Commentary

But moral courage is different. Instead of respect, it often brings isolation, which is why it’s so hard. Moral courage is doing what you believe is right even at the risk of inconvenience, ridicule, punishment, loss of job, security, social status or exile from one’s community or country. It means going against your peers which can be a very painful and even dangerous thing to do.

If we cannot objectively analyze our own actions and the actions of others for the purpose of learning and not repeating mistakes, can we really call ourselves professional firefighters?

Driving a car once was an extremely dangerous activity for the average person (and it still is for people that don’t give it their full attention). In the United States, we’ve made significant reductions in the mortality and morbidity statistics associated with motor vehicle crashes and we’ve done it through education, engineering, and enforcement. We’re far past the time when we need to put more of our energies and efforts into those “3-E’s”—way more!—when it comes to eliminating preventable fires in our communities.

What I found in my transition is a career that requires tremendous physical fitness in both strength and cardio, being able to think on your feet, working well under extreme stress, the ability to always work as a member of a team, and a desire to provide one of Maslow’s basic needs for humanity – to aid my fellow citizens in feeling safe in their communities.

“It is my theory that much like the aviation industry [which significantly reduced airline crashes through better technology including flight simulators] we [the fire service] have reached pretty far with technology [improvements]. If we are going to reduce injuries and deaths further it will be through the use of psychology. We need to work on things like Crew Resource Management, decision-making, and perception."

Women in the fire service are not the problem and they are not the solution. Only the men of the fire service can make the necessary cultural changes so that everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality or creed, is accepted for who they are and judged solely on their ability to do the required job.

I am a geek, nerd, academically gifted, call it what you will, and my EFOP experiences have re-confirmed that for me. (As if I really needed this program to do that for me.) I have always gravitated towards learning experiences, especially experiences that challenge me. EFOP was no exception. What was the exception this time in my geekiness that has blatantly come to light the past year – I inserted myself in too many of these challenging experiences at one time causing added stress.

It’s time we in the fire service quit being so polite to people about the deadly threat that fire poses to them, their families, and their communities. It’s time to stop “suggesting” that it’s a good idea to have a working smoke detector on every level of their home. Time to stop “making excuses” for the dead following a preventable fire where no working smoke detectors were present. And it’s time to stop making excuses for parents who manage to get out of a burning home, but their children do not because the parents never had or practiced a Home Fire Escape Plan with their children.

Until we stop romanticizing the job of a firefighter with “how it used to be”, we will never get the current and future generations of firefighters to understand—really understand and take it to heart—that when you look at the facts, the vast majority of risks in the business of firefighting should have gone the way of the dodo bird.

However, there have been several events in the recent past that have caused me to question just how much of a family we really are. When CECFEMS Recruit School #22 graduated this past summer, more than half the seats in the auditorium were empty. Sure, joyous family members of the graduates were there along with most of the on-duty Training Division staff. Missing, however, were members from the shifts and stations where those people, our newest members, would be reporting in a few days to join “the family.”