HARRY R. CARTER, Ph.D., MIFireE
A recent e-mail comment to my website ignited a thought within my soul that has long sat dormant. This is a commentary that will generate some really strong feelings among the many varied groups in the fire service. But I only write about those things in which I really believe strongly.
In this case I have to ask a very hard question. Why is it that we devote such a great amount of time and such a vast array of resources to honoring the dead, while at the same time we see the training and equipping of our firefighters go woefully under-funded? Is this under-funding of training and resources perhaps at the root cause of many of our deaths?
I say this because there is a particular state within this great nation of ours that is debating how to spend the millions of dollars they have raised for a monument honoring the line of duty firefighting deaths in their state. I can imagine how this debate might go.
- Let the monument rise toward the heavens where our dear departed rest.
- Make it the biggest and best we can create to show people how much we care for those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
- A granite monument is a permanent reminder that people have died in service to others
I think that we are looking at this in the wrong way. Let us create a modest, tasteful memorial. Let us create a series of fifty modest tasteful memorial to those who were called home in the course of doing their duty. Heck many places haven't even done this.
Then let us take the balance of the memorial funding and create a non-profit foundation devoted to educating our people. Let each person who lives as a result of this training serve as a living memorial to the fact that we wish for no one else ever to die again in the line of duty.
Before you go biting my head off, I urge you to please pause and ponder the true meaning of my message. Are the dead more important than the living? Or is the prevention of future deaths among the living more important? As a longtime training officer, I would say to you that every life we save is that very important commodity.
Let me offer this to you. If you have any doubt about the rightness of my thought, ask your wife, " … dear, would you rather I was here helping you raise the children, or would you rather take them to visit me in the cemetery? Better yet, ask the kids.
By now there are those amongst you who are knotting ropes and looking for tall trees on my behalf. Others may be plucking chickens and boiling tar. I urge patience. Read on. This commentary is about life, about giving, and about sharing.
Each time I have attended a line of duty funeral, or read about one on the web or in the paper a thought comes into my mind. What went wrong? What might we have done to prevent this? How is it that we can come together so well to pay tribute to the dead, when we cannot work together on a daily basis? Why do we do so much for the dead and fail to appreciate the importance of keeping people from that fate? Over the course of 34 years in the business, you can imagine that I have thought these things over a time or two.
Perhaps we come together to honor the dead because we understand the reality that it could be any one of us. And it could happen at any time. It is almost like the story of the Christmas truce that occurred during the first year of World War I.
As the story goes, a British unit was standing the cold and dirty duty of Christmas Eve in the trenches of France back in 1914. The war had just started, and the meat grinder of death and destruction was just warming up. As the men stood guard on the parapets, and at the gun ports, they heard singing out across No-man's Land, the desolate, dangerous, barbed wire strewn area between the trenches. At some point pleasantries were exchanged, and singing went back and forth between the two groups of combatants.
At some point a white flag was produced, and officers from both sides conferred on how best to celebrate the coming holiday. It is said that strong drinks were exchanged and that for 24 hours, no fighting occurred. Of course once the date changed to December 26, all deals were off and the killing resumed.
How much like our current fire service is that example? I have seen people hug and cry at funerals who never even spoke on a daily basis. I have seen fire departments that would never call their neighbors to a working fire go out of their way to be kind to those same people during times of grief.
Here is the perfect way in which we can all come together for the common good. In those cases where people are pondering how to create a monument that can properly honor those who have died in the line of duty I offer the following:
- If you have $2,000,000 in your memorial fund create a $1,750,000 interest bearing fund to fund training and education
- Use the other $250,000 to create a tasteful monument to those who have died.
- Set up a list of those who have died and be sure that the scholarships are specifically given in memory of a deceased firefighter.
- Make each scholarship recipient do a small research project on the namesake for these awards and then share them with the families of the deceased.
If you do the math, a fund with $1,750,000 in it can provide $125,000 to $150,000. How many people could be educated for that amount of money? And each person who is educated in this manner would be a living, breathing memorial to those who have paid the supreme price for membership in our ancient and honorable association of firefighters.
Another way that we can honor those who have gone on to their reward might also come from a renewed (or new in too many cases) emphasis on helping each other. Just as we came together in Worcester to grieve, let us now come together to work for a safer, more effective fire service. If we can share in death, we should be able to transfer the talent and share in life.
Reach out to your neighbors and offer your help. Do not hide behind the four-walls of your firehouse fortress, waiting for someone to come to your aid. Make the first move.
If you have missed what I have said up to this point, scroll up and reread what I have said. It is quite simple:
- We should honor the dead by celebrating life
- We should create funding mechanisms to do research on why we are dying in the line of duty
- We should create scholarship funds to provide for the training of the living being sure to specify that they are in memory of the deceased.
- We should create a series of simple, tasteful, permanent memorials for those who went to do battle, but did not return home.
Remember the words made famous in Australia after the guns had gone silent on November 11, 1918. They were written to commemorate the sacrifices of a whole generation of Australian youth.
They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old;
Age will not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.
Lest we forget
It seems as though we forget from time to time. Let us devote our resources to creating a series of living memorials across this great land of ours.
Let us honor the dead and preserve the living.
The commentary in this column does not necessarily reflect those of Firehouse.Com, Firehouse
Magazine, their employees or parent company Cygnus Business Media.
Harry R. Carter, Ph.D., MIFireE, is an internationally known municipal
fire protection consultant and contributing editor to Firehouse Magazine. He recently retired as a Battalion Commander with the Newark, New Jersey Fire Department.
His commentary appears regularly on Firehouse.Com. For more commentary and information,
visit Carter's web site at www.harrycarter.com
Harry has published several books available for online ordering, including
Firefighting Strategy and Tactics
and Management in the Fire Service
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