BY RICK LASKY
As we wind down the Pride and Ownership series with this final segment, I can’t think of a better time to talk about the whole “never forgetting” thing. We’ve mentioned it several times in past articles, but it definitely seems to be an issue again.
几个月前,我被邀请给keynote speech at a fire department conference and was graced with the presence of one of that city’s aldermen. The host chief had invited him to speak at the opening ceremonies and had brought us all together the morning of the conference for breakfast. We sat and visited about different issues and somehow got on the topic of funding within the fire service and the lack of it in many areas of the country, that law enforcement seems to have done well, and that we just wanted our share and it doesn’t have to be that big, just something. Well, we must have pushed the right button because the alderman starting going off about the fire service and how all we want to do is spend money, hire more firefighters, and build our own little kingdoms. He acknowledged that September 11, 2001, was a terrible tragedy and that we suffered a horrible loss, but he said that people shouldn’t lose focus of reality and what is reasonable. He added that it’s not right to use that event to emphasize a specific need or want and that that type of tragedy doesn’t happen that often.
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