HARRY R. CARTER, Ph.D., MIFireE

Over the course of the past several weeks it has become exceedingly obvious to me that there is something evil at work throughout North America. On far too many occasions it has become painfully obvious to me that the actors on the stage of government are taking pains to insure that the fire service will never achieve its full potential.

We must begin to fight the people who treat what you and I do as though it were some form of silly sport. You can practically hear them saying, "… look at the silly firefighters riding on their expensive toys." Or the ever popular, "… if there is a problem with false alarms, why not send two older members in a pickup truck, so you don’t have to roll those big expensive trucks with all of the people that are needed to staff them.

If you remember the old game show, Name That Tune, you will recall that the object was to identify the name of the song using the least number of notes. It was a battle to beat the other person by using less and less notes. Of course the only loss was in money. We have politicians and fiscal administrators who are playing a new and deadly game. It is entitled Name That Death, and it is played with the lives of our firefighters.

I can see it now. The budget beavers are standing in front of a burning building. The Mayor is the game show host. There is one politician and one business administrator who are the players. Each is standing behind a podium with a copy of their budget conveniently placed there for reference. Of course you and I are taking the place of the money to be won or lost.

The host steps to the fore and announces, "ladies and gentlemen, I have a working fire in a three-story frame dwelling. The politician yells out, I can handle that fire with 12 people on a response. The business administrator screams back, "… I can do it with eight people." The politician counters with a figure of five, and the business administrator finally says, "I can name that death in three members. The politician throws up his hands and stops. The host yells to the administrator, "… do your stuff."

Just at that moment, a young face comes to the window of the burning building and begins screaming for help. The game show host turns to the business administrator and shouts again, "… do your stuff." With that three firefighters suddenly appear and race into the burning building. The end result is the death of the three firefighters and the little face at the window. The mayor feels vindicated, because he dumped the responsibility onto the politician and the business administrator. The politician is overjoyed, because she is not responsible. And the business administrator is left holding the bag. He has to replace the three firefighters, and oh what will that do to his budget.

When the bodies are tallied, the crowd applauds, and the winner is announced. It is not the host, or the politician, or the business administrator. It is the taxpayer, because they only had to pay for three firefighters. And if you think about it, maybe they didn’t even have to pay for the funerals of the three dead firefighters. I believe that there is historic precedent for that.

Of course there are a number of sad faces in the audience. You see that happens to be because each of those three firefighters had a family, as did the little face in the window. But what does all of this mean. Why the sad face? Government is efficient, the taxes are low. And of course fire always happens to the other person.

There is also another version of this game that is based upon the death defying, but very stupid game known as Russian Roulette. My webmaster, Bruce Lukaszewicz aptly named it Municipal Roulette. If you recall, Russian Roulette is the very dumb game where a single bullet is placed into the cylinder of a six-shooter, the cylinder is spun once, the gun is placed against the temple of the player and the trigger is pulled. The object is to hit an empty slot in the cylinder. Do the math folks, as the municipal official would say to you. What’s the problem? You have an 83.33 percent chance of walking away from the game.

I don’t know about you, but I do not like the 16.66 percent chance of the outcome being permanently negative. But such decisions do not appear to trouble our friends in the halls of government. How else can you explain how one municipality takes an engine company out of service to hose down urine in the stairways of a public parking garage? How else can you explain the only truck company in a northeastern regional city center being taken out of service to hang banners down the main street of that city? And how else can you explain volunteer firefighters spending endless hours guarding a downed power line, where no lives are at risk?

What in the heck have we become, an extension of the Department of Public Works? Who will do our critical tasks while we are filling in for the DPW? Again, that does not seem to faze the folks in power.

This is allowed to happen because of two things that dovetail neatly. Government loves saving money. And government doesn’t mind risking our lives to save money, because it isn’t their lives that are on the line. Think about it. When was the last time you were crawling down a hot, dark, smoky hallway, in a flaming building and called back over your shoulder for the business administrator, the mayor, or the fire chief to lighten up on that heavy hoseline for you?"

Think again. They are probably back in city hall playing Name That Tune. And if you lose, that tune will be Amazing Grace.

As if all of this was not bad enough, how about the latest wrinkle from our "friends" at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta? I think that their solution to the epidemic of Hepatitis C is extremely creative -- Problem? We don’t have a problem. Their take is that the dedicated men and women in the Philadelphia Fire Department are experiencing this deadly problem at the same rate as the rest of the country. Bull! Then how come the rest of the country is not up in arms?

Those people in Atlanta even have the unmitigated gall to say that it is probably occurring because of their life style. Well at least they got it right on the last one, except their definition of life style and mine are real different. These folks in Atlanta are saying that the Philadelphia gang is busy doing drugs during their off duty hours. And you don’t even have to read between the lines for that one, because the words are part of the lines of drivel that have been churned out in a rush to make the City of Philadelphia look bad during the Republican National Convention. Real neat and convenient I say.

I think that the timing is fabulous. The International Association of Firefighters was the earliest of all groups to announce their support for Al Gore. They started supporting him well before he had even announced that he was a candidate. The firefighters in the City of Brotherly Love are members of Local #22 of that great labor organization. Is it not amazing that they were slapped in the face by the appointees of the current administration at a moment when the Union dearly needed their help and support?

Getting back to the matter at hand, I say that it is the dedicated and caring life style of placing their own lives in jeopardy while taking care of people who are in desperate need of fire and EMS service, that is the problem. If anyone is doing recreational drugs, it is those eggheads in Atlanta who suffer from the governmental disease of rectal-cranial inversion that are having a life style problem.

We are locked in a life and death struggle with the forces of government. And this will be a difficult battle, because it is these same people that we are battling who create all of the rules. How else can you explain why they are allowed to keep getting away with what they do? "Ha, ha, you cannot sue me, because I had a law passed saying you cannot sue me."

This is a battle for our very existence. There is even one moron running around spouting the drivel that we are an endangered species, that firefighters are an unnecessary element in this fabulous world of technology. To all who think that we are useless, disposable, or outdated, there is only one answer. I say the same thing that the leader of the troops from the valiant 101st Airborne Division and the other beleaguered troops in Bastogne at the Battle of the Bulge said to the Germans when they demanded his surrender: "NUTS!"

To you who are out there in the trenches fighting these survival level battles I say, take heart and fight on. During the last few hours, I received word that we have captured one of the troops from the other side. We now have someone who appreciates our view of the world working with us. Or so my spies tell me.

But that doesn’t mean we can let our guard down. I have talked to you about two new municipal games, Name That Death and Municipal Roulette. I leave it to you to ponder how the people in city hall will introduce their new game, Municipal Jeopardy. Keep your guard up and work to gain converts to our way of thinking.

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