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A Vietnam Rememberance

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Hue City, 3 Purple Hearts and a Full Metal Jacket

Springtime

The last several days were certain evidence of a vibrant Spring here in the Nation’s Capital: crystal clear and cool, the trees in bloom, the birds singing and nesting, life all around.  I spent them with a group of Vietnam Veterans and those that love them, touring the city.  Marines, Army, Navy and Air Force, we saw the sights, including the World War II Memorial and the Korean War Memorial.

I got to know them, if just a bit, and was honored to be tagging along.  They are a class act.  Mostly in their sixties and seventies they are living full lives.  Some of them were teenagers or just barely in their twenties when off to war they went.

The Battle of Hue 

The “highlight” or culmination of the trip would be visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the laying of a wreath of flowers there.

We walked up to the Lincoln Memorial first and then it was time.  They gathered before the Wall as other visitors respectfully looked on.

Afterwards, they brought their flowers up to the sculpture, The Soldiers, by Frederick Hart.

I re-joined them at that point as it seemed appropriate.  To be honest, I was a bit nervous, awed even, at the prospect of talking about the Memorial to such a group.  Of course, I needn’t have been.   I decided to tell them what I tell youngsters when I bring them there and then I asked what they thought I should be saying.  I was glad I asked.

Among this group were several women, seemingly unattached.  I stood there with them on that pristine afternoon and heard a reason why. Her husband was 19 and he  enlisted, as she said, “to save the world.”  During his time “in country” he received three Purple Hearts and fought in the grueling, bitter, house-by-house fight for Hue City in 1968.  His platoon would be in the “bush” for up to three weeks straight, sharing a single toothbrush among 30 men.

The Purple Heart

He came home from Vietnam, but not really.  The next forty years were filled with severe depression and crushing pain that neither therapy nor medications could touch.  He constantly searched the “perimeter” of his house.  He refused to eat, his weight falling to 115 pounds.  He would cut himself and then sew the wound up.

Last year, days after his 40th wedding anniversary and at age 60, he shot himself in the head.

They took the body away but she and the kids were left to clean up the aftermath and thus the horror of Hue and young men at war came home again.

She wanted me to say to those seeing the Wall how terrible it was, and is, for men and women to come home from war and to be scorned for their service, heroism and bravery. And, she asked that I talk about the lasting and unseen wounds of war.

Her husband’s name belongs on that wall as surely as any other.

 

Posted by on April 23, 2013 • Filed under: Command & Leadership, In the Line of Duty, Safety and Health, Values and Ethics, War and Peace, Words

Firefighter Safety: The Columbia Disaster

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Tolerating and Ignoring Risk

107
Lifts Off

Ten years ago today, the Columbia space shuttle, operating as STS-107, disintegrated over Texas killing all aboard.  Columbia had completed a 16-day mission and was returning to Kennedy Space Center.

The shuttle’s huge main fuel tank was covered with insulating foam designed to prevent ice formation.  The shuttle at lift-off was comprised of the orbiter, the fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters.  These elements were connected together and the tank attachment point, covered with insulating foam, had become notorious for “shedding” foam debris on climb out.

Previous shuttle missions had clearly identified other shedding events.  Indeed, STS-112, several months before, had shed a chunk of foam that created a dent in the solid rocket booster/external tank attach point which measured 4″ wide by 3″ deep.

Foam shedding had become such a regular event that upper level NASA leaders continued the launches as scheduled.  Put another way, an event which clearly had the capacity to cripple the shuttle (and kill the crew)  had become routine and normalized till it was no longer considered to be a threat.

About 82 seconds into the launch at an altitude of around 66,000 feet, a suitcase sized piece of foam separated from the attach point.  The shuttle was traveling at 1,870 miles per hour and accelerating and the impact likely caused a 6 to 10 inch diameter hole in the leading edge of the left wing.

Some NASA officials on the ground ignored requests by engineers to attempt to characterize the damage using DOD assets, suggesting it would be better for the crew to die happy and ignorant.

Re-entry
Left Wing Damage Visible

As Columbia streaked across the pre-dawn sky, those on the ground observed a fiery trial: the orbiter was breaking up.

The first indication in Mission Control was four left wing hydraulic sensors dropping off line probably as a result of heat damage.

The rest is history though the lessons are widely applicable to firefighting and should not be lost:

1.  If you are operating on the incident scene and you have not been medically evaluated or if you have a cardiac condition you are ignoring the number one risk factor leading to firefighter deaths.

2.  If you are riding or driving fire/rescue apparatus and you are not seated and belted you are ignoring or tolerating risk that has repeatedly been shown to result in firefighter deaths.

3.  If you are operating on the fire ground in forward or exposed positions such as in front of or above the hoseline, your reason should be both compelling and borne from a conscious risk assessment.

We honor the Columbia crew on this and every day by re-dedicating ourselves to safe operations.

 

Posted by on February 1, 2013 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, Firefighter Safety & Health, Firefighting Operations, In the Line of Duty, Safety and Health, Training & Development, Values and Ethics

Murders in Webster: The Deafening Silence

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Fire Service Leaders with Nothing to Say

Webster, New York

On Christmas Eve, four Webster, New York, firefighters were shot and two killed when a paroled felon with a prior murder conviction set them up.  It’s more accurate to say they were executed with premeditated precision.  Arson was used as the pretext for drawing them into the killing zone so the connection to our profession is both direct and compelling.

If our national/international fire/rescue organizations exist in part to protect us by formulating solutions, they are all asleep at the wheel on this one.  A scan of web pages (IAFC, IAFF, NFFF, NVFC) reveals either complete silence or the issuing of  platitudinous press releases.  Pretty thin gruel under the circumstances.  So much for decisive leadership.

By the way, I’m not talking about overturning the second amendment but you would think they could momentarily shrug off their collective holiday torpor and (at least) pretend to give a shit.

If “balls”, (or rather the lack of them) is the problem, they can look to NYPD’s Chief Ray Kelly for leadership inspiration.  Kelly said,”I think it’s important to let the federal government know that something has got to change.”  Kelly backs his tough words up with action, something fire service leadership, both labor and management, seem unable or unwilling to do.  Come to think of it, we don’t even have the tough words so we are a long  way from action.

NYPD’s Ray Kelly

 

And Chief Kelly is no simpering-pinko-liberal-lefty.  He is a combat veteran and Marine who served (and led troops) in Vietnam as a Second Lieutenant.

The guy’s got balls enough to loan out.  Perhaps he’ll give us some.

 

We are certainly in need of them.

 

(Credits:  USA Today and NYDN)

Posted by on December 27, 2012 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Safety & Health, Fires, In the Line of Duty, Line of Duty, Major Incidents, Mass Casualty Incident, Values and Ethics

FF & PO Arthur Lopez: To An Athlete Dying Young

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In Nassau, It’s Body Armor Optional

Earlier I wrote about the killing of Officer Lopez during a traffic stop last week.  He was not wearing a vest, which seemed odd–it still does.

Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano is quoted in Lawofficer as saying, “Nassau does not have a mandatory bullet-proof vest policy,  it’s up to each police officer.”

The literature is explicitly clear about the concerns surrounding young male risk-taking.  People like Arthur Lopez make superb police officers and  firefighters because of their propensity to seek out, and even enjoy, risk.

After his years of experience on the police force and as a firefighter, Lopez would have been familiar with high risk situations and would have matured through most unnecessary risky behavior.  In that regard, the only thing he needed to stay safe was a little help from the leadership. But, they failed him, totally.

Without question, Nassau County elected officials bear substantial responsibility for his death.  So too does Nassau County Police Chief Steven Skrynecki. And, the PBA/union is right there with them if, by either omission or commission, they sanctioned the policy.

It is especially shameful if the PBA/union is complicit because at the end of the day, if they accomplish nothing else, they must protect their members.

Arthur Lopez was an athlete.

To An Athlete Dying Young

THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

A. E. Housman

Posted by on October 31, 2012 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, Firefighter Safety & Health, In the Line of Duty, Line of Duty, Safety and Health

FF and PO Arthur Lopez: Killed in Traffic Stop

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Decorated Officer Not Wearing Vest

Nassau County, New York Police Officer Arthur Lopez received a fatal chest wound from the driver of a car he had stopped.  As Officer Lopez approached the car, the driver shot him from several feet away and then fled the scene.

Police Chief Steven Skrynecki has stated that Officer Lopez wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest.

Lopez was also a volunteer firefighter with the Dix Hills Fire Department.  In fact, he seems to have not only been a decorated public servant but also an exemplary member of the community, a very responsible son and a great neighbor.

His lack of personal protection seems inexplicable given his experience and training, especially as a firefighter.  A street officer without a vest is the same as a firefighter entering a structure fire without turnouts.

How to explain it?

Well, so far it hasn’t been explained.  Other than the initial information that he wasn’t wearing one, there has been virtual silence from news sources, which is very disappointing.  With each passing day we continue to wonder why he was without it but also why the press doesn’t follow-up.

As much as we want to bring Arthur Lopez back we simply cannot and if he was not wearing a vest but should have been, we should know why, as painful as it is,  for the best reason possible:  it will save lives.

Even at this especially tragic moment it is unprofessional on the part of the press and the agencies involved to effectively ignore a proximate cause of a hero’s death.  He won’t be any less heroic, that’s for sure.

I am the wrong person to discuss the notion of an afterlife, but can there be any doubt, based on what we know of Officer Lopez’s life here, that he would want us to know the details to keep us safer?

We surely know the answer to that question.

 

(Sources/Credits:  AP, NYT, NYDN, NYP, Huffpost, ABC)

 

Posted by on October 31, 2012 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, Firefighter Safety & Health, In the Line of Duty, Line of Duty, Safety and Health

Making Hay on 9/11

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343

The Veteran in a New Field
Winslow Homer

One of my union local officers posted a piece on Facebook the other day reporting that a Florida elected official, Janet Long, was quoted as saying that firefighters, “have really taken advantage of 9/11 and what happened then and capitalized on it and the emotion” among other things.

Ms. Long is going where few mortals have gone before.  Calling out firefighters for “making hay” around 9/11 is either courageous or foolhardy and destined to get a strong response either way.

Much has been made of the fact that she is a democrat, as if friends of Barack don’t fart in church, too.  The truth is that generally, the lower down the food chain you go, the less it matters what political affiliation the person is.  And of course, the really great decider is geography.  A New York republican is likely as not to be more liberal than a blue dog democrat who vomits whenever public employee rights are mentioned.

Have firefighters taken advantage of 9/11?  Only we would know for sure.  Here’s a potential test:  If you aren’t a member of either IAFF Local 94 or IAFF Local 854 and you cited the events of 9/11 in any way that would result in personal gain directly or indirectly, you either took advantage of the situation or you were at least guilty of being tactless.  Responders who operated at the either the Pentagon or Shanksville get a bit of pass, though not much.

This is because the extraordinary losses in New York are so transcendent that they occupy an immortal space and should be the professional equivalent of sacred.

By the way, if your excuse is that FDNY members told you that you could invoke them, that’s really not an excuse.  Everyone knows that the FDNY legend is actually quite true:  They are unfailingly generous to other firefighters, sometimes to a fault, if such a thing can be.

Perhaps the real question is, have firefighters gained from 9/11?  Indeed we have, the world over.

The deaths of 343 firefighters on 9/11 was a cataclysmic professional event that still cannot be grasped by those not a part of their tribe.  We all saw it and some of us were caught up in it, but only as witnesses as a very brave crew went down with the ship.

To have gained from their loss does not necessarily consign us to moral corruption but it does mean that we must navigate a very complex passage.  We would surely founder in the end if we took advantage, especially by complicit association, because we will never know the true honor of the dead or the loss felt by those they left behind.

[We remember JP and all the others.]

 

The Veteran in a New Field, 1865
Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910)
Oil on canvas

Painted through the summer and fall of 1865, not long after the nation came to grips with Robert E. Lee’s surrender and mourned President Lincoln’s assassination—both of which occurred during the second week of April—Homer’s canvas shows an emblematic farmer who is a Union veteran, as is signified by his discarded jacket and canteen at the lower right. The painting seems to blend several related narratives. Most soldiers had been farmers before the Civil War. This man, who has returned to his field, holds an old-fashioned scythe that evokes the Grim Reaper, recalls the war’s harvest of death, and expresses grief upon Lincoln’s murder. The redemptive feature is the bountiful wheat—a Northern crop—which could connote the Union’s victory. With its dual references to death and life, Homer’s iconic composition offers a powerful meditation on America’s sacrifices and its potential for recovery.  MMA/New York

Posted by on September 14, 2012 • Filed under: Art, History, In the Line of Duty, Line of Duty, Religion and Spirituality, Values and Ethics

The Deutsche Bank Fire and J’accuse? Not So Fast.

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Yesterday’s blog post at IAFF online by Rich Duffy trumpets a “must read” article in a “prestigious, professional online magazine” by author John Steadman concerning the fatal fire at the former Deutsche Bank building which was under demolition at the time of the incident.

First, employing “J’accuse”, a reference to the 19th century Dreyfuss affair in France is at least odd.  Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a low-level artillery officer, was wrongly convicted of treason on trumped up charges.  He was not a commander or senior officer in the French military establishment and using him as a surrogate in the Deutsche Bank affair is singularly inapt.  Dreyfus was not only completely innocent, he was framed.

Mr. Steadman’s breathless prose has much chaff but it also has its share of wheat.  He correctly points out the infuriating bureaucratic bumbling in various city agencies (including FDNY) which set the stage for the fire.  He also documents that FDNY staff had much of the information they needed to protect fire companies but it never made its way to the troops.

But both Mr. Duffy and Mr. Steadman can be excused for missing a central point  because neither are firefighters:  serious fires typically occur in buildings with serious problems.  How many times have firefighters ridden past a structure only to comment to each other, “That’s going to be a bear when it goes up.”  Such a statement, uttered daily by firefighters belies the truth that we usually know which buildings in our districts are likely to pose the biggest danger.  Was Deutsche Bank a magic exception for company officers, battalion and district commanders?  Maybe, but probably not.  In fact, falling debris from the Deutsche Bank had previously damaged Engine/Ladder 10 in a not so subtle reminder of the danger lurking close by.

It’s not simplistic to say that on a fundamental level firefighting is a deadly “game”.  Watch those training films, drill non-stop, and practice key plays, but on game day, surprises may await you.  Senior firefighters, company officers and their commanders witness but often fail to internalize that it seldom goes the way we think it should.

The Deutsche Bank fire ground was mayhem:

-  Firefighters were committed to extremely exposed and dangerous positions in an abandoned building under active demolition.

-  It took over 80 minutes to obtain a reliable water supply.

-  Desperate calls for help went unheard and unanswered.

-  Fire crews split up losing accountability and control.

Company officers and commanders allowed these events to unfold and any writing about the fire that fails to state these facts is neither a “must read” nor “professional.”

The Steadman article references “stop work” orders issued in at least one case by inspectors after a torch incident.  Another stop-work order should have been issued by the incident commander the day of the fire as the losing proposition became glaringly apparent.

Finally, revisionist writing touted as safety literature is both confusing and potentially deadly.

 

Posted by on May 2, 2012 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Command & Leadership, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Safety & Health, Firefighting Operations, Fires, In the Line of Duty, Major Incidents, Rescues, Safety and Health

Cops: L.I. ATF Agent Killed; Brits with Records

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Friendly Fire?

ATF Agent John Capano was shot and killed in Seaford, Long island, on New Year’s Eve when he intervened in a robbery at a pharmacy.

Agent Capano was in the pharmacy picking up a prescription when the assailant, who has a record of prior robberies, demanded money and medication.

He followed the robber, apparently wounding him, outside into a parking lot where a struggle ensued.

In the seconds that followed, at least two off-duty or retired police officers arrived and both the robber and the ATF agent were shot to death.  The New York Post says sources indicate the gunman had a pellet gun, decreasing, but not eliminating entirely, the chances that he was the shooter.

If Capano was killed by friendly fire it will be yet another New York police death at the hands of fellow officers. Just last March and only miles from this shooting, a Nassau County Officer, Geoffrey Breitkopf,  was shot and killed by an MTA officer.

With homicides at record lows across the nation, Long Island is becoming a dangerous place for police officers from a very unexpected quarter.

Book’em

Yesterday’s (UK) Guardian reported that at least 944 police officers in England and Wales have criminal conviction records.

Included are convictions for keeping a dangerous dog, the old “420″, various dangerous driving offenses (some with fatalities) and drunk driving.

This (again) raises the question of whether or not perfection is required in order to be a police officer,  firefighter or paramedic.  The earlier these offenses are committed, the less impact they should have in determining suitability for employment.  Punishing someone for youthful indiscretion or a brush with stupidity isn’t in the best interest of employers or the public.  Of course, if the brush becomes a habit, then there is a problem.

Interestingly, there are also officers with convictions for forgery, robbery, theft and assault.  These seem to fall outside the realm of human indiscretion and more into the orbit of potential ne’er-do-well but I’m sure that each story has an interesting twist.

One thing’s for sure, being arrested by a convicted cop should guarantee one some empathy, at least.

 

Sources:  NYT, NYP, Guardian

Posted by on January 3, 2012 • Filed under: Command & Leadership, In the Line of Duty, Safety and Health, Uncategorized