A salute to firefighters

[IRonMaN]

I don't watch a lot of TV, but I happened to catch an episode of 60 Minutes last night.  It was a very moving hour long story about the New York fire department on 9/11.  You have to respect any group of men and women that run into buildings when everyone else is trying to run out.

[PATAX]

Should have been dozens of thumbs up to this. How could someone not give a thumbs up to this?

[BobKamman]

Did they mention the disgraced mayor who for years made millions giving speeches where the operational sentence was always "a noun, a verb, and 9/11" ?

[IRonMaN]

No crazy people or politicians (is there a difference?) got air time.  Just firefighters and their families.

[abctax55]

".....respect any group of men and women that run into buildings"

My husband is a retired Firefighter (28 years).  As a group, you can't find a more caring, giving, wonderful collection of human beings.  Yes, there are a few bad apples, but very few.

I have a T-shirt from FDNY 'House of Pain' station - the station that lost the most firefighters when the towers collapsed.  It was given to me by a client, who's firefighter father was on duty 9-11-01.

My client got a 'free' return; the least I could do.

[IRonMaN]

The show was made up of a lot of interviews with the firefighters that were there that morning recounting events followed by interviews with a number of family members of those that were lost that decided to follow in the family's footsteps of being firefighters.  It was a tough show to watch and keep your eyes dry.

[abctax55]

I have it recorded.... I can't watch it until I get thru Monday's deadline.  

edit.... I obviously have a major soft spot in my heart for firefighters. Being a member of that 'family' is special.  And that 'family' is world-wide.  We go by stations wherever we go on vacation to exchange T-shirts & patches.  One of my favorites is from the British Virgin Islands 😀

[IRonMaN]

[BobKamman]

I have many firefighter clients -- most of them retired captains by now -- and I respect the everyday heroism of all first responders.  At the same time I can respect the heroism of those who oppose nepotism, racism and sexism in our government institutions.  

"David Goldberg’s Black Firefighters and the FDNY [2017] is a fascinating work chronicling the long history of activists trying to end the exclusion of blacks from what has remained the whitest municipal agency in the city and one of the least diverse large city fire departments in the nation.  But as the Vulcan Society, a caucus of black firefighters pursued a number of avenues to end the exclusion of blacks in the department, white fire fighters, under the leadership of their union, the FDNY, and, city officials launched a crusade to maintain a lily white and practically all male agency."

http://newyorklaborhistory.org/web/?page_id=1714