,
and he says, turn right. For whatever reason,
I don't know what they were thinking, but they
went to the wrong address. Do you remember what
I'm talking about? And we worried, is this Alzheimer's
kicking in? What the hell is going on? Is the
map upside down? He's just taking his time and
he's looking at the map correctly. And we beat
them in because they went to the wrong address.
Yeah, people get in a hurry. You got to know
where you're going. Yeah. So it's just having
that overall global view of things, you know,
starting from the moment we pull out. And Terry
was one of the ones that I tried to mimic. that
approach is not getting worked up on an incident
you know you have to be the one in control and
bring calm to chaos and learning that comes with
experience and and learn from uh trying to mimic
from other people that you worked for and that
was a good example is never getting worked up
and and trying to contain the chaos and and and
be able to put the pieces in place to control
it. And if you have somebody that's worked up
and out of control, they're going to miss things.
Their judgment is skewed. The pieces are not
going to fall into place correctly. And it's
happened multiple times. So just taking that
global view, taking a step back, as they say,
and being able to put those pieces in place correctly
and being sound, just having that calm demeanor.
Puts everybody else in that same position where
it's like, okay, he's calm, then I'll be calm.
And that was one of the things that I learned
from Terry and a couple of the other senior captains
I had. Kenny Anderson. And that guy could have
a plane crash into a house and he was talking
like Ben Stein. He'd fall asleep listening to
his sighs up. I mean, he was an amazing guy.
Amazing guy. I mean, when I talk about some of
these guys, I mean, this is a guy you guys didn't
get a chance to know. No, never mind. He was
a, early on he was a firefighter. When I came
on, he went to medic school, came out of medic
school. He would, Mr. Monotone, he always spoke
at one tone, never his. His voice never changed,
ever. And that was just the way he was. And then
he started teaching classes at the net on EMTs.
And we finally started figuring out that this
guy was, he would give you a class on envenomation.
People would get snake bites or insect bites.
He was teaching doctors about that sort of thing.
Back then. I mean, this guy knew stuff. He could
have easily have been a physician if he wanted
to. That guy was one of the smartest guys I've
ever met. And also one of the scariest. He was
a very intimidating person. He could be a very
scary guy too. Yeah, because you couldn't tell
if he was happy or angry. No, if this guy said
he didn't like you, you probably should sleep
with an eye open. I was his rookie, so he never
had to tell me anything twice. Yeah, you didn't
question when Kenny – I don't think there's a
bullet that would have gone through that rhino
hind. Maybe a .45. He needs to bolster up on
the caliber on that thing. I think he could have
stabbed me with his sword leg over there. Yeah,
well. About the same diameter. Well, speaking
of leaders, I guess, I want to – kind of transition
to is pink bleeding exactly there should be a
textbook but what you know we all came to you
i think i mean you were were you there was i
there first or you you were there first okay
so we all were kind of somewhat around the same
time as joining the yeah so much so yet we all
seem to understand and fit in you imagine how
excited terry was finding out he was getting
a nearly completely new crew of misfits yes from
all different countries and we'll talk about
the the um the truck one patch in a minute but
what what is your leadership philosophy when
when you get the new engineer the new firefighter
the new African. Refugees. How did you create
an environment? What was your goal that mentored
us instead of just showing up? Build a wall.
I have a t -shirt that says that. Build a wall.
I got it from Corbett. Jeff Corbett. God bless
his soul. Actually, my philosophy was very simple.
When I was a firefighter, there were certain
things I did like and I didn't like. And so I
learned from those folks based on how they treated
me. And the people that I like to work for the
most were the ones that sent me off to do my
work and left me alone. And so my philosophy.
has always been is that you tell the person what
they have to do or in some cases you shouldn't
need to tell them what they have to do and you
wait for them to screw up so my philosophy is
tell them they know what to do and if they're
not doing it right i'll figure it out and then
i can have a chance to sit down and talk with
people in your guys's case it worked out really
well because you know i i never had to really
say much to anybody and i know that that's mostly
just james mostly james that was the thing your
reputation preceded you long before i ever spoke
to you for the first time so it yeah i mean that's
the truth i mean if if you think that there's
a chance you're going to get called out then
it's kind of the benefit that i have is is you
probably came with a little intrepidation about
if i screwed up i was going to be in deep shit
And you didn't want to disappoint. So, yeah,
I mean, keep a high expectation. But really,
deep down, I mean, you only correct people when
there's a reason to correct them. Yeah. So, again,
the polar opposite of the micromanaging thing.
No, you totally leave them alone. Yeah. You leave
them alone. And the same with the, you know,
quote, unquote, hazing or bullying or whatever
is. we're in a job where even if you're the biggest
micromanager um you know you're on some giant
scene you're going to be on your own anyway you're
sent to you know the charlie side or whatever
so to then create this thing where oh i can only
i need to tell you everything you need to do
which i've worked for departments that like that
you know i want you to pull the hose this way
and go to this door and it's it's ridiculous
but i think that that was it is that you trusted
us and we trained that's the thing we'll talk
about in a bit is training but sure you trusted
us And if it wasn't done perfectly, well, you
know, no one died. It's fine. We'll talk about
it. We'll remediate. But you empowered us to
learn from our mistakes. Like, for example, putting
a ventilation fan next to a bunch of burning
papers. Introduction of oxygen. Yes, I was going
to come to this eventually. But one of my fondest
memories is we're overhauling and we got a fan
going at the front door. And James, it was like
a printing shop or something. And there was a
stack of paper. I don't know if it was a phone
book or something that was bound together. But
James threw it. And the edges were singed and
still glowing. And it landed right in front of
this damn blower. And all it did was shoot. Sparks.
Millions of embers all the way back into this
building. And I looked up at him. What are you
doing? He looked at me like the shock look on
his face. That was priceless. I was very happy
about that. I'm like, oh, please, let someone
else see this. That was one of my most humiliating
firefighting experiences by far. It's actually
just treat people like you'd like to be treated
yourself, which kind of goes along with. My belief
of, you know, you love your neighbor as you love
yourself. So, you know. To go along, though,
too, Terry, was that all of us, I was a new engineer,
there were newer firefighters, and we were all
working at a place called the Shark Tank, where
there was about a thousand years of seniority
unimpeded by progress. These spit -out rookies,
that front and center. Yeah. So, I was... scared
shitless to go there as a new engineer, especially
working for you. I was like, I didn't want to
screw up anything. And my experience working
around Terry was very minimal. So I was pretty
like, damn, I need to be on my A game and impress
him. And I think that's the thing we always wanted
to do is we wanted to all be in our A game and
impress him. That was the expectation. You never
once said that to us. We just automatically knew.
If you don't have your shit together or if you
don't want to learn and you don't want to work
really, really hard, this is not the rig for
you. We're working on the busiest truck company
in the city, if not the county. In the county.
Yeah. And it's like we're getting our balls kicked
in, running X amount of calls every night. And
it's like, well, I want to be the best damn engineer.
And I want to make sure that, because to me it's
like, well, shit, if I can impress Terry, I can
impress anybody doing my job. For the record,
you never did. Yeah, it's all good. But carry
on. He has Joe toilet paper even to this day.
But move on. So, you know, after, you know, Terry,
to me, the first time I met him, he was very
standoffish. I don't know if... That was an impression.
Oh, no, you got the hug and the pat on the back.
And you didn't get that? The challenge coin.
Well, they thought you were foreign exchange.
Yeah. He was like, oh, well, they'll be leaving
soon. Yeah. We'll just get this one back across
the border and we'll be good to go. So, you know,
once I figured my goal was to have Terry open
up and start teasing me, giving me a hard time,
making me feel part of the group. Then I know,
okay, then I'm. I'm welcome. I'm in. You're accepted.
The things that we talk about that people don't
like anymore, I was hoping to have because that
whole standoffish and it's like, you're new here,
kid. You need to freaking do your job and impress
me before I start welcoming you with open arms.
Before we become friends. Yeah. And it's not
impressed like an ego thing. No. It's show me
that you can do the job. Show me that you can
do the job. Show me that what you're here for,
you're going to do. Yeah. That's all I wanted
to do. You know? Yeah. You know what I knew?
That I was on Terry's good side. And we're getting
ready for inspection. And my counterpart wasn't
really into doing inspections. So I literally
drew a chalk line down the middle of the rig
to clean my side. And Terry came down. You know
what I'm talking about, right? P. Dillow. And
he came down with a protein shake. Said, here,
you know, good job. Thanks for doing that. And
I was like, you know, that's cool. So that's
when I felt, and I was still pretty new. Well,
you know, come station inspection time when you're
on the truck, it's, you know, you got chow to
work, to think about whether you're going to
be cooking that day. You got, you know, majority
of the BS calls to run. I mean, our schedule's
already full. You know, and then you throw, you
know, the truck, it's a vast number of tools
and equipment and everything that has to be,
you know, accounted for and tags and cleaned
and sharpened and, you know, all the inventory
and all that stuff. It's just a never -ending
thing. It's a quiet thing, too. You want it to
look good, but it's a working truck and it's
January, so it's going to rain. That's when people
take, and that's when guys will take time off.
Some guys will take time off during their month
of December because they know that station one
is January inspection. To everyone else. Yeah.
I mean, and you know, you have to, you have to,
I mean, there's just, it's just, it's, it's an
ugly part of the year and it's just, you gotta
get done. I mean, there's just, there's no getting
around it. So, you know, if you're not willing
to put your time in, it's going to be pretty
obvious at that point in location. When they
come in to inspect that. And you want to be able
to go to your boss when he comes in and says,
but you missed this. And you can say, no, that
was what was done on the other shift. My guy
didn't miss anything. And so you want to be able
to say, we did our job. Suck it, chief. Well,
you want to be able to throw it right back in
their face because if you did your job, there's
not anybody who should be able to come to you
and say one negative thing. I want to transition
to another topic because that's a good segue.
Again, we talked earlier about what we're responsible
for and obviously on the way we did it on our
truck, we were not only... you know vertical
ventilation and and you know suppression if we
needed to but also you know they were the primary
extrication you know response as well training
the value of training i've talked about a lot
everyone listening if they've heard any of the
other podcasts they already know my stance but
i'll give you the mic again you tell me i've
heard things like we can't train the rain can't
train the dark it's too hot it's too cold so
without loading the question you're Your views.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I'd go out and
train in the dark because we were fortunate enough.
We're on a busy rig. We're out in the dark enough
already, you know, so it was, you know, whether
you're out in the dark or not. I mean, that's
kind of a nebulous for us. I mean, we're not
the average crew, but I'm a big believer in that.
You should be prepared to go out and do whatever
it is you need to do. Because if you're not well
-versed in everything that's going on, how can
you have confidence in what you're going to do?
And that's why I would always tell you guys that
the opportunity comes around. The opportunity
is the test. When you get the call, that's the
test. The training is a classroom. If you don't
take advantage of test time, you're never going
to build the confidence to be able to lead your
group of people in the way that you see fit.
Because either you have the confidence or you
don't have the confidence. If you're struggling
for the answers, then the guys in the room are
going to see you're struggling for the answers.
So then it becomes a very nervous time of...
Are we going to get the victim out? Are we going
to be able to open the door? Are we going to
be able to do whatever it is we need to do to
extricate the person out because there's X amount
of time that we have? The optimum is we show
up. It goes like a classroom textbook operation.
Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. But
you study in everything along the way because
you have a toolbox. And whatever you go out,
I mean, some of the things about training that
always bothered me was people, the latest and
greatest guys would show up at the training center
with a class that says, we don't do it this way
anymore. We don't do that this way anymore. I
kind of frown when people say that they've got
this new way of doing things. It's not that the
new way is a bad way to learn. It's just that
everything that you learn throughout your career
is a resource for you. There's no one technique
or tactic. There's no one technique that works
for everything. So therefore, embrace everything
so that when you get somewhere, if one technique
doesn't work, you remember something that you
tried once before that does work. Because the
age of vehicles, you could have a 50 -year -old
vehicle versus a brand new vehicle. Speaking
of vehicles. I'm going to transition just for
a second because this needs to be said. Do you
remember the great car fire of Anaheim Station
1 where the truck has to come in and rescue the
engine? And they dumped their entire AMS cabinet
while they pulled out of the station? Yard sale.
But that was it. And the people involved obviously
were good people and we worked alongside them.
But that was a moment where not understanding
the construction of that particular vehicle,
doing the wrong kind of cut on that hood. ended
up, it should have been a simple car fire, being
basically a multi -company response. The car
fire from hell. When you said car, I thought
we were going to talk about the green Sentra
that used to drive. You guys remember that? There
was a license plate frame on it. Do you guys
remember what it said on the back? Relightness.
My heart belongs to a fireman. Oh, yes. That
used to drive? Yes. I was very proud of you for
that. We didn't have anyone that was out of the
closet working for us at the time. You're a real
train setter. Did you show James your license
plate frame on your little BMW? Oh, no, I didn't.
I didn't say. Joe, carry on. No, no. It's got
to come from him. Is it better from Dickie? Yeah,
it's better from Dickie. He's good with it now.
Please. Because the best part about it is that
his son found it. My son found it. The lovely
fellas that I work with decided I... Got an electric
car. So I could go in a carpool lane to work
to cut the commute down. When you say electric
car, is that like a golf cart or? No, it's a
vehicle you drive on the street. Shut up. It's
a car. It's electric. Anyhow. They used to deliver
milk in those when I was little. Oh, in England.
We go to the store and buy it over here. So I
got an electric car. I drove it to the station
and the guys decided to go get a license plate
frame and remove the one that I had and replace
it with the other plug goes in my butt. So obviously
you plug the car in. Is that before or after
they put eyelashes on your headlights? No, they
put eyelashes on it first and then a while later.
Did you sue the other one? No, actually I didn't.
It didn't even cross my mind. I thought it was
pending. I drove it around for a couple of days
without noticing. And then picked my son up from
school. And sat in the line to pick him up too
with people behind me. We go home. I park the
car. And he goes to the trunk and he goes, wait,
dad, what goes in your butt? And that was it.
My son was eight at the time. So I had to explain
to him like, oh, I'm not sure where this came
from. Or I don't understand. Yeah, I took it
off, but I drove around with it for a couple
of days. And that was that. I don't know exactly
who did it, but I have an idea. I have an alibi.
I was in Florida. I'm innocent of that one. I
remember when that letter came to the station
addressed to Joe from some pen pal. In prison.
Was that you, to be honest? No, it wasn't. I
wish it was. I wish it was one of us. I would
claim that. Do you remember that? I do remember
that. A letter from someone. There was two. There
was one, someone that was in prison. They were
both in prison. They were prison letters. They
were both in prison. No, there was one that had
a picture of a pretty girl on it, and she just
needed some money, and if you could just send
it to her. Anyhow, somebody put Joe's name on
a... pen pal website yeah somebody people were
sending him letters with the station address
how do you know it'd be the pen pal website I
don't know how do you know how does he know if
it was me I would claim this one I would love
to be able to say he calls me he's like hey was
that you and I'm like damn it no I wish it was
that's genius that is genius I got sent young
and modern magazine the teen magazine is that
you for twinks for twinks so Someone signed Joe
up to be a pen pal for prison inmates, and they
would write to him at the station. And then,
of course, we'd take the letter and put it up
for everyone to read. I never wrote back. Bullshit.
The letters kept coming. They're getting out
soon. They know where you live. And then there
was also the... It was obviously some scam artist
like the Nigerian prince who needs your help.
Someone you know. A picture of a very pretty
girl sends a picture and she just needs some
help because she's caught between a rock and
a hard place in some foreign country. But he's
so amazing. And please, can you just send some
money to this address and I'll come and visit
you. And I feel we have a connection. And that's
kept coming for a while. Do not know who did
that. Well, here's the thing. I sent you a genius.
It was about a year ago now. Yeah, put this in
your face. At the time, it was a brilliant gift.
But you'd gone and fucking been off work. But
it was called a bag of dicks. And it's all these
gummies. I never got that. No, you never got
it. But Perry was like, oh, yeah. Someone else
got it. There was dick confetti all over Station
3 or whatever. And I'm like, so, yeah, you never
got my bag of dicks. Was it confetti or food?
It was both. It was gummy dicks with confetti.
Yeah, but you would have gobbled those things
up in a heartbeat. Yeah, I had to beat Joe to
it. Was that different than the spotted dick?
The kind of spotted dick thing? I never had any
spotted dick, thank you. No, I never got that.
That's the first I'm hearing of it. Yeah, I sent
you a bag of dicks and it was ruined. It cost
me like 40 bucks. Who got it? Someone on Station
3 opened it up. But it was when you were off.
I didn't realize that you'd been off for the
yeast infection. Who was it? Probably a yeast
infection, yes. Or rickets or polio. When I first
came on, off probation, I worked at Old Station
2, which you guys have never seen Old Station
2. But if you were to, I'll describe it to you.
It was a firehouse that had the apparatus floor
in the middle of the station. And there was an
office and a dorm on one side and then a day
room and a kitchen and a room in the back you
could work out on the other side. I've worked
in stations like that recently. Okay. And the
doors were sliding doors that didn't seal up.
So the minute you pulled in the firehouse, of
course, we didn't have any vent, you know, no
ducting for plymo vents to get the, so there
was, the minute they pulled up in the firehouse,
you could, you were either breathing, you know.
gasoline or diesel. And the battalion chief had
his dorm on the other side of the firehouse by
the office. And we used to like to have fun with
the battalion chiefs. When they would come work
overtime, we would make sure we welcomed them.
What'd you do? This has got to be good. So I
brought in a masonry drill bit. And I drilled
a hole through the plaster on the outside of
the firehouse right through the drywall on the
inside of the firehouse. Or actually through
the plaster because it was plaster on both sides.
And what I did was I drilled it down real low
to where they couldn't see. And since the battalion
chiefs never cleaned their own office or their
dorm, they never noticed what was in the wall.
But I took a piece of monofilament line and I
ran it fishing line. And I ran it through the
wall out to the parking lot and I left a little
coil of it out there. And then I left a coil
on the inside. And so when the battalion chief
would make his bed in the morning and then he
would leave the station to go do his duties downtown,
I would pull his sheets back up off his bed and
I would put a diaper pin, you know, and a diaper
pin, two of them on each side of his top sheet,
his flat sheet. And then I would put a... a short
line that would go in between them. And then
I would reach up and I would clip the line that
went to the outside of the firehouse onto that
line. And then I would neatly tuck it all back
in and put everything back in just like that.
And so when he would go to bed at night, I would
sit outside the window and I would wait like
20, 30 minutes for him to go to sleep. And I
would start pulling the covers off of his bed.
You'd pull the covers out a little bit and he'd
reach back and he'd pull them back up. He was
sure there was somebody in the room with him.
I'm sure. What about, if you don't mind, the
Dennis Hamilton putting the... The grinder inside
someone's car. Oh, yeah. Didn't you also, used
to the same BC, you guys would cut the lock off
his locker. They had a combination. You'd cut
it off and put a brand new one on that matched
exactly it. That was John Sayre, Captain Sayre.
So you always had the wrong combination, or the
right combination, but to the wrong lock. Oh,
yeah. We tortured him forever because he begged
for it. He was just one of those personalities.
He would come in the firehouse and he would immediately
start barking orders at our captains that were
working on our shift. Did he sue? He never sued.
I'm seeing a common thread here. Go on. He needed
discipline. It was almost like he needed a gal
with a leather suit. We thought when we showed
up today that Joe was going to be naked with
an apple in his mouth, speaking of that. A big
red ball? I may know someone in a leather suit.
Yeah. I've seen Richard in a leather suit. Yeah.
No, these guys, we just would, we pranked them.
I mean, we played hard with the captains. I mean,
we were young firemen, and we immediately saw
that those guys needed help. What about Dennis'
one? Well, Dennis had some good pranks. I mean,
he would steal your car and park it three or
four blocks away in somebody else's neighborhood.
Or he would get inside of it and tie the door
handles together to where you couldn't open the
car door. What did he do to Ricky Gustin? Oh,
he did lots of things to Ricky Gustin. Did he
tie the brake to the horn? Well, what he did
was he wired a siren, a mechanical siren. He
put a mechanical siren up underneath the hood,
and he ran it to the brake switch, the 12 -volt
brake switch, so when you would hit the brake
pedal, it would start to wind up the grinder.
There he was. Ricky lived in Oregon and he would
come down and he would work like five shifts
in a row and then he would go back home for like
10, 12 days. So he always had to travel. He would
work three shifts with us and he worked two trade
shifts with usually Station 8 for Bob Moore or
whomever out there. And so he hops in his car
one day and he pulls out and he gets down to
the end of the street where he hits the brake.
So he gets all the way over to station three
and he's doing circles in the parking lot with
his foot on the brake. See, that's just genius
pranking. See, that was the type of pranking
that was of, you know, when you got pranked like
that, you could be proud of that. That was a
good one. That wasn't mean. That was just, hey,
they got the best of me on that one. It's funny.
It is funny, you know. It's like putting something
in somebody's locker. The stuff that we were
doing or do is stressful. And you ask a lot of
the people that you work with and the guy behind
you and the guy in front of you and the guy next
to you. And this is one of the ways that we kind
of decompress. Because you've got to be able
to have a good laugh. You have to be able to
laugh at yourself. And the minute that you can't,
you're taking yourself too serious. Well, speaking
of which, do you remember the pin board? I love
that. When one of us screwed up and you come
back, there'd be all these freaking Photoshopped
or whatever, pictures of whatever you've done
with your face and people fucking up and whatever.
You're talking about the cork board in the day
room. Yes. Yeah, it was a good one. Do you remember
that, Dickie? Oh, I do. You know, we had something
like that. We had two guys that were really good
artists. They were very, very good artists. This
is back in the day before computers and photocopiers
and printing presses. When he says artists, he
means sculptors. This is good stuff. Scott Roberts
and Bruce Jacobson. They were really good with
drawing pictures and making cartoons. And the
guy that you talked about that had the lock was
on their shift. The captain out there. And so
every day when we would go off shift, I would
just always wonder what was going to happen that
day because something was going to happen that
day that was going to be classic. And what they
started doing was they would take a chalkboard
and they would make like a cartoon out of it.
So they would make like two or three lines vertical
and then a line horizontal. And there would be
scene one. It was a storyboard. And so I couldn't
wait to come back to the firehouse. The next
morning, the first thing I would do is I would
go in there and I would see what was on the board
because that would tell me how the day went for
those guys. But all it does is boost morale for
everybody. Oh, everybody loved it. You know,
one of my favorite, just to interject for a second,
I will never forget being at one of the computers,
you know, I guess looking at Telestaff, whatever
it was, and hearing Marcel going. one two one
two marcel medina marcel medina so what happened
they'd issued us all wasn't it flash drives wasn't
it yeah yeah it's for our reports so jimmy portillo
had told marcel this was voice activated software
for reports but you have to you have to you know
program it so you have to say your name your
date of birth so marcel's talking into this The
splash drive. One, two. Jimmy's lucky he'll still
be here. Yeah, we hear this penny finally drop
and then all of a sudden it's just like... Oh,
you're fucking with me. Cubicles going everywhere.
Ryan Drum walked by and Ryan goes, what you doing?
You know, typical Ryan Drum voice. And Marcel
tries to give him a class. Well, you know, we
have this huge software and you got to talk into
it and you got to say one, two and this is...
Unless he's fucking with me. And then he hit
a little pot. That son of a bitch. And then he
goes, I'm going to fuck him up. Frickin' Jimmy
took off running. Marcel went after him. Yeah,
Marcel is like a legit Golden Gloves heavyweight
boxer. So, oh my God. Lucky nobody died in the
process. That was a good story. That was good.
That was so many of them. Oh, yeah. Rocky Aldi
had one of those moments. With the fax machine
or something? The fax machine. Yeah. Well, Jimmy
Portillo and Grant Riley were messing with me
one day. It was cooking. And then they started
throwing eggs at me. So I'm like, okay, fine.
They go away and they come back. But they went
and put all my uniforms on. So I went into the
locker room. They went in my locker and they
put my uniforms on. And they came back and they
were messing with me, messing with me. And I
was like, you know what? Screw it. Here I go.
So I started throwing a whole bunch of eggs and
flour and everything back. And then it dawned
on me like they weren't even ducking. And they
were laughing about it. I'm like, what is going
on? You'd expect them to like run away or like
throw back. And then it dawned on me. I just
ruined all of my uniforms. Well, you know, the
beat about that is I don't think with some of
the names that you discussed that they put your
uniforms on anymore. Talking about Jimmy. There's
no way in hell I'll fit into him. Oh, no. i'm
surprised i want i want to talk about something
else it's going to kind of you know bring the
the level down a bit but again back to terry
we all know now sitting around this table that
the the mental health side of what we do that
there's certainly an issue you know i mean there's
i'm 2500 miles away and i know that so many people
i got hired with that you know i consider brothers
over here have gone through hell and back. And
obviously part of it is divorce and other things
that are going on, losing their family members.
But that's an area that we're forced to address
as well. So I know we had a talk a while ago
now, but what have you seen in the fire service
about that element, the depression, the suicide,
the PTSD? And was it an issue then? Or is it
that we're dealing with it differently now? And
some of the things like the cell phones and the
tribal community, those being lost a little bit
are contributing to us not being able to deal
with what we see. That's kind of a tough one.
Because in the early days, I mean, if you had
a call that was a very traumatic call, They eventually
had a group of guys that they would give training
to, and they would have those guys call or come
to the firehouse and say, see if they needed
critical incident stress re -briefing. But most
of the time, especially very early on, I mean,
there was very few people would actually embrace
the idea. It was kind of taboo. It was like wearing
the Scott packs. Now, a question for you, because
I talk about our impression of what a man was.
And a lot of us, you know, your generation and
our generation, you know, we were raised on Rambo
and the Terminator and all this bullshit and
John Wayne. And I've talked about this in My
Little Pony for Dickie. In England, in my little
pony. In Africa, that was an action hero. But,
you know, we were programmed to have this. ridiculous
image of a man be our norm but but and i always
use as an example if you watch band of brothers
the true heroes these incredible men that survived
all the the the the most um in the highest level
of combat in world war ii all the biggest conflicts
When you watch the real men talk about it at
the beginning or the end, they're in tears. They're
streaming. And that was 67 years prior they're
talking about. So that's a man. As we both know,
you can be strong, but you can be vulnerable
too and accept the fact that a career of death
and destruction is obviously going to affect
you. So why do you think it was like the Scott
Pack? I don't know. You know, you work with people,
and when no one ever embraces the idea that it's
out of the norm, you just kind of assume that
you suck it up, buttercup, and you move on. And
you look at the people around you, and they seem
to be normal. So you just, you know, monkey see,
monkey do. And you carry on in that fashion.
And that's what you do. Because it doesn't seem
to bother anybody else. So you surely don't want
to admit that it could be bothering you in the
slightest. It seems like firefighters are very,
and police and probably EMS, we're very good
at the poker face. Because I hear that from people
literally all over the world and behind the curtain.
Yeah, I mean, but it's not just the poker face.
I mean, some of the most crude humor that we
come up with is after a very critical incident
sometimes. I mean, I could think of a few things.
A guy that I went on before you guys came to
headquarters, I nicknamed him Cy. and I probably
told you guys this story, but the Pat Street
at the 91 used to have a freeway on -ramp right
there. Before the Lemon Street on -ramp was the
Lemon Street on -ramp, you got on at Pat. And
so the trucks would come at a commercial over
there, north of La Palma, by the AFA office.
They would come up this long, sweeping on -ramp.
onto the 91 freeway and they'd enter the freeway
doing like 15 mile an hour because it was a short
ramp and one night this guy in the chevy two
one of those little chevy two blazer four -wheel
drive vehicles this guy pulls on the freeway
doing 15 mile an hour and at three in the morning
he's coming drunk eastbound on the 91 freeway
doing a hundred mile an hour and he runs into
the back of this 40 foot trailer tractor unit
and uh the driver of the truck goes wow the heck
was that and he pushed the truck so he pulls
over and he's got this little chevy 2 truck blazer
stuffed under his dock bumper in the back of
his trailer and so he calls 9 -1 -1 we come out
it's a bravo level call same as a like a hangnail
or yeah so He went from 100 mile an hour down
to about 15 mile an hour, all in a fraction of
a second. And I remember pulling up and telling
the guys, the two fire guys, I said, grab the
hearse tool because it looks like we're going
to probably have to extricate this guy. Because,
I mean, it was like he shoved that whole thing
in, you know. And I immediately called for the
medic unit. And I walk up there with my flashlight.
And I remember this guy looking at me. And he's
got a steering wheel in his hand. And all the
classes I ever took said, you can't break that
knuckle, the adjustable knuckle. Every class
I ever been to said, it's impossible to break
that. Well, this guy broke it. He handed me the
steering wheel. And he looked at me, and his
one eye was hanging down here. It was hanging
on his cheek. The optic nerve, the whole nine
yards. He hit so hard, it blew his eye out of
his socket. He fractured every bone through his
arms, his hips, his pelvis, everything. And Mike
Muse was the paramedic captain at the time. So
we immediately started extrication, getting this
guy ready to go. And he kept that, you know,
of course, he's repetitive, questioning the whole
nine yards, you know. But I remember... Like
it was yesterday when he handed me that steering
wheel. Like, here, I don't need this any longer.
You know? Yeah, he was like totally drunk. Only
thing that saved his life was the fact he was
drunk. Only thing. But he ended up breaking almost
every bone in his body. He lived at UCI for like
three months. But I nicknamed him Cy. Why? Cyclops.
Gotcha. Yeah, but I mean, that's how you deal
with seeing a guy with one eye hanging out of
his face. Yeah, and when the guys come up with
the equipment, I look at them and I said, don't
stare at him. He's missing one eye. And it was
obvious that the eye wasn't going to make the
trip. But it was just, that was his name from
that point on with Cy. You know what strikes
me, and I'll give Joe the mic in a second, It
doesn't matter who I have on the show when it
comes to those kind of calls. They can recall
the scene in such detail, the smell, exactly
what was said, and that is a constant, whether
you're police, fire, EMS, whether you're a soldier
out watching your friend get blown up, whether
you're one of us. I want some of these wrecks.
I know we won't talk about one that we were all
on. When people talk about, and recently, politically
recently, There's been talk of traumatic situations
with people that were supposedly, possibly, could
have been, might have been sexually molested
or raped or whatever. And they say that it's
a traumatic moment that you don't quite recall
everything that's going on. And I always immediately
stop the person and say, no, that's not true.
If it's a really stressful moment, you will remember
things. And to this day, I would tell you that
I remember things about my first fatality. I
can tell you everything about it with clarity.
I don't miss a beat on it. I can tell you the
time of year it was. I can tell you what we had
for lunch that day. And I can tell you everything
about that call. I can tell you what caused it.
I mean, I remember it like it was just yesterday.
And it's... I will never forget that moment.
Ever. So when people say that traumatic moments,
people forget stuff, I say bullshit. That's one
of the things that, and you see enough of it
after a while, if you could just forget it, that
would be such a gift. I liken it to being on
the hard drive. Once it's on the hard drive,
it's on the hard drive. Terry talks about...
this whole thing about you know suck it up buttercup
but he changed that paradigm a little bit because
i think you recall an incident where there was
a pediatric fatality very very very i'm gonna
actually i'm writing a book right now and that's
that's one of the chapters did you allow them
to go terry because i had two young no i um it
was kind of a traumatic scene and um i wasn't
even allowed to go No, you didn't go. I didn't
go. They didn't go. You want to recount the scene?
You want to tell people the scene? Because it
was a back story. I actually flashed. I've never
been triggered or had flashbacks. I was at Disney
about a year ago. A little kid went by. It was
super hot, middle of the summer. So they put
a blanket over his head. And they're just the
legs and the sneakers hanging out. So I'll set
you up with that. Well, the scene was. I believe
it was a weekend. I think it might have been
a Saturday. We got a, again, a Bravo -level call.
This is now, we're talking back 12 years ago?
Longer. No, longer than that. I was brand new.
I was an engineer. You guys were brand new on
the job. Yeah. Actually, it was a weekend. I
think it was a Saturday. It might have been a
Sunday. Okay, so I can't even remember what I
had for breakfast yesterday. but I'm going to
listen to you retell the story perfectly in explicit
detail, and I know that the three other guys
at this table remember it exactly the same. Yeah.
It was like a Tahoe or like a SUV of some sort.
Dad was asleep in the passenger seat. Mom fell
asleep on the off -ramp on the way down. And
there was a baby in a car seat. There was kids.
Two -year -old. There was a baby in the car seat.
Three -year -old. And they did actually put it
on the passenger side of the back seat. Yeah.
And basically a car full of two adults. And I
think mom was the only one that came out unscathed.
Mom was sitting on the curb when we got there.
Yeah. With her head in her hands crying. The
boyfriend or the husband, whoever he was, he
was dead on arrival. The three -year -old in
the back seat was obviously dead. You know, head
hit the post, I believe. I don't know what to
call it, but the massive power poles. yeah this
thing must have been yeah i don't know the diameter
must have been it was three feet three feet across
it wasn't going to move enough it was a it was
a if if you knew um it was a pole that actually
handles up to 12 kv which is 12 000 volts on
a power line and what it does is it transitions
from above ground to below ground and so The
wires are all running through the inside of that
pole all the way down. And then they go under
the ground to the next pole. And then they come
back up and go up over again. But they've got
probably 32 or 40, you know, inch and a half
nets holding this thing to the ground. It's probably
got a foundation in it. Who knows how big it
is. But that car moving at 50 or 60 mile an hour
didn't put up. Didn't put a scratch on that thing.
She wrapped the car around that pole. And she
just dozed off at the wrong time. And she ended
up killing virtually everybody in the vehicle
but herself. And at that point, pulled the husband
out, sent him to the hospital. He was DOA. There
was a kid in the car seat. The kid in the car
seat was dead on arrival. Three - or four -year
-old that was in the back seat was dead on arrival
as well. And what they did was they said, we'll
call you back when we want to extricate the kid.
And the kid was the only one that was still left
in the car at that point in time in Highway Patrol
because it was on an off -ramp. The question
becomes, is it a highway patrol call or is it
a city of Anaheim call, depending on where they
left the off -ramp? And because it was on an
off -ramp, it was actually a highway patrol call.
So later on in the day, about 3 o 'clock in the
afternoon, they called us back out to extricate
the dead body. So I had already made arrangements
through the MetroNet to send, to page me when
they wanted us to go out because, you know. It
was a body recovery. Because it was just a body
recovery at that point. But it was a messy body
recovery. And so I told Paul Legacy at the time
that when they tone us out, that he and I would
go out and we would just do it by ourselves.
And I remember it was just that we went back
to the station and we had, it was a weekend,
we had brunch. We had breakfast. Late breakfast,
lunch. It was the usual, the bacon, the scrambled
eggs, the vegetables, whatever. i remember you
telling james and i to stay here when we got
turned out and i remember being pissed about
it yeah you were because you didn't have reese
yet and i had ty and he was about two and this
kid was about three and for me it was like i
want to prove that we're part of this team and
we can be assets but at the same time like i
didn't have kids yet and that was we had already
seen it i was angry that we weren't including
it but i could totally see where you were coming
from in preventing us from having to do that
because eventually someone's going to have to
pick that child up and pick the rest of its head
up and put it on the gurney or the body bag too
and i'm to this day really happy and really thankful
that i didn't have to do that terry goes to us
he says you're just starting your career you're
going to have enough photos to put in your album
we're about to retire, we're going to spare you
this one or something to that effect. You'll
get to see enough of this, yeah. Yeah, I mean,
it's just, you know, you don't think about it,
but, I mean, there's, you know, I don't know
if my kids are in the other room, they can hear
me or not, but, I mean, there's countless things
that you can't, I won't say can't forget, there's
countless things that you just don't have the
ability to forget. What's the term that the guy
from Detroit says? Yeah, I wish my head could
forget what my eyes have seen. It's true. He
brings up a good point about the opportunity
that's going to come throughout our career. We
all have been on those together. Richard and
I have been on one in particular that kind of
pushed us a little bit. So, and it comes and
it's, and we still have time in our career. It's
like that having that outlet, the positive outlet
and positive ways to deal with it are important.
You talked earlier about the whole sleep deprivation
and, you know, our call load has gone up tremendously
with less personnel, you know, people, you know,
and I could attest to it myself, you know, taking
energy drinks or. Anything to keep us awake and
needing sleeping pills on our days off to sleep
because I can't sleep otherwise when we're at
the station. It becomes a vicious cycle after
a while. It really is. Do you feel comfortable
talking about some of the places that a career
of this led you to between that and the strain
on relationships outside of work? Yeah. I mean,
you know, I have a brother. I come from a family
of public service. My brother was in law enforcement,
both of them, as a matter of fact. My older brother
had to retire at a pretty young age for retirement.
He had 45 due to health reasons. And his stress
levels were high. And he said after he retired,
he went to, you know, multiple funerals for guys
that he worked with in law enforcement. committed
suicide or were slowly committing suicide through
alcohol. And it was that generation of, like
Terry was saying, suck it up buttercup, you know.
I got to freshen up. So I understood how that
went. Now over the course of my career, you know,
right now I'm going through pretty messy personal.
issues with divorce and whatnot, and then as
well as dealing with the stress that comes with
our career. And I looked at some of these posts
that other people have put either online or through
Firefighter. There's a Healing Our Own that's
with the... California, the State Firefighter
Association, and you read some of these stories
and it mimics our own. You're talking about people
that put on a, quote -unquote, put on a mask,
that they're always happy when deep down they're
not. They're dealing with their issues in negative
ways. They're drinking too much. They're sleep
deprivation. They're needing to... you know take
supplements or take medication in order to sleep
taking things to stay awake and it becomes a
vicious cycle i don't know i've dealt with it
and still to this day still have to deal with
it when you were in firefighter school or fire
class did anyone ever tell you that there was
a chance that you would have to deal with this
or did they tell you any tools that you could
use To prevent it or help yourself deal with
it? No. No one ever does. And what year was this
for you? This was in 98 when I went to the basic
fire academy. And it's things that we built upon
because, you know, I look back for when I first
got a job working in an ambulance. And we have
these ambulance kids that are young, impressionable
kids now that are still trying to launch their
careers as firefighters. And they're seeing stuff.
Now, before they even begin careers as a firefighter,
that's going to carry with them the rest of their
life. And there's not a whole lot that's being
taught to them on how to manage the stress, how
to deal with the things they see, who do they
reach out to, what do they do. With us now, it's
gotten to a point where it's a positive, where
we have ways to get the help we need. private
sector, they don't have that ability for help.
Or if they do, it's very minimal. So I'm very
happy that we have that way to get the help that
we need. And when we got the Counseling Service
International for our department, I reached out.
Immediately. Because I knew that I had a lot
of stressors in my life and there were things
that I could handle and there were things I needed
help to handle. And when I went to go see the
counselor, she basically said that she could
have made a career just dealing with fire. Just
with the amount of people that she's seen coming
from our agency. And saying that we're not a
very large agency. We're a good size. Eleven
stations. Yeah. And there was that many people
in need of... of help. Would you remember when
you called me and you read, was it, was it the
thing that I wrote or was it, it was a video.
It was the BTS. Yeah. So just to, just for everyone
listening, I was at, uh, chief Matt Negley's
funeral. He was an Orlando chief, hugely respected,
went to all the firehouse stuff, started the
Orlando fire conference was just the, the firefighters,
firefighter, you know, the chief chief as it
were. And, you know, he, he took his own life
and i was just getting ready to walk in to that
church is when you call me and i'd done that
video and the the dark side project and you know
written some some blogs but that was like a wizard
of oz moment because when i put that out there
all of a sudden i look behind the curtain i'm
like holy it's not one guy or another it's everyone
and we and the only difference is we all have
that but If you're going through divorce, if
you're sleep deprived, if you get a mandatory
all the time, if you lost a child, whatever it
is, you had childhood trauma coming into the
career, then your basket's overflowing. I was
blessed with the fact that I had a freaking pretty
amazing childhood. I went through divorce and
through medical school. That was definitely my
lowest time. But I was given the tools just purely
by chance to be able to deal with it. I can't
tell you how many phone calls I got, how many
messages, how many emails, how many, you know,
texts, whatever it was. And I realized it doesn't
matter if you're Joe. I mean, you know, here
you are looking at me, you know, I mean, just
a muscular, tattooed, shaved head, you know,
alpha male as I put out. Or if you're a 90 pound,
you know, very gently spoken woman. If we're
doing this job, I didn't say 92 pounds, did I?
Fruitcake. But, you know, regardless, it affects
all of us. Just some of us have the right coping
mechanism. Some of us have great families that
have long, long marriages where they're still
there. All our kids are healthy. But there is
no escaping this. And every single one around
this table just described scenes that we were
on to the fucking T. On a personal note, you
know, when all this started coming up, I was
kind of going through a lot of personal issues
at the time. And he and I were on the same incident.
I was going to say, I think you and I hit. rock
bottom at just about the same time yeah and i'll
let you do i'll let joe describe the call but
i knew it was a problem for joe and i knew it
was a problem for me when i got back from the
call and all i could smell was burning flesh
stuck in my nose because i've been breathing
it for so long um and i went to the bathroom
to go and puke and on the way there i see joe
walking out wiping his mouth and he just told
me he had puked i'm like okay fuck i'm not alone
I feel like a snowflake right now. I feel horrible.
And I almost felt guilty for feeling that way.
But at the same time, the last part of that year,
I think we pulled five mangled or burnt bodies
out of cars that we cut them out. And it was
just before I had used surfing and the ocean
and paddling and working out and exercise as
a coping mechanism, but it wasn't working anymore.
The thing was, go. Talk about the call, Joe.
Well, the call was working at Station 3, and
we had a call for a vehicle fire. Well, as it
normally goes, it's a low -level call, and as
we approach the scene, it upgrades. So what it
was was two vehicles street racing. One vehicle
lost control, hit a pole, took out a pole. Hit
a wall, caught fire. And snapped that pole out
of the ground like it was a toothpick. Yeah.
And it was a compact car. And one person got
out, was able to get out. Two people were burned
beyond recognition in the vehicle. So we show
up on scene and, you know, we're there for quite
a while. I think much longer than we probably
needed to be once the incident was stabilized.
It was out of our first inn because, and it was
at nighttime, and it was right before Christmas.
And my thoughts going through my head, these
were younger kids, you know, street racing, being
dumb. And a family's going to get a call, knock
on their door at tonight and let them know that
their loved one has passed. They look like mannequins.
There's no recognizable features of a human being
in there, but the stench and the burn. Initially,
we saw this, the first one, and then they're
poking around overhauling the vehicle, and then
they find the second one underneath on the floor.
The second one was trying to crawl out of the
car and eventually succumb to the flames and
his injuries and died trying to escape, crawling
out. The driver was stuck in the car and died
in the driver's seat. But even if you put so
much water on it, you might have to fire out.
he had melted into the seat the seat was gone
yeah there was but he was stuck in the wiring
and the mesh from the seat and underneath him
there was still some foam and that was smoldering
but he was smoldering too and the whole time
we're trying to overhaul this and figure out
what we're going to do with it um he's still
smoldering and we had the stench of burning human
flesh in our gear In our lungs, in our mouth,
in our nose, in your hair. And you go back to
the station and you shower and it's still there.
And that doesn't go away. But at the end of the
incident, before we break loose, the chief says,
is everybody okay? And we talk about the whole,
no one wants to be the first one to step up.
And that was the battalion chief who was working.
Jeff Thomas. It was Jeff Thomas, and he called
everyone around, and on a call like this, he
did a good job by calling everyone around and
saying, is everyone okay? Is everyone good with
this? This is horrible. And what did we all say?
We always say, I'm fine. It's not the first time.
It won't be the last. It's not my fault. I didn't
do this. We're all good. We all said it. So I
went back to the station. I was really going
through tough times. We got off that. We ran
into each other, both of us tossing and turning
the rest of the night. I didn't sleep a wink.
You probably didn't either. Nothing. And got
up the next morning. I was supposed to volunteer
at Disney doing the toy drive. I bombed out on
that. And then I just took off. I just disappeared
from everybody for the full day. And I was out
of the... quote -unquote, out -of -fucks -to
-give mode. It was a mental mess, emotional mess.
Then the same, like, I wasn't going to harm myself,
but I was at a point where I was like, I didn't
really give a shit. I remember you telling me
that, and that scared me. And everything was,
like, circling the drain. I was like, well, fuck
it. If something could happen, it wouldn't matter,
type of point. Finally got my, even my brother,
who was a police officer, was worried about me,
and they were looking for me. They knew I had.
guns in my house, you know, they were like, something's
going to happen. I was able to get myself centered
again. I reached out to the BC, told him, hey,
that call, I'm not okay. I need to get it off
my chest and talk about it. Not knowing that,
you know, what was going through his mind as
well. And this BC had lost a loved one recently
too. and, you know, he was very understanding.
Next day, we had something set up, and they called
everybody in, and the whole thing about the critical
incident stress debriefing, people could talk
about it, and they'll say, yeah, it's, you know,
we don't need that. Same shit again. It's not
my fault. It's not my problem. But when they
get done with it, all of it, everybody has something
positive to say. They get something off their
chest. senior guy to the brand new rookie. And
I was able to get a lot of stuff off my chest.
And then saw his reaction. So yeah, this winter,
there were, what, 15, 20 people at the table
there? Everyone involved in that call? And it
went multi -unit response because it was... It
was a heavy call. It came in as a structure fire
and a vehicle accident and a heavy, you know,
heavy rescue. There were a lot of resources on
there. And we sat around this big table and it
was a usual critical incident stress debriefing.
It needed to happen. It did happen in a timely
fashion. But it was the same old one where everyone
just said, oh, it's not a big deal and I've seen
enough of him. It doesn't affect me. And I think
that call for me was the last straw. I was angry
coming to work knowing that there was a... chance
that i was going to see it or have to deal with
it or pick up body parts or smell that smell
or listen to the screams and you know i listened
to everyone go around and then it was my turn
to say because we would say like what did you
guys what did you do and how did that help because
you've done something better or different and
how did you feel and i just said look i'm not
okay and i stood up And in front of a group of
about 16 to 20 of the guys that I work with and
I respect, I started crying. And I said, I don't
like this job anymore. I'm tired of seeing this.
I wanted to help people. And all I'm doing is
seeing people that are so messed up that they
are so beyond help. And there's nothing I can
do about it. And it was really affecting me.
But the lead up to that was me not sleeping.
eventually in the early hours of the morning
i would fall asleep and i would have nightmares
and it was the scenes of other emergency or scenes
just total disasters we've been on except the
victims that were there before were now replaced
with people that i cared about and loved and
once you have a dream like that there's no going
back to sleep the adrenaline and anger and a
confusion and being scared and as you don't sleep
so i would go days without a decent night's sleep
and then be at work and being worked there and
then you know your sleep pattern is messed up
from there too and it just got to the point where
i was on edge and you become like the fun hater
and hyper vigilant like would not let my kid
anywhere near a bicycle without a helmet or a
skateboard without a helmet. And like, what are
you crazy? You have to stay up on the pavement
and you can't go on the street because you see
the consequences of bad decisions and just accidents
and mistakes. And yeah, how can you live with
yourself if you let that happen to your kid or
someone you care about? And it just became too
much. And something came over me and I stood
up and I said, yeah, I got a problem with this.
I don't like coming to work anymore. i hate this
job and then i said it and i'm like fuck i do
hate it and then i was really upset that i had
it because it's all i ever wanted since i was
a little kid and i don't know that was it was
hard for me but it made it better for me knowing
that joe who i'd known for so long and this is
the biggest strongest human that i've ever met
and i knew he was dealing with the same thing
so i'm like you know what if the two of us sitting
next to one another are honest about it and we
know that it's going on and we can acknowledge
it i know there's other people in this room and
i was really i'm hogging this whole conversation
here um you have the mic as long as you need
it i was really lucky that in the sense that
we had i think rick cheatham was there he's the
uh president of our association or union and
rick has two and he called a fire chief and you
know the chief said hey put him off he's off
of work um and that was a real blessing but for
me it was like i really appreciate it but this
didn't happen overnight and a couple shifts off
of work isn't gonna fix it like i need to fix
myself i need to find a way to deal with this
before you know the alcohol abuse and everything
else that comes along with the post -traumatic
stress and i don't think it's just is just you're
in a stressful situation and it's afterwards
and you still have stress. It's post -traumatic
stress. I think when you say disorder, a lot
of people start getting a little spooked by it.
So I didn't know what was going to happen. I
think also our department didn't quite know what
to do, but I think they did a great job in handling
it. I was off work for quite a while, a couple
of months. Went to do some therapy. And I think
the hardest thing to do was to talk about it.
Because I was sitting across the room with some
lady who at first I hated. And I told her afterwards,
I hated her. She made me so mad and frustrated.
And by the end of... You shouldn't talk about
Melissa that way. I wasn't Melissa. I was a therapist.
But... By the end of it, I'll tell her to this
day, like if you need an organ or blood, you
give me a call because I owe you. Yeah, she was
amazing. But in the beginning. Why was she amazing?
Because she listened. I'm curious. Terry, it
was the hardest thing because I'm thinking here's
some woman who has no idea what I've seen or
what we've been through or no understanding of
the job. And for me, that was a big sticking
point. And I was so guarded coming into it that
it was just hard to talk about. And I would have
way rather have spoken to anyone else, probably
a guy, because you don't want to seem like a
snowflake or a Froot Loop. You just want to be
like, this is an alpha male type job. Bulletproof.
Bulletproof. There you go. And I wasn't. And
I felt pathetic. And it was hard because, you
know, I have a son that looks up to me and a
family that you have to be the big protector
and provider for. And here I feel like this little
sissy. And I was angry at myself mainly. But
she listened and she listened some more. And
then she asked me questions which I did not want
to answer because I would have to think about
it. And they were difficult questions. And I
think that's why I hated her. um but in the end
i mean this took six months worth and by the
end like if i don't know i owe a whole lot so
it took a while just to interject so anaheim
actually gave you the paid time off so you could
actually work through this issue they did Okay.
Well, kudos to Anaheim because it's very, very
afraid as to what was going to happen and like,
well, can he come back to work? And it was one
of those, obviously they have to do a whole lot
of testing. And I was warned beforehand, like
they have to make sure that, you know, you have
to get a reading of where you are in this whole,
how far gone you are. And for me, it was like,
I'm not going to kill myself. I don't want to,
I haven't thought about it yet, but. I'm self
-aware enough to know that this has become a
problem and I don't want to let it get that far.
But I did get the help I needed and the department
was amazing in it. And I don't think that there
was, to my knowledge, something like that before.
But since coming back to work, I can tell you
about once, even before then it was more. Once,
twice a month, I would get phone calls from guys
we work with. Hey, what do I do? Who do I talk
to? What's going to happen? And that's why I'm
talking about this now. If you hide away from
it and pretend like it's not an issue, it's not
going to get any better. Some of the tools, like
with me, I was in a different situation where
when you talk about the tribe, you know, my tribe
now. going through the personal issues I was
going through, my tribe now was my brothers at
work. So being off of work. Yes, you get off
of work and you're separated from your tribe
and then you feel even more alone. Yeah, and
I needed to be at work. Even though work was
a component of, or provided it had a component
of why I was going through some of the things,
it balanced me out to be around my brothers.
My family, you know, being around them, having
a purpose made things easier. Even though there
was a chance to come across things that I don't
want to see at this time, you know, I had a purpose.
I had support and I needed to be at work. You
know, if I think if I would have been off of
work, I would have me personally. I would have
had a much tougher time dealing with it because
I was more alone outside. I just had a chat with
Kev Stewart and I asked him, when you promoted,
did you feel that strain of being taken from
the tribe because you were part of that rig and
now you're in that office? And that's something
I've observed because we had a lot of self -harm
from the chief position. so you're not hurt you're
not retired but you're taken from the tribe in
that way and he was like yeah you know i felt
that so that tribe is so important you know and
i think that's the thing is if you are off and
hit the microphone and if you are off it's so
important to keep reaching out to the guys that
are off whether it's a back injury or what we're
talking about now because i know a lot of people
that have you know let's just say it's just a
you know broke their ankle whatever Even that,
when they're taken from that tribe, that's when
the mental side hits. It's funny you say that
because I've been asked a couple times by people.
I was a captain for like 25 years and they said,
didn't you ever want to be a BC? And I always
say the same thing. When you go that route, you
are no longer one of the guys. You become management.
You're no longer in the family any longer. And
that's the way I was always told. And when you
watch guys, when they do promote to that position,
eventually the majority of them will change who
they are. And it was always not an acceptable
change. I would be giving up way more than I
could ever have financially to even consider
that. Not that I was desirable for them. or palatable
for them, but the idea of being separated from
who I really cared about made it a non -starter.
I never considered it that way when you talk
about tribe, but it was never an option. It's
a thing. And it's heartbreaking because we're
sitting here now and... as i've said before at
the beginning these this is my favorite crew
and no disrespect to anyone else i've worked
with but this was to me the epitome of what that
brotherhood or sisterhood if you've got you know
women in your crew but that cohesive yeah i mean
we had dickie so um i mean i don't know if hermaphrodite
technically is a sister but it counts but um
gender neutral but yeah and then to see these
people that you adore That we trained together
cooked together ate together. You know saw a
horrible shit together Going through such pain
and knowing that it's not weakness. It's just
what we signed up to do that's that's where this
project comes from that's where my desire to
fix some areas that we can fix because you know
this this is what people need to understand this
is the way it is and there's some areas we can
definitely minimize the impact but this is when
we talk about sacrifice thank you for your service
this is what we talk about being away from your
family carrying these memories the rest of your
career yeah when i talk to people that say you
know the typical stuff well you know you guys
have a great retirement system i hear that one
quite frequently I never identified myself as
a retired fireman. I now call myself a contractor.
But when I do have conversations with people,
I always kind of figure out a way to get into
the conversation that, you know, you'd need to
be careful what we wish for because there's certain
things you can't get rid of. And they, you know.
Without being too graphic about it, how would
you feel about this, you know, this situation?
Is this something you're comfortable with? And
no one ever considers that portion. When I became
a fireman, I never considered it. So how can
I expect somebody on the outside that knows nothing
about the fire service to understand what comes
with the territory? They can't. If I didn't expect
it, why should I expect Joe Bloat to accept it?
Why should I expect anybody at HR to understand?
And that's probably the most important people
that should, at some point, have an inclination
to that. There's liabilities that come with the
job. And none of us ever anticipate those liabilities.
None of us. I think that's an important thing
that you said, Terry, is no one from the public
really understands what we go through. Just the
same as I was never a soldier. No one's ever
shot at me yet. I don't know what that's like.
I don't want to know what that's like. I know
enough to know that I don't want to know what
it's like. But the only other people who really
know what we do and what we go through are the
firefighters. And if we don't look after one
another, no one else is going to. You're right.
A year ago at my church, the guy that had arranged
a, it was during the summertime, it was a veterans
event. And he said he wanted all veterans and
first responders. to be recognized. And he came
up to me afterwards and he said, why didn't you
come up here and be recognized? And I said, I
don't consider myself a hero. Those guys up there
had bullets whistling by their heads. I don't
consider the same, what I did for a living, the
same as what They did for a living. And he goes,
I said, you may not understand that, but we take
educated risks. They're taking life changing
risks that, you know, in a moment's time, they
could be gone. Where ours are educated based
on training, based on our fitness, based on.
our ability yeah death in the fire service is
more often than not the result of a bad decision
it's always a result of a bad decision and in
the military they have something called acceptable
losses that's right and if you need a strategic
point on a battlefield like a hill or a bunker
whatever They'll decide we'll lose 30 % of our
fighting force here to get that. It's worth it.
That's an acceptable loss. We don't have that.
There's no losses. My point to him was I will
never, ever compare myself to a guy who's willing
to take a bullet for this country. As far as
I'm concerned, they will always be the hero in
my eyes. Period. So they can say what they want,
but. As far as I'm concerned, come Veterans Day,
they are the heroes. Every day of the year, they're
the heroes. So, I mean, if I'm in Dallas Airport
and I buy somebody a meal, it's because I consider
them to be the heroes. So on 9 -11, you don't
put on your bunker gear and take selfies? No,
I do not. Walk around? No, I do not. No, thank
you. All right, well, this is... i mean obviously
we've we've gone from literally when when you're
talking about the killer whale i was i almost
pissed myself like actually pissed myself because
i'm imagining joe in this wetsuit it's got like
the white bit on the back with the fin and then
we've gone down a very honest in an area that
we need to talk about you know because like i
said this is the most cohesive fucking dialed
in crew i've ever been with with the amazing
leadership you know with terry and then when
when dennis for example was here you know we
had some great bcs and um and that i think highlights
that no matter how good you are you know this
is a thing but it's not all we are but you know
this this is you know a group of very fired up
alpha males yeah it's a big part of who we are
yeah you know so um but this has been You know,
you take this job because you want to serve.
And my advice to people today is if you lose
track of why you took the job, reexamine your
heart. Ask yourself if you're in the right place.
And if you're not, make a positive change to
find yourself a better line of work. Because
it's not work. Don't sue everyone that you work
with. No, do not sue everyone you work with.
No, if you're not content with what you do for
a living, which is serving other people, then
you need to find somewhere else to work. Because
you're just going to be a cancer for everybody
around you. Because it's not about you. That's
the problem. The problem is we are raising people
today that don't understand it's not about you.
Now let me ask you this because I've used Anaheim
and I've put them on a pedestal and I think it's
incredible. But in the perspective that I have,
what I've seen through my eyes, the reason why
they were so good when we were there, when we
got hired, was set in that bar. And like you
said, this... This is a life of service, and
I fight very hard for the working conditions,
and I hope that's going to change, and we're
going to change the way we do shifts, maybe 24
-72, so they have the recovery time physically,
mentally, to not get to some of the places that
we've discussed today. But what's your view on
keeping that bar super high and having the balls
to overcome that, oh, we need 18 and a heartbeat
bullshit, and view ourselves as a profession
where if we lower that bar, people are going
to die? We've lowered the bar. We lowered the
bar. When Dickie was hired. You got hired with
me, punk. No, we started outsourcing and hiring
foreigners. At what point do you want us... We've
been lowering the bar for a long time. We've
lowered it for every reason possible. We've changed
the testing process to accommodate a larger...
group of people, the question becomes at what
point is enough enough? And that's the problem.
We live in a society today where we have laws.
We've gotten to the point where we disregard
laws because it offends a large group of people.
The problem is, is when you start breaking the
laws. At what point do you say, that's a bridge
too far, we can't go that route? That's why you
have to be firm with everything. You have to
have a point where you say, that's it. And when
you start making allowances for people, at some
point, it's going to come back to bite you in
the ass. And it's doing that right now, I assume.
I think there's a new trend. Well, it's not just
the fire service. It's all over. It's taken over.
And it's the new job force. And that is millennials.
It was a different upbringing and a different
time. And I'm guilty of it myself. I just missed
the cusp of being a millennial. I tell my son
he can do anything he wants and he's amazing
and I love him unconditionally and he's so fantastic.
And I think everyone needs to tell their kids
that. But then you also need to tell them you
can do anything you want and have anything you
want if you work for it. And that's a problem.
So when you have soccer teams and you get playing
a tournament and you get a ninth place participation
award certificate, it means nothing. But these
kids have been told their whole life that they're
amazing and you're the best. And now one time
you find out that you're not good enough and
you sue because you're upset. We're in a place
where a person's feelings are now the overriding
bar. And that's a scary place to be because everybody's
feelings are a little bit different, right? So,
you know, you grow up in an environment where,
you know, whatever your situation is, whatever
it may be, you know, we like to think that everybody
has it better than we did, right? For the most
part. I mean, when we look at people, we judge
them based on our life's experiences. So, that's
a skewed number to start with. Because we assume.
And when you begin to assume, that's when you
have problems. But that's why you have to have
a bar. That is a very steady bar. That is a bar
that says, the minute you lie, you're gone. The
minute you... I would fire somebody tomorrow
for lying. That means I can't trust you ever.
What about the physical side too? I mean, just
the pure ability. I always said I'd be a shitty
accountant. You know, there's horses for courses.
Well, I mean, the powers to be have decided that
it's more important to include more people that
aren't physically gifted. It's a decision they've
made. I don't think I can argue the point with
them. Because I don't hold the cards. They hold
the cards. So they give me what they give me.
And it's up to me to make the most with it. That's
the biggest point right there. Talking to the
microphone. That's the biggest point that you
made right there. Is that you got to make do
with what you got. Because you said you were
in the best part of the fire service years. You
had people that were coming from different trades.
uh different professions prior the different
countries they knew how to work with their hands
and now we give people we have to have a class
on how to identify different hand tools right
but we can give that same individual and tolerance
for other cultures no that's not necessary unnecessary
let me ask just to cut in about classes for a
second i have do you guys have to do the um sensitivity
training you know the the the uh harassment in
the workplace and all that stuff i failed yeah
so so my thing is this that's the the point of
ridiculous that we've got to the ridiculousness
is and we're talking about this on the way here
so let's say you are a giant douchebag and i
give you a powerpoint presentation on how harassment
hurts feelings do you honestly think that that's
going to change the way that that person acts
now no no absolutely you know that that's what's
crazy is That bar creates the people that you
want to walk through the door. But the moment
you lower it, now you're doing, oh, but we need
to go see the sensitivity training because Steve
said a Mexican joke and Joe got all fucking upset
about it. You're talking about the same society
that, what did I read, that they find Rudolph
the Red -Nosed Reindeer offensive, racist, and
sexist. Yeah, because what about the blue -nosed
people? Did you just assume that Rudolph is a
male's name? No, that's weird. And what about
sun bears? It's a weatherist too. I can't believe
he's talking like this. Let's unfollow him. I'm
not going to like any more of your Instagram
pictures. I'm going to recap real quick. I'm
not bashing on millennials. I'm just saying that's
now the majority. It's the older Christ at 13
years on. It does feel like the older generation.
There's a whole bunch of things. You asked me
to build a spreadsheet or a PowerPoint. I'm going
to go, are you fucking mad? and then it would
come to change oil on your car or change your
tire, and there's other younger kids that won't
be able to do that or start a lawnmower because
they've never done it. And I'll look at them
like, are you crazy? But then they'll look at
me like, what do you mean you don't know how
to make a PowerPoint? I mean, there's strengths
and weaknesses everywhere, but there's got to
be adaptation. When you were testing for the
position of a firefighter, I remember getting
up at night before, actually going the night
before to camp out. Yes. At City Hall. At whatever.
Because they were only going to hand out 500
applications and there were 2 ,000 people that
wanted the job. Pitch intense. I just walked
to the front of the line and flashed my British
passport and I'm here to be a firefighter. Diplomatic
immunity. That's what Dickie had. But now, you
know, that's not the way it is anymore. You know,
people, it's not, there's still people that desire
the job but it's not, it doesn't seem like it.
the way it was prior no well we when we tested
there was 1200 people going for what 30 spots
i think it was 1 ,200 people. And the funny thing...
No, it was our academy had, I think, 14 or 16
people. Yeah, but Timbo's class was including
the higher... Oh, you mean the music group? Yeah,
like you're saying, the second string metal people.
Yeah, the ninth place participation of those
people. And speaking of observation, what was
funny about that is I remember coming from Florida,
I was flying over to test, and looking at this
sea of white faces and going... We fight for
diversity in the fire service, but if we're not
mentoring people from the community to even be
able to test, you can't blame the fire departments.
We need to create an environment where we're
going to, you know, the minorities, the women,
whatever, and getting them in through the door.
They did that. They did? And they went so far
as to go to the colleges and find girls that
were actually taking fire science. And then drag
them over to fill out applications, James. That's
how we got Dickie. As well as we actually went
out into Anaheim High School and actually mentored
a number of students. One of them who's working
for the ambulance company still or was. I don't
know if he's still there now. He was at Home
Depot last I knew. I mean, we tried doing stuff
like that. But part of the problem with that
is, and I would just ask these guys here who
are working, you can't stay in front of, in California
at least, we have a real problem with staying
in front of the demographics. I would guess you
don't have anywhere near the amount of Koreans
on the fire department that we have locally living
in our area now. You can't predict how things
change so fast. And you can also get people to
your job, but it's not a desired job. And Koreans
don't look at a fire department job and go, yeah.
Well, the other thing as well is that, again,
it goes back to what we talked about before.
it doesn't matter what you look like if i mean
it's ironic my my wife is filipino she's got
big round eyes i'm pure caucasian i got little
slanty eyes so we're destroying stereotypes right
there but you just have two types and i don't
care what pigmentation you got what what your
teeth are like how tall you are what your eye
shape is you either can or you can't and that's
what kills me with this whole quota thing but
the other side is you can't look at a department
and go oh they're you know whatever because they've
got x amount of black white indian you know you
go on some of the reservations they're probably
going to be mostly native americans the only
thing that we should concern with is are there
good people on the department or the shitty people
on the department yeah the people who are making
the policies about who to hire in various departments
um are not the ones whose lives depend on the
person standing next to them The problem you
have is that for the folks that value the job
that they have and the position because they
worked hard to get there and it actually has
a meaning to them. And then you drag in a bunch
of people who you're lacking in numbers and you
force them into the equation. And then you ask
everybody who's busted their ass to get where
they're at to accept the fact that they're being
injected into a system. And this happens more
in the East Coast than it does with us. But still,
you're just making the environment untenable
for that new employee because they don't understand
what they bought into. What I've noticed with
people that I've had that you could classify
as that minority is the people that have stepped
up and done the training and studied the text
and got themselves physically ready are insulted
by that system where there are people that are
just slot in because they need to fill a quota.
Right. Right. That's always been a thought that
everybody loops it in because I remember the
city of L .A. had a consent decree. So they think
that it doesn't matter. It's a fire department,
so all fire departments must have that. So when
I first got hired, people would always say that,
oh, you just got hired because of your skin color.
It's easier for you to get hired. And I thought
it was because it's not the case with our department.
It never has been. Yeah, our department, when
I got hired, was told they need to hire a bunch
of other people. And it was, you know, during
the 70s, I'll tell you, it was hard to get hired.
if you were a white guy because you were not
desirable. You didn't make anybody's quotas look
any better. But the point should be, and this
is what they still don't, you know, all that,
you know, HR bullshit that they hang their hats
on. doesn't help the fire service. None of it
does. Because you either want to serve and it
doesn't make a bit of difference what color you
are when you're serving. If your heart's in the
right place and you want to serve your community
and you're doing it for the right reasons, it
doesn't give a shit. I don't give a shit what
color you are. It burns everyone equally. It
takes its prisoners. It doesn't look a color
when it takes prisoners. It abuses everybody
equally. And, you know, it just does. And so
you're creating a problem within a problem by
infusing color into it and forcing people into
a position that they weren't even interested
in taking in the first place. And that's the
thing. If you were going to try and put this
in American terms here, I don't know a whole
lot about football, but if you were going to
play in the Super Bowl and you were the manager
or the owner of a team, you would want to put
your best players on the field to increase your
chances of winning. And it doesn't matter what
color or gender the players are. They could be
black, Hispanic. They could be white, Asian,
male, female, or even British if you are really
desperate and there was no one else there. You
put the best players on the team, and for a guy
on the floor who's in harm's way, I think we
can all agree that all any of us want is the
best candidates available. And where they come
from or what they look like does not matter.
Just give me the best. I'm going to think that
if you said, oh, I'm sorry that your kid died,
but here's the good news. They were a black lesbian
paraplegic, so that at least makes things better.
It's like, no. Like I said, there's good firefighters
and bad firefighters. It's an insult to inject
pigmentation. Now, don't get me wrong. If there's
prejudice, if you're in a department where there
are some fucking amazing candidates that are
way better than 90 % of the white people and
they're getting rejected, that's a separate issue
that needs to be addressed. But if it's just
injecting people based on gender, sexual preference,
whatever, that's a separate thing. If it's based
on a percentage, it will always be wrong. just
like it's going to be proven wrong in the colleges,
if you're allowing people into your school that
aren't the smartest ones based on the pigment
of their skin and you're not, let's just say
that you're, that the score for an Asian has
to be much higher to be entered into Stanford.
Yeah, which is a real thing. Yeah, it's a real
thing. But yet you're going to take me because
I'm a white guy and I'm not as smart? then there's
a problem with that. It's got to be based on
whether you're able to do it or not. Now, in
the fire service, we get what we get and we make
the most of it. Yeah, I know. Dickie was, yeah.
But look what we did. Marginal. Look what we
did. It took a lot of work. But at the end of
the day, though, it's about desire. And, you
know, I would take a guy who wants to be there,
that works hard, that maybe isn't all there yet,
over a guy who's not really that interested,
any day of the week. Because your motivation
carries a lot more gravity than a person with
a bad attitude and all the ability in the world.
yeah okay it boils down to that why and i i can
attest i don't know if joe was on on the training
ground at all and we went through academy but
i came from the east coast we didn't throw ladders
like you lot so my learning curve had to be like
a fucking skyscraper just to to figure it out
yeah i mean i i had talks like we're wondering
if you are going to make it or not but my burning
desire of knowing what i wanted to do carried
me through but it was it was rough i mean i i
uh they're all like doing all these these ladder
throws that they were taught in in the academy
and i'm like oh you don't just put it against
the building and then just climb it up no we
have high shoulder and 35 and and i'm like oh
shit but like you said you know it doesn't matter
who you are you know and anaheim has has some
cultural backgrounds reflected but it just depends
on if that man woman wants to be a firefighter
for the right reasons or just wants to put their
gear on, do selfies on 9 -11. Let me qualify
what you just said. Back when we had the squad,
which I don't think you guys ever worked on.
Oh, we worked on the squad. Okay, the squad.
Mooney's feet couldn't touch the pedals. The
squad, do you recall the ladders on the squad?
The what? The ladders. Yes. 35s, right? If you
wanted to work for me on the squad, you had to
be able to throw a two -man 35. Well, you're
the only one that I've ever seen that can do
that. We almost died. Do you remember that? Yeah.
The new, the teletrucks, we tried to throw the
35. But then, two -man 30, you had to be able
to do that because we had two ladders that were
35s. And we had four guys in the squad. So you
had to be able to do, each of you had to be able
to throw two. 35 -foot ladders between the four
of you. And that was the requirement. So we had
people that would not bid that rig because they
couldn't do it. And they didn't want to be in
the situation to have to do it. So those folks
would go to Station 3. They'd work Engine 3.
You know, whatever. If you weren't a ninja, I
would fucking slap you right now. But it just
goes to the... That people that knew they weren't
cut out for that would probably avoid that and
go to places where they could function at a higher
level. And that's not demonizing people. No,
no, no. If you're a rock star medic and you want
to go on the medic list, then do it. I could
name a few people to you that were really, really,
really good medics. chose a different route yeah
you do the the theme park route yeah and again
if you're scared of heights truck one is not
especially old truck 118 feet with no fucking
wobbly ass yeah with no no struts in between
the rungs where you're looking down like i could
literally fall through that and die right now
yeah i mean there was yeah you know there was
a place for everybody and there were places that
you wouldn't get some people to go but i guess
i'm saying that's okay if you were smart enough
to know that you didn't belong there then you
just didn't get your ability to self -evaluate
exactly is very very important you know what
you recognize you wear the same badge and the
same patch as everybody else you just chose to
put yourself where you could be more efficient
but I think it's fair that the public has an
expectation that if you were in that badge and
that patch, that you should be able to function
anywhere. The public doesn't understand the difference
any more than the HR department does. I'm going
to ask Joe so we can give him some mic time.
So it's 2018, okay? Most departments around the
country have been doing EMS for, ooh, fucking
50 years. So unless you're old as fuck. You should
know that the fire department when they show
up are doing EMS. So I know Terry doesn't know
that, but the rest of the people here. Right
in front of his face, James, really? That's disrespectful.
So how do we educate the public of what the fuck
we actually do? Because that's one of the big
things. We let these politician douchebags cut
budget year after year after year. We still hear,
oh, what are we buying you for lunch today? Or
why is there a fire engine on my medical call?
Give me one tip on how to improve education for
the public on what we do. Well, one of the things
that I know some agencies have done is get the
city council, city manager, and put them through
a type of academy. Let them know. Have them ride
out. Bring them along. Let them see what it is
that we do. I forgot what agency it was off the
top of my head, but they put their city council
through a small academy, had them do like a fire
control, an extrication, going up and cutting
a roof. A lot of it was evaluating, but they
put them in full gear, put them on air, and they
got to see exactly what it was that the firefighters
do. And that's at about 10 % of the actual stress
level and danger of anything. But at least it
gives them an idea. It gives them a good start.
Do a ride -along. A 24 -hour ride -along. Stay
up all night. Six times in a night. That would
be a good start right there. But just being able
to see what it is that we do. Granted, the majority
of what we do is all EMS. But we do 90%, I would
say, EMS. So that 10 % of the low -frequency,
high -risk incidents that we need to stay on
top on and be very proficient at. they need to
get at least an introduction of that by seeing
what it is with a flashover, a rollover, to feel
a little bit of heat, to be able to put on that
gear and see what it weighs. And I think they're
going to have a little bit of a different perspective
now from our vantage point and not just see that,
yeah, this... fire truck is 1 .3 million dollars
or whatever it is that we need to purchase and
all they're seeing is dollars and cents go out
the window sit around watching tv it boils down
to my mom still thinks all we do is sit around
and play checkers all day and whenever we drive
with the siren on is because the donut shop has
just come up with a new batch of donuts and we
want to get there first and then we all know
that's the police department that's the cops
yes so it's a it's a public education thing and
there's an alarming amount of people will go
to the grocery store who really think that their
their tax dollars is what's buying our food um
and it's really not but i don't it's it just
comes down to buying the prisoners food just
not your fire yeah you're buying the convicts
you talk about about addressing questions like
that we actually have that as Wrote that in as
one of our questions for our entry -level interview
is what are you going to do when you're approached
by a citizen asking these type of questions?
Rare naked joke. That does work. It's very efficient.
Might be frowned upon. Get the message out. Yeah.
But it's true because I remember being out and
having people, they have come to us and their
assumptions. on what it is that we do are skewed.
They still have questions on why we take a fire
engine to a medical call. You know, they don't
understand. And we try to educate the best we
can, but a lot of it has been, like I said, Dickie's
mom still thinks that, you know, going for donuts
and sitting around playing checkers. because
that's been the notion for years my family hasn't
been the notion for years in reality in reality
so our profession is failing pretty miserably
educating the people even though we're showing
up and running on them and they're like oh i
see there's a engine here because you guys are
doing cardiac arrest you know cpr and we need
you guys well yeah so why after decades do they
still not get it well go for it Think of how
many classes that we went over and we did put
the ladder up, open up the cabinets, all the
kids come out, everybody looks, we explain everything.
The school tours that come to the station. We
have been doing this for centuries and they still
don't get it. I remember as a little boy in Africa
going to the fire station and being so damn excited
about it. We do it in Africa too. There's an
elephant with a bucket on the top. They painted
it red. I will ask you this. Does your family
really know what you do for a living? No. So
why do you expect everybody else to? That's a
very good point. We don't. We try to go out,
we put a good face on, and we educate as we can.
I don't mean to sound futile in it, but when
your HR department doesn't understand what you
do, how can your city and your citizens understand?
I will go to my grave saying this. It's a very
complex issue. People don't understand. the bond,
if they can't comprehend the bond, then they
don't understand it's not a job. Terry tried,
though. How many hours of lecture did he do?
Hey, I still try. Hey, I try, Joe. Wrong language,
though. Let me tell you what I did about six
months ago. Two in the morning lecture. This
guy, it was a Sunday morning. And he comes whipping
down the freeway and he goes by me cutting through.
And so he gets off at the same off ramp I'm getting
off on, which is Brookhurst. I'm going over to
clean my place just like I did today. So I pull
up next to him and it's a couple of Middle Eastern
guys in a BMW, in a Mercedes. And I rolled my
window down and I said, hey, you're going to
kill somebody. He goes, what? I said, you keep
driving like that, you're going to kill somebody.
And it's a lot to live with. You don't want to
go there. You don't want to see what you're going
to do. He looks at me, he says, what? I said,
you just don't want, you don't want to be that
guy. And he goes, oh, there's two of them in
a car and they're big guys. And they're all,
you know, they couldn't believe I was telling
them to. You know, they don't understand the
consequences of their actions. I don't get to
see it every night. It pisses me off to this
day to see people recklessly do stuff without
consideration of what could happen. And that's,
if we talk about manifestation of this job. It
angers me to... Because you've... Because I know
the end result. Yeah, I mean, I can think of
the three gay women that we talked about the
other day. Basically, the drunk driver killed
her two best friends. One was crushed in the
car, the other one I watched gurgle to death.
And I have the same thing. I've cursed myself
after because Ty's in the back. And I haven't
been aggressive to the person, I haven't sworn
at the person, but I'm like, you are going to
kill someone. I'm a firefighter, and I've seen
what happens when you drive like that. I'll tell
you what happens. You're sobbing on the fucking
curb while that minivan full of people are dead
because you drive like a fucking asshole. Right.
And when I get in people's faces over how they
drive, my family goes, you can't talk to people
like that. I'm like, I can't help but not talk
to people like that. But you're not saying anything
offensive. Not because of the mouth. No, I just
told them. Here's a reality check. If you go
this way, if you keep on going, this is what
you're doing. you eventually are going to hurt
somebody beyond recognition. And you're going
to have to own that for the rest of your life.
And I really don't think you're considering that
in the decisions you're making right now. I don't
think you're ready for that either. Because we've
been there and it fucking sucks. It does. Real
quick, James, just to go back to why do so many
people show up at your house when you call 911?
I think the general public doesn't quite understand.
Most of them haven't been a patient in the emergency
room. But if you go to the emergency room and
you're being treated by a team, you have how
many doctors and nurses and ER techs? I think
it's about 10 to 12 of them in there. And they
will do the same job that two paramedics, two
EMTs will do in the field. It takes 10 to 12
of them in a sterile, relaxed, calm setting.
To treat a patient and do CPR and start IVs and
document and do everything else that you're expecting
a crew of four people to do or six if they have
the two EMTs in the ambulance. They have double
the crew in a safe, calm, stable environment
with good lighting. That is ridiculous. What
percentage of the public actually utilizes our
services? Very small percentage. our services
are utilized, those people, if they were naysayers,
are not anymore. They realize the benefits of
our service and what it is that we do. That's
why I think one of the city councilmen that we
endorsed that wasn't a huge supporter and we're
still kind of maybe worried that he might not
be has utilized our service. Well, that's the
problem too is How many times, I'm sure everyone
listening is rolling their eyes now, how many
times have you heard, well, we've got to justify
our call load. We've got to pad the calls. No,
you fucking don't. You don't. You're the insurance
policy. You only show up when we're really needed.
So the rest of the time, you shouldn't be running
bullshit calls. You should be out training and
working on your ropes and your extrication and
your confined space and your claps and your trench
and your EMS. So that when it happens, when that
dipshit walks into a school or the guy detonates
their vest in that theme park, that you guys
are ready. But to run bullshit because, oh, what
would the public think if we're not running 20
calls a day is the worst management philosophy
you can possibly think, in my opinion. Let me
just interject here, and I'll go on record saying
this. If you don't want to practice and train
to prepare for those situations, which are likely
to come, then I think you need to reconsider
and maybe find another job because you owe it
to yourself, you owe it to your partner and your
crew and your department and the public mainly
to practice that. That's it. That's all I have
to say about that. When I hired on in 1978, We
were a city of about 60 ,000 people. We had nine
fire stations. We had just over 200 guys. Today
we have 11 fire stations, probably 360 ,000 people,
and we still have just over 200 people in the
department. And what you've just said, I've heard
in my last apartment, the one before that. is
and the thing is like i've pointed out this to
you before to people listening when have you
ever and you're the perfect person to ask 32
years when have you ever heard a department of
politician be like hey terry great news this
year we're increasing your budget well here's
the problem and you can i mean it's all related
to growth and demographics in in california Our
growth is not in medium or high paying jobs.
It's in lower paying jobs. So we don't have anybody,
for the most part, we don't have an increased
bumper crop of medium income people paying a
higher level of tax. If you're at near, what
would it be called? destitute level of income,
you pay no taxes for the most part. Yeah, because
you're in that bracket. Yeah. So the influx that
we've experienced isn't in super -hyping jobs.
They've chased all those out of the state of
California. Those jobs are now in Nevada and
Arizona and everywhere else. Your government
has to understand that you can't keep chasing
people away. And when you lose that tax base,
there's nobody left to pay the increase of what
we need for a number of people to run the fire
department. Yeah, and we need it. Police, fire,
EMS, teachers, you need those. Those are the
bare minimum. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, we
have people running business. I mean, they run
the state of California as if it's... somebody's
dog and pony show as most states do yeah and
i mean and and we've got a new clown we have
a new clown his name's gavin newsome we got the
same clown his name's rick scott the same guy
that slashed the retirement for all the first
responders and teachers in the state of florida
i mean you can only do you know you can only
do so much and They have X amount of money to
spend and they're only going to give us so much.
But part of it, you know, part of it is, you
know, to a certain degree, and I'm going to get
a lot of blowback on this one probably, but if
we talk about wages, I'm guessing they've gone
up a little bit since I've left. I don't think
so. didn't you say that you were on almost the
same pay scales when i was there 10 years ago
what's your base no no they're they're they're
up more than that okay what's your base now you
got to be careful with that because there's people
in certain parts of the country that make a fraction
of what they make here in california yeah but
to count that cost of living is ridiculous here
so it's relative right well i'll give you i'll
give you an example i mean When I left the fire
department, a good year would be like 130. With
overtime? That was my rookie year, but I was...
I know. I know. That's my point. And that's the
point I would like to make is... That's for a
captain. For a captain, nothing. Meaning EMT.
Yeah. I mean, if I got three or four shifts...
If I got three shifts a month, I thought I'd
cut a fat hog, right? So, I mean, you guys get
a lot more in overtime now than we did at the
time. But that's not a good thing. That means
that they're not staffing it properly where these
guys may be counting their paychecks and thinking
they're doing well, but then they're getting
all these diseases. Or they're just whatever,
you know. Because when you're at... the minimum
or the minimum standard, you know, for, for whatever
it is, staffing requirements, you guys have 4
.0. Um, you can't get around that too much. Number
two, since we're also in our department, uh,
an extension of Cal fire now. So we got the type
threes, the type six is we're getting, uh, What
the hell is that thing called? Water tender.
Water tender. You know, so come summertime, come
fire season, which is year -round, our staffing,
about 25 to 30 are out in rush. I totally get
that. And... Call those now like 40, almost 40
,000. And I think that's... As much part of the
problem as it is part of the solution, Joe. And
I would say that I disagree with the fire department
when they allowed people to carry more than one
specialty. Because it allows the worst human
trait that we have to pop its head up and take
ownership. of what we do as firemen. That's greed.
Are we talking about redheads? We're talking
about, yes, greed. Oh, greed. Sorry, James. Sorry,
I take that back. I don't have red hair. But
the gentleman I crossed? No, I... I think greed
is the worst trait that we have as a human species.
And that's the thing. You cut the hell off the
snake by staffing your department properly, where
you can be greedy as you want, but at least that
overtime comes up periodically instead of every
single shift. The point being this. When you
start making an exorbitant amount of money, you
expect that on a regular basis. And if the department
were to come in and staff to where you didn't
make the overtime, you would hear some whining
like you would not believe. I also don't think
that when you're talking about the specialties,
Terry, you don't have a heart surgeon who's also
an eye surgeon who's also a knee surgeon. Right.
When you specialize, that means you've taken
one pathway and you become an industry leader
or an expert in that. Hang on. I think there
are very few people that can do that many roles
that efficiently and that well. I would say this.
I knew how much work it took to try to train
for USAR. Joe, you know very well how much it
takes. It's a full -time job. And it separates
the USAR from the hazmat. Right. Where I used
to work, they did that too right and not very
well so you know basically you do your one week
training if if you were complacent and there
were some people that took it seriously and trained
but if you're complacent that was that one week
of hazmat or ropes or trench that you did the
whole year and then you just like all right well
i don't need to research till next year or two
years i i like to think i was pretty good at
what i did and if you were to ask me to be two
of those items On the menu, a hazmatician, a
USAR, a medic. If you were to ask me to do two
things like that, I would tell you that I could
never do two things like that. I would be lucky
to do one of them proficiently. And be as good
as you would expect someone to be if they were
coming to you. Correct. Now, I know there's people
out there that there may be one outlier that
could pull it off. Maybe there's one. But we
have a tendency to make that one the example
of how we should live. Because it becomes our
life. Because you throw 15 % out to somebody
and say, all you have to do is qualify in this
area and you're going to get another 15%. So
what master are we serving? Dollar. We're serving
the dollar. And so when you lose trust of the
public, that's part of the problem. I think you
can be a support operations level. I put myself
through all the ops classes and tech classes,
and I've never been on a special ops team. But
I want to be the guy when you show up, you're
like, okay, we're going to do a Z rig. Okay,
at least I know what that is. We're going to
do trench. We're going to do confined space.
Well, you can put me on air. I'll go down. I'll
put them on a sked. I'll pull them out. But I
never, ever hail as the lead, the expert in that.
Yeah, are you going to be the guy that... that
picks the window washer off the... I'll be the
guy on the line, but someone else has to set
that system up. Exactly. Who's going to be...
I want to know who the guy is that's going to
check all of our hardware and software. That's
the guy that I want to know. Because I'll tell
you what, you know what used to keep me awake
at night? Stinking RS stuff. Talk about scared.
being responsible for picking somebody off the
side of a building when he's 120 feet off the
ground. Be the guy that's going to have to validate
that knot and that anchor system. Like I said,
I'll gladly go over the side, but I want, in
my old place, there was a specific lieutenant
who was a climber and everything. I want him
doing the ropes. To tell a funny story along
that line, I remember being on the USAR team
and doing a pick -off drill at Disney for one
of the rides that now they took down. where it
was people dangling from the side of the ride,
so we had to go above them from a high point.
It wasn't a carousel. It was a thing called the
Malibumer. Oh, the Boomer. Yeah, and it was one
of our rookies that had been on for a while now
that was on the ride that was playing the victim.
So me and another firefighter that was on USAR
at the time were the ones that went up and did
the high -angle pickoff. And what type of rope
were you using? It was a cable, a steel cable.
Can we deport them? Half inch? No, it was half
inch. Five inch for sure. Yeah, it was lifeline.
So, for being rudely interrupted. You and I know
what's involved with the USAR stuff. They didn't
quite get as much of that. Well, the bad part
was I was the one going up. I wasn't supposed
to for obvious reasons. So someone else that
couldn't do it, all of a sudden, the one that
was supposed to do it all of a sudden got mysteriously,
oh, my back hurts. So I went up to the top. And
then I'm watching as the guys that were going
to be doing the Z rig and having to do the haul
line were being taught. how to set it up while
I'm up there. And I'm looking like, oh. They
were going to send you over? I was the one that
went to the top of it. How the hell did they,
like, oh, who should we send? Well, because it
was the one that was supposed to go. Get the
whale sling. Get the whale. Get the whale sling.
Oh, that was, remember, that was, that was, what's
the hands? We got the big heavyset lady that
was in the hallway. Go get the whale snatcher,
whale catcher. The whale sling. Whale sling.
I don't think we called it that. She was over
there crying. But yeah, that was a little nerve
wracking because I was like, oh my. But if you
think of it, if you think of it like. The best
part was, it was one of. I'm talking. Shut up.
The guy that was Bosley that was going to get
picked off. And it was one of the guys that I
work with. He's over there doing the harness.
And he looks at me and he. Has me go over and
go, hey, does this look right? You good with
this? Do you guys know what you're doing? Oh,
dude. He talked about a lack of confidence. Went
up the window. No. But it's one of those things
like your ability. I mentioned earlier your ability
to self -evaluate. This is a job that we do where
you'll be asked to put yourself in situations.
That scare the living shit out of your average
population. And it's not just, oh, everyone says,
oh, you run into burning buildings. How many
people do you know that are afraid to be in an
elevator or confined space? We'll have to do
that. How many people are afraid of the dark?
Or heights. Or being heights, especially. Or
fire. Or a snake. Or seeing blood and guts and
bones. Or swift water or anything like that.
You're afraid of reptiles, aren't you? Snakes?
No. He's not afraid of them. He's got an insatiable
desire for them. I've never had much experience
with your American snakes. I don't know which
ones are poisonous or not. The African ones,
they all are, so you just stay away. But yeah,
the general expectation of the public is if you
call 911, someone's going to show up and take
care of your problems. And that's not a mantle
that we wear lightly. So I think a lot of the
public don't realize quite what it takes. You
kind of have to be scared of nothing. You got
to be able to, if you are, you're afraid. That's
the bottom line. Yeah, you're afraid. There's
no doubt that you're afraid. But you can't let
it overcome you and take you away from what you
need to do. Any fireman who tells you that he's
not afraid of fire or burning, he's lying to
you. That's the bottom line. The thing is, too,
with a lot of us is ego. And being able to put
that ego in check and be humble doing this job
and say, yeah, I am afraid. I am nervous. But
we take these calculated risks. I feel comfortable
because of the people I have next to me and because
of my knowledge and my experience. And that's
the whole point of James getting us together
here is that crew... Cohesion. cohesion or continuity
is that i'm sitting in a room with the biggest
strongest guy that i know and i knew every time
on a call if something happened if there was
a collapse or something joe would be able to
lift a truck off of me and if something bad happened
terry would know what to do and if there was
a really cute handsome guy then james would be
able to get his phone number so it was all We
were all taken care of. I didn't worry about
anything. The only thing that sucked about working
with James was every time we did an inspection
at a dental office, it took forever. Yes, they'd
corner him and hand in our business cards and
have you thought about oral surgery and what
about braces? Do you remember the time we had
to do an inspection at Golden Corral? That took
hours. I thought it was a joke for three days.
I thought that was hometown. Wasn't it the hometown?
Oh, gosh. That was great. I had a great time,
though. That was the best. Yeah. Well, it's always
based on everybody should always have a little
bit of a small amount of pucker factor. You have
to. Small amount. If you don't, you're going
to get yourself or someone else hurt. You should
always have a little bit. I mean, not a lot,
but a little bit. Because you should never be
entering into a situation that you're not sure
that you're going to have a good result with.
That's why every year we go into fire season,
I got to tell you, I get so pissed off every
year in fire season. I'll have friends say, oh,
it was terrible that happened to those guys at
yada, yada, yada. And I look at them and I go,
there's absolutely no reason that 12 guys should
die. There's no reason ever that we go out in
the wild land and we kill guys. They said, what
do you mean? I said, we have how many rules and
laws and all that bullshit that we have that
we're supposed to memorize every year? You know
what? Let me tell you. Let me tell you. It's
all bullshit. You could count up to whatever
you want. If you're going to continue to send
people out understaffed to do the job, then what
are you expecting people to do? Oh, wait a second,
Terry. But President Trump, he laid down the
smackdown and told us that if forestry doesn't
pull their thumb out their ass, then the way
to fix the fact that people are being burned
to death was that we just cut all the budget.
What he's saying is... is that you cannot continue
to let the green side of your party run your
forestry department and set the rules. Do you
think the forestry department had the resources?
I will tell you this, James, that many years
ago, we didn't kill 10 or 20 people every year
in wildland fires because we had clear -cut areas.
We had wide swaths across the mountains. that
when the fire would come through and you could
burn back then. Well, as I'm saying, so do you
think it's the people that work for forestry
or you think it's the red tape that's got in
the way that's killing our people? It's more
than one thing. First off, we send people out
and we require these bullshit positions, these
paper tiger positions that we don't fill. Lookouts.
When did they ever put look? When does a lookout
go out? He's actually assigned to a rig where
he's actually looking out. Well, actually, the
press got fired. The only guy that survived,
Brendan McDonald, was a lookout. He was one of
20 guys that survived. And that's the thing.
But you're supposed to have lookouts for the
lookouts, and you're having all these positions
that you're supposed to fill. Your brothers and
sisters are there working their asses off, and
you're sitting up on a hill. staring at the fire
two miles away. Do you want to be up on that
hill or do you want to be down there working
with the rest of your crew? You don't want to
be, but you're probably the most important person
on that whole team. True. It's a very necessary
component of that team. All I can say is this.
I think what you're talking about is the management
teams. Yeah. The staff. They put people, they
send people into untenable situations. They send
them up on roads that they shouldn't be going
up on. And then they expect these guys, they
expect them, James, just like our department
and our dispatching system expects me to go out
and... resolve a young child in a car. The same
way. They expect the same thing. They send those
people up. Yeah, well, that's a mid -slope road.
Right? It's one of the things we're just not
supposed to go up mid -slope roads. Right? Right.
We're not supposed to be doing that sort of thing.
Well, that's the only way to get up the hill.
Well, you contact the battalion car and go, hey,
what's the deal with this deal here? And they're
going to say, well, do you want to go or not?
You plan on coming back out in the future to
work wildland situations? If you do, you're going
to go up that road, right? The work's a lot different,
too, now. They put all that we're doing, hot
shot work. They're doing a bunch of hot shot
work, the type threes, and they're doing... Hard
physical labor. No more structure protection
type of stuff either. Right. Right. But along
with that, in California, how many times have
you, I mean, I can't imagine. I mean, I knew
when I was in the fire department 10 years, 10
years ago, eight years ago, something like that.
Eight years ago. They would say we can't burn
today because AQMD. That was eight years ago.
AQMD is Air Quality Management District. It's
still like that. The only places that they can
burn would be federal land like down near the
beach. I thought AQMD was all Queens marry Dickie.
How did you come up with that shit that quick?
You sit there and you think of this shit all
day so you can bring it up and then sound smart,
but you're not, and I know it. So instead of
going out and actually burning land, instead
of actually burning land that we should be burning
every so often, they can't burn it because of
AQMD. Yeah, and that's the thing. We all know
that. natural you know circle of life yeah it
has to burn every once in a while i have to talk
into the mic but you can talk from back there
all right let me do it again because we all know
you know the the natural cycle is that wildland
burns but the problem is that we put housing
in that and we put housing on cliff sides and
we put housing in louisiana that's below the
sea level it's not blaming people we're a very
crowded area in certain areas but That's the
reality is if we're going to put homes in places
that are uber dangerous, you've got to understand
that we're going to have to mitigate the area
around it to make it safer for the residents.
Paradise is a good example of that. Paradise
was a one -way in, one -way out area. Can you
imagine? Every time I would challenge people
that when you look at those news reports and
you see all those vehicles sitting in the middle
of roads, ask yourself, how does the fire equipment
get in or get out? It doesn't. Yeah, okay, so
we'll do a little public service announcement
here. If you're asked to evacuate, please leave
then. Because when people are coming in to protect
your property and you're trying to leave and
it's too late, we can't get in. And your two
gallons a minute coming out of your garden hose
is not going to stop the fire if our 500 gallons
a minute can't. You know, I live in an area that's
called the urban interface in Yorba Linda. Right?
I'm in the interface. And the County of Orange
has their people up in the interface checking
setbacks, checking all that stuff. If you went
in and saw, I'm guessing, the foliage that was
right in people's backyards, right up next to
the houses, these big pine trees in those neighborhoods.
You know, when you see the burn and you look
at the trees sitting there, you're going, it's
unsustainable. There's no way you could have
protected a large portion of those homes. Just
look at the videos of Christmas trees burning.
Yeah. That's just a small, single, six -foot
tree that's an inferno. The guys that were there
in paradise, that thing was burning at an acre
a second. That thing was burning. Okay, when
I used to, I was a decent runner. A decent runner.
I could run pretty decent. I talked to a guy
who told me that you would have to be able to
run from one end of the track to the other in
15 seconds, the football field, in 15 seconds
to stay ahead of that fire in flat ground. You
weren't going to outrun that fire. That's like
Dickie. Here we go. Joe Jason off to a burrito
truck. Oh, wow. That was quick. See how quickly
I did that? I'm sniggering like a child. That's
like Dickie running towards George Michael. But
there's no way. Album release. There's absolutely
no flipping way you're going to outrun that for
maybe more than a mile. If you're in great shape.
You also had a brush with the wildfire, was it
2007, 2008? Yeah. In your neighborhood. Yeah.
With your home. That was the freeway complex
fire. With a flash hood and a brush coat. I don't
know. That's a lot. I might have had a flash
hood. You did have a flash hood. Okay. I had
a mustache and a flash hood. And I'll tell you,
to this day, that was the most frustrating experience
in the fire service I think I've ever had. Was
dragging three -inch hose to make a hand line
out of a three -inch hose. i remember calling
you on your cell phone i was in chicago on a
weekend getaway and i don't know why it happened
to be that weekend but i remember seeing it on
the news i called because i said it was by your
where you live and i called your cell phone there
was no answer and i called the house phone and
patty answered and she sounded stressed and she
said we need help and i'm like in chicago um
but i tried my best to change a flight and come
back then but it would have been too late anyway
it was just horrible sitting there knowing that
guys that i cared about were struggling and you
know it's just no help the most frustrating part
richard was having battalion chief cars come
through the neighborhood and i would say can
you all we need is a couple units up here and
we can take care of a lot of this All the resources
were staged on the Palmer. And so I would ask
anybody out there who's got common sense from
here on out to stage their vehicles at the top
of the hill because you can go a hell of a lot
faster downhill than you can up. Put the resources,
at least some of your resources, at the top of
the hill where you can see shit instead of the
bottom of the hill where you don't have a clue
where you're going. And, I mean, Jamie Hirsch
was one of them. I had all kinds of people driving
through the neighborhood, and I'd say, can't
we just get one unit up here? I got Houghton
pulling a three -inch hose with a smoothbore
on it for structure protection. A three -inch
for hand line, because they were all out of...
Hand -lined material. Off an engine? Off an engine.
Off an engine. So you've got what? Orange County.
47 seconds of protection before you run out of...
Yeah, I mean, we had one Orange County unit.
We had one LA County unit in our neighborhood.
And it was just... It was frustrating as can
be. How many houses on your street were lost?
Oh. 25, probably. And there's no reason for that.
You know, the reason for it was they chased everybody
out of town. They chased everybody out. I'm going
to give you the biggest pearl I learned from
that experience. This is something that I never,
ever considered all of my fire career. I never
came to weigh in. I had a fire on my property.
And it never quite clicked for me. But when the
Santa Ana winds blow, no matter where you live,
they leave a pile of debris somewhere in your
house. And it's the same place every time. Because
the winds blow the same way on the Santa Anas
all the time. And your house is constructed in
a way that... That there's a certain location
on your property that drops all the debris. Pretty
much. Only going to be one or two spots in your
house. Well, guess where the burning brands drop?
They drop where the shit gets dropped. Oh, where
all the other leaves have piled up and everywhere
else too. That's right. It all goes to the same
place. I learned that that night. I learned that
that day that at the dead end around my pool
house where all the debris piles up, guess where
the fire started? Right there. Did you ever think
that you'd be fighting a fire in your own home
with no help? I never considered that the burning
brands would go to the same place as the debris
pile. Never considered that. In 30 -some years
of firefighting experience, the thought never
crossed my mind. And that's because Terry worked
on a truck his entire career. What I would tell
my neighbors is, you know where that debris pile
is because it's out there. Walk around, find
your debris pile, scoop it up, put it in a trash
can, leave your garden hose close by where that
debris pile is, and you'll be fine. But instead
they chased everybody out of the neighborhoods
where you're losing houses because nobody's there
to protect it. Yeah, mitigate it when it was
just starting. Yeah. Can you imagine when the
Germans invaded France? If we'd have said, everybody
run away. Yeah, let me tell you. Exactly. Save
the day. Exactly. The boys are here. Yeah. Stand
down. Point being. The clerk and the boys. Point
being, don't leave somebody else to do your dirty
work. Take care of it yourself. And again, personal
responsibility. Ownership. Take ownership of
your property. Don't let anybody chase you out
of the neighborhood because they say it's dangerous.
What's different between Orvalinda and the movie
versus Paradise? You're around a forest. Overgrown
and there's no way out. Oh, yeah. Totally. Totally.
I totally get that. I mean, you look at Paradise
and there's no comparison. They're building houses
in the middle of flipping forest. Not sure how
you ever figured that was going to be defendable.
Well, it's called Paradise. Yeah. Well, I saw,
you know, there was like four Garden Grove retired
guys living up there. Oh, really? Yeah, we're
missing between the two fires, what? Close to
200 people. No, no, no. 600 people. Yeah, they're
up to 80 whatever now. 12 ,000 homes leveled.
The thing of it was that struck me was an interview
I saw with a guy. And it's always the frankness
of the people that live there in the community.
He goes, yeah. He said, I always knew it would
burn. I just didn't know when. Because he said.
It's really ripe. This area was really ripe with
the canopy. If you haven't had rain for years
and you know that the brush is getting dense
and it's all dead. Well, it's that and our policy.
It's our policy. I mean, we could go on and on
about our policies in California, but when you
have 20 million dead trees out in the forest
that they won't harvest. They won't harvest.
They're going to leave that crap laying around.
And I don't mean for... I'm not concerned about
the forest fire at this point. I want you to
think about something. I want you to think about
widow makers. Snags. You got trees that have
been dead for decades sitting in the forest that
are just... And what are these winds doing? They're
blowing through at 50, 60 mile an hour. The roots
are getting burned up. The roots have decayed.
There's X amount of surface tension on the trees
when the wind's blowing by. And what are we doing?
We're out there working the fire. We're walking
around, not paying attention to what? Dropping
trees. It kills a lot of them. It kills some
of them every year. And then the foals got that
one guy. Was he L .A. County? That fell down
the side and then got burned up. Cal Fire. Cal
Fire. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just, when you
think of that. Yeah, I mean, you think of the
needless loss of life out there. I struggle with
that. Yeah. All right, well, let's. Let's wrap
it up. We've been going for almost four hours.
I don't know if you guys realize. Four hours.
So I just want to say thank you for your candidness,
your vulnerability on some of the stories, on
the laughs. I literally, like I said, almost
wet myself at certain times. At my expense. And
Dickie's. But yeah, I mean, this is, to me, You
want to take a cross -section of the fire service
and a crew that I think is kind of the epitome
of where we're supposed to be. This is it. This
has been nothing but pleasure and honor to sit
down 10 years later and look back and say, for
Terry, he's retired. For us, we're 10 years into
our career. And kind of look at that cross -section
and be retrospective about... all the things
that we love and this isn't a pity party but
the toll of the service and the reality is you
know some of these areas that we can improve
whether it's what we do whether it's the wild
land we're talking about at the end but um yeah
it's it's been amazing so thank you for you know
taking the time thank you thank you for thinking
about us and doing something like that yeah thanks
for coming out yeah probably the best time we
had i had personally was getting promoted and
working with this crew uh i woke up this morning
i felt like a kid on christmas morning knowing
i was gonna get to unwrap gifts knowing that
this was coming tonight um i've been looking
forward to this for a long time so i was gonna
say thank you i really appreciate being here
and just hanging out that was it was awesome
it's good for the soul