Latest / The Warriors & Watchmen Podcast / Fire & Fellowship: How Loudoun’s First Responders Heal with Heroes

Transcript

Fire & Fellowship: How Loudoun’s First Responders Heal with Heroes · The Warriors & Watchmen Podcast

• 0:17
  Welcome to the Warriors and Watchmen podcast, hosted by the CJ3 Foundation and
• 0:21
  No Boundaries Nonprofits, presented by Raven Tech and Negative Bounce Productions.
• 0:27
  I'm your host, Eric Thomas, also known as CJ3 Actual.
• 0:31
  I'm the director and founder of the CJ3 Foundation. With me,
• 0:34
  as always, is our CJ3 Foundation Senior Advisor for Virginia,
• 0:38
  Roger Singh. What's up, guys?
• 0:40
  And as always, off camera, but without a mic tonight, we have Guy Waybright.
• 0:47
  No pontifications today. I don't
• 0:50
  know what to do with this whole podcast without Guy going into his...
• 0:54
  So the importance of this, Guy is with Negative Bounce Productions that's putting
• 0:57
  this on. So Guy, we normally refer to him as Guy in the Sky because he's the voice off camera.
• 1:03
  However, we stole his microphone so we could bring an additional guest in. Yes. So,
• 1:10
  Oh, he is on camera. Okay. I mean, you guys can see him. You just can't hear
• 1:13
  him. He's a hallucination.
• 1:16
  What did you smoke before you came in? I know, right? What do you people smoke, Kyle?
• 1:21
  Why is it you people? Ass. So, Eric. Hi. So, what's going on?
• 1:26
  What's going on with you next week?
• 1:29
  Am I ever going to see you again? Are you moving? What's going on here?
• 1:32
  I couldn't take it anymore. I was done with you.
• 1:34
  It's totally fine. We can find somebody to replace you. It's easy.
• 1:37
  No, if, you know, there's been rumors. is CJ3 Foundation moving?
• 1:41
  Did you get another divorce?
• 1:44
  No, none of the above. Although I've spoken about, I do have a job in the federal
• 1:49
  government. Fortunately, unfortunately,
• 1:51
  they have decided to send me to training in Glencoe, Georgia.
• 1:55
  And if anybody knows about Glencoe, Georgia down in Brunswick,
• 1:58
  they know what's their federal law enforcement training center.
• 2:01
  And so they have decided that my 50-year-old butt with a service dog needs to
• 2:06
  go down there and go through federal law enforcement i mean they must have seen
• 2:10
  you shooting recently and said jesus this is a terrible idea
• 2:14
  bro are you kidding me when have you seen me shoot i've never seen you shoot but they must have
• 2:18
  they must have said you know we got to put him through something because this
• 2:21
  guy's awful so you know here's the even cooler part,
• 2:24
  so not only do i get to go down but i get to go down in june july and august in georgia,
• 2:31
  so eric is going to come back in and exceptionally skinny Oh, absolutely.
• 2:35
  I'm assuming in shape. That'll all be water weight, though. And so we,
• 2:39
  I have to deal with, hold on. I get to deal without Eric for three months. It's a vacation.
• 2:45
  Oh, my God. This is amazing. Hold on. I'm going to dial in.
• 2:48
  No, no. You do not get three months without me. Hey, but, but,
• 2:51
  Guy, I know you can't talk right now, but there is a mute button on the phone,
• 2:54
  right? I can, I can mute him if he gets annoying. Negative bounce.
• 2:57
  Negative bounce hits me up and goes, new phone, who dis?
• 3:01
  Sorry. No. There we go. Yeah.
• 3:05
  There is obviously guys still here we got you on the oven in the chipmunk voice
• 3:10
  so you're down there for three months and and during that time you're still going to be on with us,
• 3:16
  yeah i still got evenings and weekends and i'm still running a charity still
• 3:19
  but part of the reason you're here right is i told you i needed help i have
• 3:23
  real life things i have to deal with and i have,
• 3:26
  i have the non-profit that's across the country so we have a big footprint here
• 3:31
  because we're headquartered here, but the reason, Roger, you're here,
• 3:34
  obviously, continue some of this.
• 3:36
  There's no such thing as a single point of failure, and so the show must go
• 3:40
  on, and we still have wounded heroes that we get to serve, so we'll continue on.
• 3:45
  We will keep it going, and Eric will still be hosting the show over the phone.
• 3:48
  Or if I'm hosting, then I will be Eric Thomas, and you guys will hear all about
• 3:53
  the amazing co-host he has. So your shirt's going to be too tight?
• 3:55
  Oh, my Lord. It's going to be a shmedium. It'll be a shmedium. It's fine.
• 3:59
  But the other thing is, is Eric gets back from this, and I've already told him
• 4:04
  we're out. Oh, you know where we're going.
• 4:06
  I know. I already told Jen we're out on this. I'm out on this. No, what?
• 4:10
  You're going to come back having run for forever, and you want us to do the PR star fitness. Yes.
• 4:16
  No. The CrossFit competition. That's not fair. We do it every year.
• 4:19
  I mean, I'll be there at the table.
• 4:21
  Well, that improves what you did last year. I didn't know what it was.
• 4:27
  I thought this was like a open. I didn't realize you guys were doing a workout,
• 4:31
  which, by the way, you came out sweating like a pig in church.
• 4:36
  Pigs don't sweat. I was going to say horror church. I was going to say Michelle came out.
• 4:40
  She said she worked out but i did not see a drop of sweat on her so going off
• 4:45
  the word you used before pigs don't sweat right i'm,
• 4:48
  sorry i did not say that that was not me so hey speaking of sweaty bastards
• 4:54
  we've got a couple guests here today oh we do
• 4:56
  and i don't know why that goes to it but considering the uniform they they done
• 5:01
  and what they have to do i think it's very apropos why they're in shape. I will say this.
• 5:06
  Why? Tonight we're focusing on the red line that we have in our logo.
• 5:10
  Yes, we are. You hear a lot about our veterans.
• 5:14
  We've had the blue line. It's just important. In case you didn't know,
• 5:17
  Roger, I actually started my career out as a volunteer firefighter.
• 5:21
  Where? Down in Virginia Beach in the Tidewater area. So I actually started out
• 5:25
  live there, was waiting to get on the paid system. And,
• 5:28
  Trying to get on a paid system and pregnancy didn't quite line up.
• 5:31
  And so, and I wasn't the one pregnant, by the way, before you say that.
• 5:35
  I mean, that's where I joined the army and moved on and kept going.
• 5:39
  However, interesting enough, you know, there's a lot of similarities between
• 5:43
  our, our soldiers and, you know, our other heroes.
• 5:47
  Right. And I put the other heroes as in the firefighters, law enforcement,
• 5:50
  first responders, all those things.
• 5:51
  So the difference is I tell people, cause some people hit me up and go, Hey, what's the deal?
• 5:56
  Right. Like you were a veteran. That's awesome. You were over in Iraq.
• 5:59
  You were in the difference I tell people is I got to, I got a 14 hour flight
• 6:04
  to flip the switch. Right. And come back to reality and I'm done.
• 6:08
  Right. It was bad. It was horrible. Whatever it was, what it was.
• 6:12
  But you weren't there. These guys live in the communities and constantly are
• 6:15
  reminded and living it every day. So mad respect to these guys.
• 6:19
  Without a do, the first person I'm going to introduce, big mofo.
• 6:23
  Every time I see this dude, I swear to God. I told you.
• 6:26
  It's the suits they wear that keep them both in shape, but Jesus,
• 6:29
  man, what are you doing? Hold on.
• 6:31
  Some of our blue line would say that's because they have so much time to work out. I'm just saying.
• 6:36
  I'm just saying. I don't subscribe. I have heard it's why they're better cooks,
• 6:39
  but I won't say who I heard that from. But our first guest, first of all,
• 6:44
  he brought in something even more handsome than him.
• 6:46
  We will discuss. He's got a service animal with him in here,
• 6:50
  Birdie, which my service animal knows, and they were just getting reacquainted
• 6:54
  and have a good time. But John Myers is a Lieutenant with Loudoun County Fire Department.
• 6:59
  He's also the president of the fire union. John, welcome to the podcast.
• 7:03
  Welcome, my man. Thank you. I really appreciate you guys having me on here today.
• 7:06
  You know, I've known you for a while, Eric, now first through the RUC.
• 7:09
  You know, RUC to Remember. Don't remind me. Those were long days, bro.
• 7:13
  And then I know we're talking about it later, but then you helping out some
• 7:15
  of my guys with their own problems with getting service animals into the workplace.
• 7:20
  And so, yeah, it's an honor to be here. I've been working for the fire department for 26 years now.
• 7:25
  Best job in the world, right? When you go to work and it doesn't feel like work,
• 7:28
  I absolutely love it. Took that passion to another level, becoming our union president.
• 7:32
  You know, when you're talking about best job, there's a lot of people that would
• 7:34
  beg to differ on best job doing the union president side.
• 7:38
  The best job is the firefighter side, not the union president side.
• 7:41
  Yeah, but you know what? The things you affect are awesome, though, in that job.
• 7:46
  And I know you do it with grace and dignity and you're a good advocate for that.
• 7:50
  And I've heard, honestly, nothing but good about you in that role. So kudos to you.
• 7:54
  I appreciate it. I mean, that's the new passion. I got into firefighting to
• 7:57
  help other people like the citizens.
• 7:59
  And then I figured out later is like, I need to help my people.
• 8:02
  And that's what my transition over to union president was, is now I can help my people.
• 8:05
  By doing that, they can help the people that we serve.
• 8:08
  Awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, that's great. So, hey, you want to,
• 8:11
  since you brought in the other guest, would you like to introduce or would you
• 8:15
  like me to do it? I think you should do it, sir. You're the host for this week.
• 8:18
  Here's what I'm going to try to do, though.
• 8:19
  Mark, feel free to hit me up if I screw up the last name.
• 8:23
  Mark Abel, right? Yeah.
• 8:26
  Close enough. Wait, wait, wait. Say it. Abel. Abel. I think I say it the way
• 8:29
  you do, Eric, so I don't screw it up, too.
• 8:32
  I tell him right, it's close enough all the time. So, Mark, you were a volunteer
• 8:35
  firefighter out in Hamilton? Yeah. Started in Sterling and then moved out to
• 8:40
  Hamilton. I've been volunteer here for 27 years. Awesome, brother. So...
• 8:45
  One, I want to learn a little bit about that, right? Because we're in a area
• 8:49
  that has careers and volunteers and how that works. It's a combined system. Okay. All right.
• 8:56
  Awesome. Well, hey, first of all, welcome, gentlemen. Glad to have you.
• 8:59
  Welcome, guys. Thank you guys for coming out today. Thanks for having us.
• 9:01
  It's awesome, man. So, John, let's start out because you run in the same problem
• 9:05
  I do. Most people don't even want to hear from us. They like what we bring in
• 9:08
  with us on a leash, right? So, let's have a quick conversation about your friend.
• 9:13
  Absolutely. So, uh, his name is United States Naval Captain Jeffrey Zimmerman,
• 9:17
  and he goes by call sign Birdie.
• 9:18
  It's a lot easier to say Birdie than that whole other part, right?
• 9:21
  And he comes from the Hero Dogs Incorporated out of Gaithersburg, Maryland.
• 9:25
  What they do is they raise and train service animals for veterans and first
• 9:29
  responders. They give about six dogs a year out.
• 9:32
  And so after two years ago, we had our, what's called our Silver Ridge incident,
• 9:37
  where we had a house blow up here in Lownd County.
• 9:40
  Killed firefighter Trevor Brown and injured Ted Moore, sending two to the burn center.
• 9:44
  Immediately after that, being part of the peer support team,
• 9:47
  our peer, one of our peer support leads was able to go out and we contacted,
• 9:50
  we got 22 different dogs to come in.
• 9:52
  And we took those dogs with us to firehouses to do peer support.
• 9:56
  And there was a dramatic difference we could see in the people that would open
• 9:59
  up when we brought those animals with us.
• 10:01
  And the other cool things too is there were dogs from all kinds of different
• 10:04
  organizations. And it gave us the ability to then see, you know,
• 10:07
  not all dogs are equals, you know, having your own, right? Yep.
• 10:10
  All these organizations are meeting well, but they don't all train to the same
• 10:13
  standard. And so Hero Dogs was on the top of our list once we saw that.
• 10:17
  And so we reached out afterwards and we're like, hey, we think about we'd really
• 10:21
  like to get a dog from you guys.
• 10:22
  You know, what's that process? Like, we'll fill out the forms.
• 10:26
  And we only do six a year and we'll throw you somewhere in the mix.
• 10:30
  And after they learned about Silveridge, they're like, we're moving you to the top.
• 10:34
  So and not to break in, but there was a difference, right?
• 10:37
  Right. So when, you know, we talk about a service dog, normally a service dog
• 10:41
  is trained for one individual, that person.
• 10:44
  Bertie performs a different role there. It's more of a working dog in your department.
• 10:48
  Yeah, normally he's listed, people would call him a facility dog.
• 10:52
  And so with Bertie, with his training, he passed his service dog testing,
• 10:55
  but because he had allergies and we have to give him shots that,
• 10:59
  you know, Hero Dog's mission is that the dog should take care of you,
• 11:02
  the veteran or the first responder.
• 11:03
  You shouldn't have to take care of it. And because of they're so strict,
• 11:06
  they removed him from the full service dog program.
• 11:08
  But because of his his nap to be able to sense human emotion and comfort and
• 11:13
  do compression therapy, they're like, this is what this dog's calling.
• 11:16
  It still is. Well, and when you originally went out to get a dog,
• 11:19
  if I remember correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong,
• 11:21
  it was some of it was you were looking for.
• 11:25
  A department dog, right? That, that would be able to assist behavioral health
• 11:29
  and all that other stuff to, to, for the psychological piece,
• 11:33
  right? That was a big part of it.
• 11:35
  So my point was, this wasn't John getting a service dog, like Havoc's assigned
• 11:39
  to me, like, don't get me wrong. He goes off to everybody else and,
• 11:42
  and, and he acts as emotional support to them, but he is my service dog.
• 11:47
  If I remember the way it is, you guys were getting one for the fire department.
• 11:50
  And one of the early things was it needs to be assigned to somebody, not just to a house.
• 11:55
  And there was all these other stipulations to make sure, one,
• 11:59
  the dog was cared for, to make sure it was being implemented the way it was
• 12:02
  supposed to. And that there just needed to be a single point.
• 12:05
  And that ended up being you because you believed in this thing.
• 12:07
  That's correct. And then at the same time, you know, being union president,
• 12:10
  I was able to get my job. I'm on what's called full release.
• 12:12
  So even though I'm a lieutenant for the fire department, my day-to-day job is the union president.
• 12:17
  But I also serve in the peer support team. So it all came together very well
• 12:20
  that I was like, I will take the dog.
• 12:22
  I'll be part, because I'm already part of the team and I'll bear all the costs,
• 12:25
  which I still do to this day in the housing and everything else in the training for him afterwards.
• 12:29
  Because it's just so important to me that we get this dog through because the
• 12:32
  department at the time wasn't willing to put the money into an FTE or full-time
• 12:36
  position. Well, let's talk about, there's a stigma, right?
• 12:38
  There was a stigma about having a dog, what it really could do and what it could provide.
• 12:42
  Just a quick story. I'd met John and we were talking about this whole process.
• 12:47
  Thought it was a phenomenal idea and told him however I could support.
• 12:51
  He took me to meet the behavioral health and we had conversations,
• 12:55
  thought it was a great idea.
• 12:56
  I don't know if John remembers this, but they were kind of giving me a tour
• 13:00
  of the firehouse. And we had just talked about.
• 13:03
  Why a dog would be better than, than, you know, than not having one.
• 13:08
  And our point was a lot of times, let's face it, there's still stigma behind
• 13:11
  that. Somebody doesn't want to just talk to behavioral health that sometimes,
• 13:15
  you know, it just doesn't always work.
• 13:17
  Can't imagine the stuff that they go through as firefighters is easy to get
• 13:22
  out to just people. But what we also was like, there's a lot of times some of
• 13:26
  these grizzly old bastards will sit there and talk to a dog,
• 13:28
  no problem, pet the dog and talk to it.
• 13:30
  And then behavioral health don't have to say anything. They just sit there,
• 13:33
  take notes on whatever they need to do.
• 13:35
  And we just got done talking about that. So John and them took me over to the
• 13:39
  house and I'm getting a tour of the house.
• 13:41
  Grizzly old bastard sitting in a chair. I don't even remember who it was.
• 13:46
  And I said, watch this. I let Havoc go.
• 13:49
  Crotchety old bastard you know whatever he was doing whatever he was doing havoc came over bro
• 13:54
  and then he turned into the biggest kid on the floor with the dog my point to
• 13:57
  you is what the dogs do it relaxes them brings that out of them and allows them
• 14:02
  to so i think it's phenomenal idea that's great yeah i mean we have a good example
• 14:05
  where unfortunately you know there
• 14:06
  was last year there's two different suicides in the state of virginia
• 14:09
  and is being part of the peer support team and being part of our actually the
• 14:12
  state team with birdie uh they contacted reached reached out and said hey can
• 14:15
  you just come help help out with peer support and and bring birdie and i said of course
• 14:19
  and so the one local jurisdiction that happened and we showed up to the shift
• 14:22
  where the gentleman worked they took took his own life killed himself,
• 14:26
  and you know we're there we're meeting with most of the shift and they're they're
• 14:29
  mostly jovial they everybody loves dogs and we're hanging around the kitchen
• 14:32
  table and then i see somebody walk out of the back area past the kitchen and
• 14:36
  sit down in a recliner and then all of a sudden birdie's with us he just gets
• 14:39
  up and walks away and i'm like,
• 14:41
  lab he's gonna go in the kitchen try to get a snack right.
• 14:43
  And now it goes over and the gentleman looks at him and then Bertie puts his head in the lap.
• 14:48
  The guy pats his lap. Bertie jumps up and falls asleep in the guy's lap.
• 14:51
  It was the shift meat of the guy who took his own life. Really?
• 14:54
  It's those things that you just can't train, right? The dogs just had the intuition
• 14:57
  where at this table, these guys seemed pretty okay. And this energy walked in
• 15:01
  and he just went over, you know, and helped him out. And then we were also asked
• 15:05
  to go down after the plane crash in D.C.
• 15:07
  We spent a week down there with the IFF as the crews were coming in from D.C.
• 15:11
  And you'd see the biggest guys and not want to talk at all. And then,
• 15:14
  you know, the dog would go over and especially as a trained peer support,
• 15:18
  you would hear somebody be like, that's a rough call and that's your end. Tell me more.
• 15:22
  Right. The dog is, I joke around, I actually have it on my, my,
• 15:25
  my thing here is a facility dog is an emotional breaching tool, right?
• 15:29
  You can use that to break, break their emotion and get them to open and talk.
• 15:32
  And especially so if you pair a really good dog with a trained individual,
• 15:36
  you can get a lot more out of somebody and help them out.
• 15:38
  But the other problem I've run into as we award service dogs,
• 15:42
  and I'm constantly reminded, not all handlers are created equal and not all
• 15:46
  service dogs are trained equal. Absolutely true. Absolutely,
• 15:49
  yeah. And I'm not going to, you know.
• 15:51
  I got my dog from an organization that said he was a throwaway and they gave
• 15:56
  me him and was like, eh, here's a dog and just move on.
• 15:59
  Come to find out, I probably ended up with one of the best that I couldn't have
• 16:03
  ever asked for a better dog because he does exactly more than I could ever ask
• 16:06
  in this role. I mean, Havoc? Yes. Seriously?
• 16:09
  Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 16:12
  I mean, that some bitch needs to be punched in the face who ever said that about Havoc.
• 16:16
  I'll do it. So John, I appreciate that man you you brought up a couple topics
• 16:20
  i want to get back to but first i want to go over to mark mark like,
• 16:25
  how'd you get into firefighting i mean like where did that come from when like
• 16:29
  where were you at in life volunteer for as long as you have how'd this start
• 16:32
  yeah i mean i think the funny part about it is john
• 16:35
  probably tested some of this is that we had a friend that just passed away recently
• 16:39
  uh captain danny wilson and,
• 16:41
  him and i were very close as when we were younger and we used to,
• 16:46
  raise a lot of hell. Really? No.
• 16:49
  You don't say. Yeah, just a little bit.
• 16:54
  And one day we just walked in the firehouse and we're like, well, this kind of looks cool.
• 17:00
  I mean, who doesn't want to jump on a fire truck? As a kid, that's- Where were
• 17:03
  you at? Like, what age are we talking? Uh, 17. Okay. Yeah, you were a kid then. Yeah.
• 17:06
  Okay. So, and I was at that point in my life too where I had just had a child
• 17:11
  and there was a lot going on in my life. So was this the mustache mullet phase? Yes. Okay. Yes.
• 17:18
  The part in the middle, all the, all that good stuff. You got to see the picture.
• 17:21
  I wish I could fucking show it right now. I had to cut my hair off.
• 17:25
  I mean, I got a picture of this mullet. What were you driving at the time?
• 17:29
  Is this a Joe Dirk? Danny, well, of course I didn't have a, I had a 1984 Chevy Chevette.
• 17:36
  There you go. But that wasn't cool to ride that. So we drove around in.
• 17:42
  Danny's Dodge Daytona. So that was.
• 17:45
  That's okay. I was going to say, just so you know, your buddy,
• 17:48
  Jen, is the one that dared me to mention the mullet and the mustache.
• 17:52
  It was, you know, the porn stash, all that good stuff.
• 17:55
  There was a lot going on. So bro, you don't, you don't just literally, I mean, maybe you do.
• 17:59
  I mean, you literally just walked into the fire department or you,
• 18:01
  you knew somebody or somebody walked by or.
• 18:03
  Well, we had another friend that had just joined. Who's chief Collins who just
• 18:08
  retired through Loudoun County fire and rescue.
• 18:10
  And he had just started and then we all decided i mean what the hell what else
• 18:16
  are we doing like it was a huge group of us so we got nothing to do so real
• 18:20
  is it you did it kind of like the buddy system going in the military i mean it's a little easier.
• 18:24
  I probably would have never done it on my own but and then i also said well
• 18:29
  this might help balance my life out a little bit like get me on a different
• 18:32
  path and then when i started doing it and,
• 18:36
  how much i enjoyed it it was i was like i was Like, did you know right away
• 18:40
  this was your thing? Yeah, 100%. Did you? Yeah.
• 18:43
  That's awesome. Like I said, 27 years of volunteer. That's pretty insane to
• 18:48
  have someone there that long. Right. So explain this to me because I don't know,
• 18:52
  and I think a lot of other people don't know, they hear volunteer.
• 18:55
  Does volunteer mean absolutely volunteer, there's no pay, or you only get paid
• 18:58
  for certain times, or you got to maintain a job and do?
• 19:02
  I mean, what does that really mean to the average person? It depends where you
• 19:05
  are, honestly. In Loudoun County, we don't get paid. We do get a small retirement.
• 19:11
  And you get, there's certain benefits. I know I've read up on some of those.
• 19:13
  Personal property tax on our car. We don't pay that.
• 19:16
  There's other little things. Or you could just get blown up in Iraq.
• 19:18
  That works for me. Yeah. I'll stay here and run into a burning building.
• 19:23
  But I, you know, it's, I never thought of it as the benefit.
• 19:27
  Obviously now that I'm older. Well, you're glad to have.
• 19:29
  It's a side thing. Hey, I'm glad I'm getting it, but that's not why.
• 19:32
  No. That's not a decision. Yeah.
• 19:33
  100%. You never think about that when you're younger. Are you just thinking
• 19:36
  about kind of the rush of running into a building or helping somebody or making
• 19:42
  someone's life better at that moment? I mean, I think that's what was always most important to me.
• 19:47
  And, you know, I mean, I think that's what it should always be for somebody that does his job.
• 19:52
  So how does Loudoun County handle it? So I'll speak from my experience when I was volunteer.
• 19:56
  I enjoyed the fire side, didn't care much for the first responder side,
• 20:00
  the ambulance and stuff like that, but it was a necessity, right?
• 20:03
  You had to be EMT, qualified, whatever.
• 20:06
  So go through that. What I ended up finding, though, is I was stuck in the ambulance
• 20:10
  twice and then the fire truck once, and that was the rotation.
• 20:13
  And I was like, no, no, this is not what I said. So that helped my decision
• 20:16
  get in the way, because that's not the part of it.
• 20:18
  Granted, I know on a truck, you're still hitting the scene, and you're still,
• 20:23
  doing EMT things, right? Especially when you're up on vehicle accidents, all that other stuff.
• 20:28
  However, that wasn't the focus. How does Loudoun County handle that?
• 20:32
  What does that look like? Well, see, I'm not a John.
• 20:35
  John's got a different job than I do. So as a career, he's got no choice.
• 20:39
  So he kind of got to do that. Now, he may be on the engine all the time or on
• 20:42
  a truck. I'm not sure what he's on. John wears a suit and looks pretty.
• 20:44
  Yeah, I do. Yeah, 100%. He always looks good in a suit. That I will attest to.
• 20:50
  So when you join as a volunteer, you obviously, the county's changed.
• 20:54
  So now you, you need to be an EMT.
• 20:58
  You need to have that skill because a lot of times an engine may be the first
• 21:03
  on the scene typically. So, or on the truck or wherever you may be.
• 21:06
  So that, that is where it kind of differs where it used to be.
• 21:10
  Fire truck just did fire stuff. Ambulance did ambulance stuff.
• 21:13
  And if you were in the rescue squad, you were on the rescue squad.
• 21:16
  You didn't come to the fire side unless you had the certs to do it, which some people did.
• 21:20
  But other than that, like me, my, I prefer to stay on a squad truck or on a
• 21:24
  ladder truck. I really don't care about a hose.
• 21:27
  So I accept my own, but.
• 21:30
  No, but. Yeah.
• 21:32
  I, I, that's my, my thing, how I would rather do it. But again,
• 21:36
  I still have to perform that skill set.
• 21:38
  So give us a sense of, so, cause you've been doing this a while and obviously
• 21:43
  you found success in it and, and happiness candidly. How do you navigate?
• 21:47
  And I'm, cause I'm assuming it's different. How do you navigate the,
• 21:51
  the volunteer side and kind of getting what you want and where you want and
• 21:56
  how does all that work in that system?
• 21:58
  And I know it differs anywhere you're at, but I'm real curious.
• 22:00
  Like, I think when you're younger, you have a lot more time obviously to do
• 22:04
  it nowadays. days, like if I had to go back through it again,
• 22:07
  I probably wouldn't do it because there's, I say that about starting a charity.
• 22:12
  I mean, John, John will tell you, I mean, he knows that the standard in Loudoun
• 22:15
  County is very high of, as far as a career staff and a volunteer.
• 22:18
  We're probably John, probably say the highest in Virginia or some of the nation.
• 22:23
  So our standards are, are super high and you have to keep those standards,
• 22:26
  whether you're a volunteer or a career staff. So,
• 22:30
  It's much harder to do that now, especially as an older person finding the time.
• 22:34
  It takes a couple of years rather than six to eight months. I was going to say,
• 22:37
  because this is not your only job, right? Correct. So what else do you do?
• 22:40
  So I am part owner in a pest and wildlife company.
• 22:44
  So I. What kind of pests? You got to hear this because. I'm very interested.
• 22:49
  Well, he went off to wildlife. So that even got me more. Yes.
• 22:52
  I mean, you know, we just caught some beavers in a culvert yesterday.
• 22:55
  I just caught one too. Yeah.
• 22:59
  So yeah i mean any michelle is regretting coming today just so you know,
• 23:04
  i mean pretty much any past any any type of anything rats you name it mice any
• 23:08
  of that good stuff we get we get snakes in our attic i'm calling mark and being
• 23:12
  like hey this needs this needs to go because i don't touch because i'll go pick
• 23:15
  them right up and people are like oh my god you know you get
• 23:18
  people are different culturally here so some cultures are more scared of snakes than others so it's it's
• 23:22
  it's very it's an interesting job the indians are very afraid of everything's a cobra,
• 23:28
  indian people bro how do you not hypnotize hypnotize a snake i mean i don't
• 23:34
  i don't have a flute there's no basket where i'm trying to whatever but i,
• 23:39
  i would say the reason i i do enjoy it so much is because it's kind of like
• 23:43
  firefighting in a way because it is something different every day and you always
• 23:47
  have to come up with a different solution so.
• 23:51
  I that's how i kind of equate it to that it's never the same Just like every
• 23:55
  call we go to is typically not the same.
• 23:58
  You know, rarely do you run into the same thing. So what, I guess,
• 24:02
  for lack of better words of asking, what's the lowest expectation? In other words...
• 24:06
  I think that's a little easier because you, I would assume in your job,
• 24:10
  you, you create your own schedule around, right?
• 24:13
  How do people do volunteer and maintain jobs? And I mean, is it practical?
• 24:18
  Is it doable? Or do you, you gotta be, you know, are you really putting your
• 24:22
  other life on hold? How does that, what does that look like,
• 24:24
  bro? You've seen enough of that.
• 24:25
  Yeah, I mean, you do typically your family. I mean, just like John deals with,
• 24:29
  he's got to put his family on hold.
• 24:31
  Same thing. I mean, obviously they know when he's gone. Me, it could be a call
• 24:35
  comes out and I may run up to the station if something doesn't get out.
• 24:38
  Or I have an assigned crew typically. So I will go and go to my shift and then
• 24:44
  typically run from like 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
• 24:47
  Sometimes on a weekend, I may show up at 6 a.m., run with the career staff.
• 24:51
  It's the nice thing about loudon county is there's a stigma a lot of times between
• 24:55
  career and volunteer everybody's different there's.
• 24:59
  I embrace that because we're all the same we're all doing the same thing whether
• 25:04
  people like to admit that or not we are especially in loud with having that high standard
• 25:08
  we all have to have that so i can go run with those guys and they're always
• 25:11
  very welcoming of having me here so and,
• 25:15
  you know it's nice to have somebody too with experience you're not running with a new guy too.
• 25:18
  So, so, so with what we'll pretend like the union president's not listening.
• 25:26
  So is there a rift? Is there a rift between volunteer and career? There is at times.
• 25:32
  So the older generation was not a fan of the career staff. The newer generation
• 25:37
  is more accepting because those are the ones that typically now go into a career job.
• 25:42
  Whereas before or Loudoun County was strictly volunteer. So when I first started
• 25:46
  volunteering, I actually ran, because my job was weird, so I had a lot of off time.
• 25:52
  So I would stay in the mornings and run with the first career staff that were in Loudoun County.
• 25:58
  I enjoyed working and learning from them and they were great guys.
• 26:01
  I mean, most of them just recently retired over the last few years.
• 26:05
  I mean, I can't say enough great things about them. So everyone's got differences, but you know what?
• 26:12
  John deals with the career staff. John is looking at you very intently. That's all.
• 26:17
  Stop writing, John. Stop writing.
• 26:20
  I have a ton of respect for John and, and what he does obviously on,
• 26:24
  on a daily. Cause I, he's got a lot of responsibility. I wouldn't want John's
• 26:27
  job. So I, I, I, I'll be honest, everything he said he's doing,
• 26:31
  I don't know why he's taking it on.
• 26:33
  That's a lot to take on. Cause he's got a fun, those luxury rides.
• 26:37
  He drives in it every time I see him. It's ridiculous. You were telling me about
• 26:40
  this earlier side hustles that we don't know about. We're going to have to check into this.
• 26:44
  I mean, I'll, I'll tell you, I've met John more recently. So him and I aren't,
• 26:47
  we're Queens. I was going to ask you if you guys knew each other.
• 26:50
  What did he show up and flex on you one day? That's what he tried to do to me.
• 26:53
  And I didn't, I didn't accept that. You guys are a lot bigger than I am.
• 26:58
  But no, I'll say that I have a ton of respect for John just from when I was
• 27:02
  talking about our friend that passed away from occupational cancer.
• 27:07
  There was a big, huge dispute because of the laws and the way the laws were
• 27:11
  written. And John took his butt.
• 27:14
  To the county and pretty much demanded that they take care of his family.
• 27:18
  John put on his political role and did what he had to do. Absolutely,
• 27:21
  100%. It was amazing to watch.
• 27:23
  And candidly, I watched some of that, John, and good on you,
• 27:25
  because the way you fight, reminiscent, I don't want to say,
• 27:28
  oh, that's like how I do it too, but everybody else would be damned.
• 27:32
  You had a focus and you were going after it. You were going to take care of
• 27:34
  family, take care of— For your people. So good on you. Yeah,
• 27:37
  for your people. And I can tell with him, even though it's his job,
• 27:40
  you can tell he legitimately is passionate.
• 27:44
  Like he, I can tell when he speaks that his passion is that he loves doing that
• 27:50
  and was there for the right reasons, which makes the job a little bit easier.
• 27:54
  Not everybody does that. Yeah. When you have a passion, it's no longer a job,
• 27:58
  right? It's a passion. There's a difference. If it's a job, there's task lists.
• 28:00
  You do your task list and you're done. It's a passion ever ends, right?
• 28:03
  You continue over and over again. And with Danny, when I go speak,
• 28:07
  I write speeches and I read them dozens and dozens of times.
• 28:10
  It was almost memorized.
• 28:12
  The last time I spoke about Danny in public, I didn't write anything.
• 28:15
  It was just so emotional. I was like, I can't write something.
• 28:17
  There was passion behind that.
• 28:18
  I want this from my heart and just spoke the entire five minutes just from the
• 28:21
  heart because that's what needed to come across. The technical speeches are over.
• 28:25
  This guy is now dead. His family is sitting behind me.
• 28:28
  You're damned if you're not going to give him the coverage he deserves over
• 28:31
  the almost 30-year career he had here at Lyme County.
• 28:34
  Now, guys, that's a phenomenal story. Thank you for that. Thank you for giving us some background.
• 28:40
  We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, I would like to get into,
• 28:44
  if you don't mind, kind of the fire department and what happened,
• 28:48
  you know, the day that explosion happened. Because that was a big deal across Mike County.
• 28:52
  So I'd like to get into that if you guys don't mind. Yes, sir.
• 28:55
  Awesome. Thanks, guys. We'll be back.
• 29:17
  Welcome back. We're with John Myers and Mark Abel.
• 29:22
  That's still wrong. Got it. Oh, did he get it? Got it. That's perfect.
• 29:25
  I've always called him Abel, just so you know. Yeah, whatever. Again, that's close.
• 29:28
  Like, I'm going to take cues from an Indian. I'm sorry.
• 29:33
  Fuck you. When we left off, we were getting some phenomenal information about
• 29:37
  the fire department from y'all.
• 29:39
  I've got a story that I want to tell about one of your old chiefs.
• 29:44
  Just so you guys know, he's been dying to tell this story for a while.
• 29:47
  So this is a silliness of when you bring outside folks into your world, right?
• 29:52
  So I'm up, I think this was during COVID, because if I remember correctly, I was wearing a mask.
• 29:57
  I was up at the Board of Supervisors to brief them on CJ3 for the county.
• 30:03
  And, you know, your chief walked in and had his whole entourage,
• 30:07
  as I frequently saw him do, which kind of made me laugh.
• 30:11
  But I didn't know who he was at that time, so I'm talking about what we do and all that.
• 30:15
  And it was the first time I think he was exposed to it. And so he had one of
• 30:19
  his administration folks, I don't know, I assume flag me down and bring me over.
• 30:24
  So I, I come over and he's, and he said, Hey, so you're the director and founder
• 30:29
  of the foundation. Right. And I was like, yep.
• 30:31
  He said, Hey, I appreciate what you do. I appreciate whatever.
• 30:33
  And he, and he said, hand me his card and said, whatever I can do to help. Here's my card.
• 30:39
  I looked at it. I went, huh.
• 30:42
  Look to him, look back at it. And I said, I don't know what you can do to help,
• 30:46
  but thanks. I appreciate it. He said, what?
• 30:49
  I said, what does the chief financial officer going to do to help me out on the department?
• 30:55
  And a couple of folks laughed around him.
• 30:58
  And then he said, what'd you just say? I said, the chief financial officer,
• 31:02
  what do I care about the financial department or the fire department,
• 31:04
  unless you can't give us money or something? He's like,
• 31:07
  No, that's not what that stands for. So then I looked at the gal.
• 31:09
  She explained what it stood for. And guys, what does it stand for?
• 31:12
  The chief fire officer. Yes, thank you.
• 31:15
  And so in our world, it's very different. He told me the story and he said it.
• 31:19
  I'm like, yeah, what is the chief financial officer?
• 31:22
  It's kind of close. It's like my last name. So it was funny because I guess
• 31:27
  I kind of punked him and didn't even mean to. And it was just kind of like,
• 31:29
  oh, yeah, that we come from different worlds. And that went away quickly after
• 31:33
  Eric offended him a little bit. It's fine. It's what Eric does.
• 31:37
  So John was no longer able to help the foundation.
• 31:41
  He's like, keep that guy away from me. His picture went up on every fucking firehouse in the area.
• 31:46
  So, hey, so I remember, man, big to do in Loudoun County, big explosion that happened.
• 31:53
  Let's let's get into that day. And this isn't meant to bring tears or anything
• 31:57
  like that. It just it was a big deal here. And there's some folks interested.
• 32:01
  So maybe one of y'all can just kind of give a once over the world of what happened
• 32:05
  that Just like the overall. I was going to say, what are the perspectives from
• 32:08
  both of their situations? Yeah, let's get into what it was just to tell everybody
• 32:13
  what this explosion was.
• 32:14
  And then, you know, the bad thing that happened out of it, but then kind of
• 32:19
  your perspectives and where you were when it happened. Because that's,
• 32:22
  you know, in the world of Loudoun County, that was a significant day.
• 32:26
  Yeah, so it was two years ago, February, and the call initially went out as a gas leak.
• 32:32
  And so, you know, went outside as a outside gas leak first, which only gets
• 32:35
  a normally one engine response.
• 32:38
  But because the closest engine was on another call, it got a ladder truck from
• 32:43
  the next closest location and plus an engine.
• 32:45
  And so once they got there, they're, you know, investigating around and they
• 32:49
  could smell something, but they couldn't figure out where it's coming from.
• 32:51
  And then, you know, one of the people said, oh, it might be in my,
• 32:53
  you know, might be in my house. We're not sure.
• 32:55
  And so once that happened, they're like, okay, now from an outside to an inside
• 32:59
  gas leak, you get a lot more units because it's a bigger deal,
• 33:02
  right? Outside, it kind of floats around. It doesn't concentrate as much typically.
• 33:05
  And so inside, bigger deal. And so when they upgraded that, and also we're calling
• 33:09
  for a hazmat response, because when you have these outside gas leaks,
• 33:13
  we have a fully staffed hazmat unit in South Riding.
• 33:16
  And they have all kinds of metering software. So they can set up these posts
• 33:19
  and go from where they think it is all the way out.
• 33:23
  So depending on which way the wind's blowing, they can say, okay,
• 33:25
  the concentration of this gas is going this way or that way.
• 33:28
  It can help, and it helps create an evacuation area if they need to be.
• 33:32
  And so when that happened afterwards, then there was a callback on the radio for the house exploded.
• 33:39
  And so what ended up happening was there was a buried underground propane tank for a pool.
• 33:45
  And the tank was leaking. And there is an ongoing legal battle,
• 33:50
  right? There was already a court case that's been tried and he's been convicted.
• 33:54
  There's appeals out there.
• 33:56
  There was a company that was out there earlier to mitigate the situation.
• 34:00
  They said that, you know, there was a leak, but it's not a big deal.
• 34:03
  We'll be back out in a couple days. Apparently, it was a big deal.
• 34:08
  Yeah, apparently. And, you know, because it was a holiday weekend.
• 34:12
  And individuals, you know, it's not common knowledge. So, propane and natural
• 34:15
  gas have something called macafton add to it because it's naturally doesn't smell.
• 34:20
  But the issue is when gas goes through ground, it scrubs out,
• 34:24
  filters out that smell. So when they're inside the house, they're not getting
• 34:29
  any smells, but they were initially getting readings on the meter and like, this doesn't line up.
• 34:33
  I don't smell anything. Our meters are saying something.
• 34:35
  We had two of our individuals that were in the basement. Wait,
• 34:38
  actually, what caused them to even realize there was gas? Because if it was
• 34:42
  filtering out smell, were the people not feeling well?
• 34:46
  So you smelled that outside. So it was filtering the, it filtered the smell
• 34:50
  from when the house, so the house that actually exploded, that had the high
• 34:53
  concentration on, you couldn't smell it in there because it was filtered out.
• 34:56
  But the individual call, that's why it went out initially as a outside gas,
• 35:00
  because you could smell the propane in the neighborhood. And that's,
• 35:02
  they were trying to figure out where is this coming from.
• 35:05
  And, I mean, that's, you know, after a long investigation and,
• 35:08
  you know, they were able to, you know, dig up the tank, look at all of that.
• 35:11
  There's a full, I mean, we have a Silver Ridge report for the fire department.
• 35:14
  We have an entire battalion chief that's now assigned to all the findings to
• 35:17
  make sure that they're implemented throughout that.
• 35:20
  And so, you know, the house exploded and, you know, it instantly killed Trevor Brown.
• 35:25
  And then we had, you know, we had two individuals and, you know,
• 35:28
  I won't mention the rest of their names, you know, Trevor's names out there,
• 35:30
  obviously. But there was two other individuals that were in the basement that
• 35:34
  ended up having a call on Mayday.
• 35:35
  One of those individuals, he was a lieutenant at the time. They now use his
• 35:39
  Mayday call in trainings in D.C. because it was so incredibly calm.
• 35:43
  But he was in the basement. The basement was on fire. And he was slowly running
• 35:48
  out of air. And he could see the fire growing more and more.
• 35:51
  And he couldn't move out and get out with his SCBA on because there wasn't enough room.
• 35:56
  And he was making his call saying, hey, he's reporting back.
• 35:59
  Here's how much air I have left. and it was going down and down.
• 36:02
  And then eventually he's like, I'm going to have to make the call of taking,
• 36:05
  this air pack off and crawling out any hole I can find. That or I'm just going
• 36:09
  to sit here and burn to death.
• 36:11
  And so right as he was making that call, one of our rescues was there and they
• 36:15
  were making their way to him and he was about to go one way and the rescue came
• 36:19
  out or came down and was able to like direct him the correct way and they were able to get him out.
• 36:24
  The other individual, he wasn't buried in the rubble like Chris was.
• 36:28
  And so they were able to throw a ladder down to him and get him back out so
• 36:33
  how bad were their injuries did they sustain um the in the gentleman i said
• 36:36
  that came up through the ladder uh spent over over a month.
• 36:40
  And and the critical burn unit in dc uh chris spent i want to say two to three
• 36:44
  weeks there and you know so the one individual still has surgeries to this day
• 36:49
  one of his burns because they were third degree burns to his entire backside,
• 36:53
  And also to the, to their faces and the same with the first individual,
• 36:58
  same thing. He just was lucky to not have the same level.
• 37:01
  And their, their speculation is the, the direction they were facing was,
• 37:05
  you know, the blast circle is actually the best place to be when you're talking
• 37:08
  about for percussion, but not for burn.
• 37:10
  And so because they weren't instantly killed because there's no project,
• 37:13
  really no projectiles to hit them because they were inside that circle and everything
• 37:16
  else went around them. But the issue is you're inside that, the fireball.
• 37:20
  And so the way they were facing is where the majority of the burns were on the,
• 37:23
  on the, where the fire went to.
• 37:25
  And so, I mean, while Chris, I mean, Chris and Brian, all these first names
• 37:28
  only were in the burn center.
• 37:30
  One of the biggest things that helped them out was the, actually the DC burn foundation.
• 37:34
  Every single day they brought the different firehouses, cooked meals and brought
• 37:38
  them for, for them and however many loved ones were at the burn center themselves.
• 37:42
  And they put up their families as well in the local hotel so they didn't have
• 37:47
  to drive all the way from home and back and they could stay right down there,
• 37:50
  with their loved one as it happened.
• 37:52
  So it was, but then there's a lot of other individuals, I mean,
• 37:56
  we had one of our members that was at the front door that just got blasted through
• 38:00
  the front yard. Knocked on the ass, man.
• 38:01
  Completely face full of shrapnel, concussions to the point you couldn't remember.
• 38:04
  You know, there's varying ranges.
• 38:06
  There was also some members from the Australian Volunteer Fire Department that
• 38:09
  had massive facial trauma.
• 38:11
  There's actually video out there from that, not public, but they could see them
• 38:15
  walking around afterwards.
• 38:16
  And the word is they look like a zombie because they have no idea what just.
• 38:19
  So when something has and not being judgmental at all, I come from a world where
• 38:23
  TBI is a real thing, traumatic brain injury. Right. And a lot of that comes
• 38:27
  from explosions and things like that.
• 38:29
  Do they do testing for that after an incident like that for folks,
• 38:33
  or is that not a thing? So it is becoming new now, which is very important that
• 38:37
  they sent this individual to the concussion clinic.
• 38:40
  And now we're talking about different policies. And part of the change coming
• 38:43
  from this is, you know, we need to make sure we're sending these individuals
• 38:46
  to concussion clinics, whether it's not just an explosion or when they have any kind of head injury.
• 38:50
  Before, it was go to the emergency room, like when I had mine,
• 38:54
  go to the emergency room. okay, the old adage of sit in the dark,
• 38:57
  don't watch TV, which is not true anymore, right?
• 39:00
  Don't go to sleep, if I remember correctly. Don't go to sleep,
• 39:02
  right? And so now we sent them to legitimate because one of the things we learned,
• 39:06
  especially these concussion clinics, is they need to exercise the parts of their brain, right?
• 39:10
  They need to do certain things, whether it's with their hands or math or like
• 39:13
  these clinics now know what to do to exercise and help you out after these injuries
• 39:17
  to make sure that your brain relearns or regrows the part that was damaged.
• 39:21
  Yep. No, that's interesting to me. I'm glad to hear they're incorporating some of that.
• 39:26
  I hope that, uh, that goes back to my statement before, right?
• 39:29
  Everybody talks about, oh, the military and dude, you guys are experiencing
• 39:32
  some of the explosions and explosion is explosion. I don't care. Right. Mine was an IED.
• 39:37
  You know, this one is a building. Bottom line is the other side is then I also
• 39:42
  don't like when people say, well, you know, this person didn't get it as bad
• 39:46
  as that other person. So they don't need to get checked out.
• 39:49
  Well, the real thing is what you don't understand.
• 39:51
  I can tell you myself and a buddy, we're in Afghanistan. We both got blown up at the same time.
• 39:56
  It didn't affect me. I was fine. No issues, no anything. He had to leave the
• 40:01
  service, full disability,
• 40:03
  migraines for years and years, you know, all kinds of things because what,
• 40:07
  you can both be in the exact same spot, but it hits you differently or physically
• 40:12
  you're built differently and all that other stuff.
• 40:14
  And it affects you differently. Right. So at the end of the day,
• 40:16
  I like what John's saying. If you're around it, if it happens in near you or
• 40:20
  you're part of it, you should go get checked out anyway. Absolutely.
• 40:23
  It's just kind of like a car accident too, right? Because you may feel fine,
• 40:27
  but then the next day you wake up and all of a sudden your neck hurts.
• 40:30
  And then you don't have no help around you, right? Right. Yeah.
• 40:33
  So the community, I will say this, I'll applaud this community afterwards.
• 40:38
  It was kind of neat to watch, right? It's kind of like, like I say,
• 40:42
  about 9-12-2001, it was the best worst day because it takes a tragedy to bring
• 40:47
  the community together, right?
• 40:49
  I've never seen our nation together as much as we did on 9-12, right?
• 40:54
  Horrible thing, but phenomenal to see.
• 40:57
  On a smaller level, I would attribute, you know, not being with the fire department,
• 41:01
  my work in the federal government, whatever.
• 41:03
  But the amount of tribute and support and love and all that that I saw for that
• 41:08
  day and for our loss was pretty phenomenal.
• 41:12
  Absolutely. You know, we have in a lot of counties something called the First
• 41:14
  Responders Foundation.
• 41:16
  And they were able to raise, because it's a bunch of business owners that just
• 41:19
  support Leo and Fire Department.
• 41:21
  And through their actions, they raised after that hundreds of thousands of dollars
• 41:25
  through community support and support and different events right after Silver Ridge.
• 41:30
  That's awesome. man so that was obviously a significant mark what you got man like,
• 41:37
  what what's what's a day on the job that that just put you on your heels or
• 41:41
  that you thought either this is why i signed up or what the fuck was that because,
• 41:49
  we all have at least one and they don't even have to be grand some of them are
• 41:53
  just so weird or so crazy or whatever you just i mean some days you laugh some days you cry.
• 41:58
  I mean, I think it's when you do it, you're in a,
• 42:03
  At least when I do it, when I go in, it's a, it's like you flip a switch.
• 42:07
  You're a different, you're just a different person when you go in,
• 42:10
  you have to be, you know, when we talk about, I feel like generational things
• 42:14
  are differently now too.
• 42:15
  There's, you know, everybody, again, everybody's kind of different.
• 42:19
  You look like you get in your feels pretty often. Yeah. You know, it's funny.
• 42:24
  Certain things, like I, I'll always remember the first death that I saw as a,
• 42:30
  you know, seeing another human dead. Unfortunately, mine was a kid,
• 42:34
  so that obviously will always stay with me. I can't even imagine.
• 42:38
  Do you believe it takes pieces out of you?
• 42:40
  Because I was just watching something the other day, Homicide Detectives,
• 42:43
  and they said that. And I was kind of trying to think about that from Iraq and
• 42:46
  from, I don't think it does. To me, it just, it jades you.
• 42:51
  It makes you calloused. It makes you, and every once in a while,
• 42:54
  I think it catches up with you.
• 42:55
  Does it normalize it, though? I didn't agree with it.
• 42:59
  I mean, I don't think it'll ever be normal. I mean, it's kind of a hard question
• 43:03
  to answer because I think individually everybody's different.
• 43:05
  Some people handle things differently than other people. I think people hit
• 43:09
  their limit eventually, though. I've watched people on the job that you can
• 43:13
  just tell they were done. Right. Like they can't.
• 43:16
  There's a point you can only see evil in this world for some,
• 43:19
  you know, so long. And, you know, whether it's death, whether it's homicides,
• 43:23
  whether it's burning children, whatever it is.
• 43:26
  Dude, I, I, I do think people, we have different limits. I've watched some folks
• 43:30
  where you can just see it in your eyes and you, and before they even told me
• 43:33
  I could do it. Yep. You're done.
• 43:35
  I can tell. Yeah. I mean, I had a friend recently that just went,
• 43:38
  he works out in Clark County. And again, I won't say names, but he,
• 43:41
  you know, he's, I looked up to him. I think he's a super smart individual and
• 43:47
  knows the job extremely well.
• 43:49
  And I was really surprised when I got a call from his wife telling me that he
• 43:53
  went to like a rehab for mental health and that he was going to be there for
• 43:59
  a while because he just got to that point. And hit his limit. He hit his limit.
• 44:03
  And thank God that he did that rather than choose another path.
• 44:09
  Oh, thank God, yes. Yeah, absolutely. But I will say this, and with the union
• 44:13
  president here, I'll just say it with him, and I know it's a focus.
• 44:16
  Anyway, once again, this is not pointing fingers at any one department.
• 44:19
  It's just talking about our career fields in general.
• 44:23
  It's also a shame because, you know, we run a mental health and wellness facility,
• 44:28
  and not saying we're the only one out there. There's other ones out there.
• 44:31
  There's a lot of things you can do to protect, I'll say this,
• 44:34
  to protect your investment. Your investment is the people that you put all this
• 44:38
  money, effort, and time into training.
• 44:40
  It doesn't need to get to that point where there's a lot of things we could
• 44:44
  do, which is why phenomenal that John, I know you work on this all the time.
• 44:49
  There were a lot of positive, there was a bad stigma about mental health.
• 44:52
  It's not a bad thing. If you treat mental health more like executive education,
• 44:55
  you know, make it a mandatory thing. You got to do this. Understanding your
• 44:59
  brain and how it works is a big thing.
• 45:01
  And it just makes you a better person, makes you more functional.
• 45:04
  I think too, and John can say probably this as well, is that.
• 45:09
  It takes time, I think, for a lot of things. The same thing,
• 45:12
  you know, attesting to, when I was younger, when I first joined,
• 45:15
  the cool thing was you wanted to be like a New York fireman.
• 45:17
  You wanted to run into a building with no SCBA on. You didn't wear it during overhaul.
• 45:24
  You thought you were being cool. You'd be smoking a cigarette while you're doing
• 45:26
  overhaul. That was what you kind of saw.
• 45:30
  But now it's,
• 45:35
  you know, when you're in a fire and you come back, you get new gear.
• 45:38
  Like, you know, there's washing stations for your gear.
• 45:42
  There's like, we don't, chemicals are different. We're smarter on the hazards, right?
• 45:46
  A hundred percent. There's so many different, different hazards that are worse
• 45:49
  now than what they were a while, a long time ago. Right. That causes so much
• 45:54
  different. You're not worried about the fire. You're worried about all the other things.
• 45:59
  I mean and that's and you know like i said it's it takes a long time to get
• 46:03
  to that point but people like john who are there,
• 46:06
  fighting every day to get these guys and,
• 46:09
  the things they need as far as and these are needs these aren't yeah these are
• 46:14
  definitely well and especially john say the new stations they're all equipped
• 46:17
  with most of the stuff now like they're all again there's clean station design
• 46:20
  there's hot warm cold zones so when you come in the idea is you don't bring any of the carcinogens,
• 46:24
  from the call. Exactly.
• 46:26
  You strip down, you take things off. And even the brand new firehouses now have
• 46:30
  washrooms where you don't go in the firehouse. It's a separate room.
• 46:32
  You get out of the fire truck, you put your gear in the, called the gear extractor.
• 46:35
  Then you go into a separate shower and you have your own personal locker with
• 46:38
  one set of clean clothes in there.
• 46:40
  And you take a shower and you put your, well, first you take your dirty clothes
• 46:43
  off, you put it in the washer.
• 46:45
  You take a shower and then you come out totally clean, put on clean gear,
• 46:49
  I should say uniform before you do anything else. We're not cleaning the fire
• 46:52
  truck. We're not to clean the station.
• 46:53
  You're getting all those carcinogens off your body. Bro, that's a whole shift
• 46:57
  in the way we do things and mentality. Mentality. No offense,
• 47:01
  but some of the old dudes had to struggle with some of that mentality,
• 47:03
  right? That's just a whole change. Yeah, it's part of the change I have.
• 47:06
  Because what was the first thing you used to do?
• 47:07
  You'd go to the kitchen, get a cup of coffee, go to it, right?
• 47:10
  It wasn't due to do all that.
• 47:11
  Well, the more soot you had in your face, the more salty a firepower.
• 47:14
  You're just covered. You need to wash it off the rest of the day, right?
• 47:17
  Look how cool I am. I'm absorbing cancer through my skin. Yeah.
• 47:20
  It's supposed to be a thing back then, but you know. Yeah, nobody thought that.
• 47:22
  Like, and, and again, I think it, the mental health aspect is the same way.
• 47:26
  It's, it's changing, but it's, it's just going to take time.
• 47:30
  Would it be great if it was faster? A hundred percent.
• 47:34
  You know, again, it's a generational gap in general. It's really a generational gap.
• 47:38
  And generationally too, for me, I'm, I'm not, I'm not a sensitive person.
• 47:43
  So unfortunately now, I think Eric is, it's why do they call you Pookie?
• 47:52
  It's, it's harder, right? Because now mental health is a much bigger deal than
• 47:57
  it was 20 years ago. Whether you're a fireman, whether you're a kid,
• 48:00
  whether you're whatever you are, It is way tougher now than what I'm going to say this.
• 48:05
  I'll say it because you guys may not be able to.
• 48:08
  Mental health combined with a bunch of DEI things that were going on made things
• 48:13
  real tough because there was a lot of opinions, feelings, and thoughts that
• 48:17
  weren't just mental health things.
• 48:19
  Right. That made things very interesting. John's going to sit here and be very quiet. It's awesome.
• 48:24
  But, hey, actually, you know what? You brought something to mind that I'm real
• 48:28
  curious about. You might not have to deal with it because you're at Hamilton
• 48:31
  now, but it would have affected where you were before.
• 48:36
  With the silver line, with the train coming out this way, different training,
• 48:40
  different things you guys had to teach folks to do, because now you've got a
• 48:44
  train that comes into Loudoun County.
• 48:46
  Yeah, so Loudoun County at a training center, we actually have two full Metro
• 48:49
  cars at the training center. It looks like a mini station. Yeah,
• 48:51
  I've seen it. Yep, I've seen them. Yeah, so there was that whole level of training,
• 48:54
  and then we have our Fire Station 23, which is Moorfield.
• 48:58
  They're our, quote, specialists for the Metro. They're the one located right off the train tracks.
• 49:03
  And so everybody gets metro training those those guys and gals get a little
• 49:07
  bit more because so is it in your basic firefighter and then you do more specific or,
• 49:10
  you don't do it till after you get on so it's now built into recruits like for
• 49:14
  all of us like it wasn't there so we had to go back and there was required there
• 49:17
  was online training and the in-person training that we had to then do afterwards
• 49:22
  but now when you come through either recruit school or firefighter one
• 49:25
  that it's taught to you during that to make sure that you know what i mean it's
• 49:28
  it'll kill you right i mean right because you're dealing with the electricity
• 49:31
  part right and then then you're also combining that with i imagine some something
• 49:35
  similar to extrication right like vehicle whatever except for this is
• 49:39
  big big damn two different level right i mean that's pretty and don't touch
• 49:42
  the third rail that's all i know i,
• 49:45
  don't know if that's true anymore i don't know it's true either but it is obviously
• 49:48
  do not touch that third rail all.
• 49:51
  Right then one other interesting thing,
• 49:53
  Have you put out a Tesla or a, one of these battery vehicles?
• 49:58
  Oh, the battery ones. Have you put one of these out? Yeah.
• 50:00
  So how crazy are those to put out? And I mean that sincerely because those didn't
• 50:04
  exist when I was doing it.
• 50:05
  And you see some of these scenes where these things are just burning ridiculous.
• 50:08
  Yeah. I'll let John answer that. So those are, there's so much energy output,
• 50:12
  right? Because when it comes down to BTUs, right? And that's what,
• 50:15
  when something burns, it's the energy it puts off.
• 50:17
  We don't, even if you have a hose wide open, they burn so hot.
• 50:21
  It just doesn't go out. So you got to let it burn out? You got to let it burn out.
• 50:24
  Now, if it's in the, I'll call it the embassy stage of burning,
• 50:27
  like, and it's more of the plastics, the wires, then you can put it out.
• 50:30
  And I'm not saying you can't put out any electric fire, but if it's fully engulfed,
• 50:34
  it's going to be much more difficult to put those fires out.
• 50:36
  So like when you see one of those burning on the set, the reason it takes so
• 50:39
  much, because you're basically keeping things cool and letting that thing burn out.
• 50:42
  I mean, it's going to burn out really. I mean, there are some where it's like,
• 50:44
  if you're in an area in a field, you're just keeping the field,
• 50:47
  like if they're off the curb, let's just make sure this doesn't go down the grass and the trees.
• 50:51
  Yeah, because it's burning so hot it can catch other things quickly.
• 50:54
  They've been ones where there's like a, you know, there's a pond nearby and
• 50:57
  they've literally pushed it into the water.
• 50:58
  And because the technology, they're just trying to figure out, it used to be blankets.
• 51:02
  They wanted you to put a blanket over top to try to smother it.
• 51:04
  Well, then the issue is when these batteries are burning, they release toxic gases.
• 51:08
  And if you get it all the way out, but it's still superheated,
• 51:11
  and then all of a sudden you lift that blanket, there's a chance of oxygen reduction.
• 51:15
  So there is not the technology to really put it out yet other than just massive
• 51:20
  amounts of water and just, I hate to say waiting. And waiting it out.
• 51:24
  Putting water on, yeah. So then that makes it interesting because then I watch
• 51:27
  the things on Garage Fires, right? With the charging stations and all that stuff.
• 51:30
  So then that's getting crazy, man.
• 51:33
  That's why it's so important for these, I call it the hobbyists that have either
• 51:35
  remote control cars or whatever it is that they, they're called lipo bags.
• 51:39
  Put them inside that bag because as long as you contain these batteries inside
• 51:42
  an approved bag, it won't go anywhere.
• 51:44
  It's the issue is when you charge them and leave them on a charger and they're
• 51:47
  continuing to charge and then the safety breaks and it just continues to overcharge
• 51:51
  the battery. Then it boils, it gets on fire.
• 51:53
  And if that happens inside of a bag that's rated correctly, then you're okay.
• 51:57
  But if not, then that's when anything around it is just going to catch on fire.
• 52:00
  So I imagine even with the drones and stuff we're seeing, are we seeing an uptick
• 52:05
  in Loudoun County of that? We did.
• 52:07
  There was a time, and it was about a year or two ago, where there were multiple
• 52:11
  houses that caught on fire due to these LiPo batteries. Huh. Yeah.
• 52:16
  Yeah, the battery. Didn't we just have one recently that was a battery?
• 52:18
  Oh, no, sorry. That was smoking materials that was put out in a garage or something.
• 52:24
  Who would smoke in the garage?
• 52:27
  I would never. I mean, so, Eric, I'm just hearing that we should not buy electric
• 52:31
  vehicles because it's not safe for us. Well, I'm a big redneck that believes
• 52:35
  in the zombie apocalypse.
• 52:38
  I believe in the zombie apocalypse. So, you know, my two big vehicles are both
• 52:41
  diesel. Now, I'm struggling with that at the pump because that sucks right now.
• 52:46
  Oh, I got another question. Because I have it on my truck. I did not build it into my rat rod.
• 52:53
  Do fire departments still have DEF, diesel, that whole diesel system,
• 52:58
  the emission system on there?
• 52:59
  Yes. So there was a time where— Have they gotten that better?
• 53:01
  Because I will say this. I've got friends that said early on,
• 53:05
  it was a big pain in the butt. Like, all of a sudden, their fire truck is limping
• 53:08
  at 25 miles an hour to a scene because the DEF system goes out on it.
• 53:13
  They had plenty in it. It just—the system went out. Well, because DEF is built
• 53:17
  for over-the-road trucks, right, that run and continue to be hot.
• 53:20
  With fire trucks, like, you run super hot on the way to the call,
• 53:24
  and then unless you're pumping, you sit there at idle.
• 53:27
  And so then it's going to be sitting, and that's the worst thing to do with
• 53:29
  the DEF. It just clogs it all up, right?
• 53:31
  And that's the worst thing possible. When the new regulations come out,
• 53:35
  the Loudoun County actually went out and bought as many as they could pre-EPA
• 53:38
  motors because they're just easier to maintain for fire trucks.
• 53:41
  I did that for my rat rod, too.
• 53:44
  But once they were, like, you got to have so many serial numbers,
• 53:46
  and then it was up. Like, you can't buy them anywhere. Right.
• 53:48
  And so there are different entities that have tried to get exemption for fire departments.
• 53:53
  It hasn't worked out yet, but I mean, now there are like Rosenbauer,
• 53:58
  I think it is, has a fully electric fire truck. And there are some of those out there too.
• 54:02
  And now even some of the county fire trucks, you have the ability where they will turn off the motor.
• 54:07
  When you're sitting there, if you're not running it, it'll turn off the motor
• 54:10
  and start a small generator just enough to keep your lights running.
• 54:15
  And everything on fire trucks now are led so it'll set off just battery power
• 54:20
  and until it needs it and the little mini pump the mini generator kicks back
• 54:22
  on recharges the battery turns it back off so you don't have this
• 54:25
  you know giant diesel motor running just to power light bro but the other one
• 54:28
  scares me the sound of that an all-electric fire truck yeah i don't know i don't
• 54:33
  know if i would enjoy that because then you're combining you're combining,
• 54:36
  shitty conditions water and batteries i was like yeah i don't know about let's hope this goes well.
• 54:44
  Yeah i don't know if that would be a good one for me either but,
• 54:48
  So, Mark, how long you got in this, man? What do you, how long do you do this
• 54:51
  for? Until somebody kicks you out or what?
• 54:55
  I mean, probably. Yeah. I mean, the funny part is, is that being an officer, I don't even enjoy it.
• 55:03
  I mean, I do to an extent. But John probably may feel the same way,
• 55:06
  is that I enjoy being a firefighter. Like, I enjoy doing that job.
• 55:11
  Like, I have a hard time sometimes when I'm on a scene letting people do other
• 55:16
  things. And I kind of will be like, give me that. Let me, let me show you.
• 55:20
  You don't feel your age at that point. You're not like, yeah,
• 55:22
  you go do it. Some days. Yeah.
• 55:25
  Some days I'll wake up. I'm a little sore. It depends what you're doing.
• 55:28
  You know, a fire will be a little hard on your body.
• 55:31
  Sometimes depending upon what you're doing to me, car accidents,
• 55:34
  especially if you're running a trap call,
• 55:36
  that to me is probably the hardest to me because it's
• 55:40
  constant holding heavy tools trying to work on getting somebody out of a car
• 55:45
  where it can take i don't know what we say averaged on 30 minutes typically
• 55:49
  you're trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle with no answer sheet right you have no
• 55:52
  idea what it looks like this person's trapped and you are just taking tools
• 55:55
  and start like let's start cutting here and when you cut there you have to figure
• 55:59
  out is the bot how is this twisted
• 56:01
  thing that's all under tension right now going to react every time you cut it
• 56:04
  could move or bend and then you have a human being in there that's wedged and
• 56:08
  if you cut the wrong spot, it's going to collapse on them. Or if you think,
• 56:11
  you know, we have, it's called a ram in there.
• 56:13
  Try to ram things, push it apart, right? To make it so you make more room.
• 56:16
  But you're, you're thinking you're making one area larger, but the fulcro may
• 56:19
  turn and make another area smaller. They're fully stuck. So it's literally,
• 56:22
  you're just looking at this jigsaw puzzle and it's a lot from experience right?
• 56:26
  Running calls, like I've done X before. I know this worked really well.
• 56:29
  Or I know a lot of firefighters remember, like I did this before and it did
• 56:32
  not work. And they, they do not forget that when shit doesn't work,
• 56:35
  you, you do not forget that.
• 56:37
  So yeah and i think that's why i enjoy it on that part of it like i said earlier
• 56:40
  i like to be on the squad because i i.
• 56:43
  That's probably my favorite thing to do. I like figuring stuff like that out.
• 56:46
  And I, you know, it's a pretty cool thing when you're able to make something
• 56:51
  work really well and then get somebody out. I mean, just not part of it.
• 56:56
  Because, you know, those people need care as fast as possible most of the time.
• 56:59
  So has the fire departments grown on the same level as the population out here?
• 57:06
  Has it kept up? Because, I mean, dude, the growth out here is just ridiculous.
• 57:11
  It's i think what we have not kept up with is and is staffing the fire trucks
• 57:15
  correctly right so we have nfpa codes national fire protection agency right
• 57:19
  and for our area there's two different
• 57:21
  codes there's you know there's two different numbers and one is for
• 57:25
  a volunteer system and one is for a career a combination system right
• 57:28
  and we were for a long time just doing the volunteer one where we've been combination
• 57:33
  for a while right and it requires a different amount of people like the minimum
• 57:37
  number is four persons per engine, where we don't have that right now.
• 57:40
  There's a amount of firehouses that do.
• 57:42
  And part of the NFPA code is like, it sets amount of numbers.
• 57:46
  You need X amount of firefighters on the scene within X amount of time to do
• 57:50
  the tasks, to save their lives and put out the fires.
• 57:53
  By having three on some engines and four on, we do have some with four,
• 57:56
  but you know, three on most of them, then you're already starting behind the
• 58:00
  ball when you get there because you don't have the additional people you need.
• 58:02
  And a good example is I was blessed enough, I spent some time in the,
• 58:06
  part of the department that was Kirkpatrick Farms, and we were one of the first.
• 58:10
  Four-person career staff engines, and we ran a pretty kick-ass fire,
• 58:14
  and it makes all the world, the difference in the world, because Mark knows as an officer.
• 58:18
  If you have a rookie firefighter and you're humping hose up a stairwell,
• 58:22
  you're telling them, keep going until you get to the fire and put it out.
• 58:25
  I have to stay down here and feed you hose because there's nobody else to do it.
• 58:28
  And you're sending that new firefighter that may have never been in a fire upstairs by themselves.
• 58:33
  Where now that four person, I follow them up. I still hump them hose,
• 58:36
  but I always stay with them. And then my other firefighter is sitting there
• 58:40
  at the stairwell feeding it up.
• 58:41
  And so for even for firefighter safety, right, that's an additional person to get somebody out.
• 58:45
  I mean, I'm a pretty light individual. So imagine if I fall out and you got
• 58:50
  one person to pull me out, it's going to be, even two people,
• 58:53
  it'd be a little hard, but you know what I mean?
• 58:54
  So it's, the numbers are, our staffing hasn't kept up and it's not entirely
• 59:01
  by the department's fault.
• 59:02
  We've been trying to build firehouses, right? And so we've been keeping up very
• 59:06
  well. Funding issues and all that. Yeah, keeping up with firehouses pretty well.
• 59:09
  It's trying to ask for more people. So when we as a fire department go and ask
• 59:12
  for like 50 people, right, to
• 59:14
  the county budget and the rest of the departments are getting like four.
• 59:18
  They're looking at like, well, why do you get that? It's kind of like,
• 59:20
  well, we need that to save the citizens' lives.
• 59:23
  And so it's understood we need it, but it's still not, doesn't make the burn
• 59:27
  any less for these other departments, these other departments inside Loudoun
• 59:30
  County on why we're getting so many and they're not.
• 59:32
  So actually that brings up a good question. How are numbers?
• 59:36
  We're in a new time and a new whatever for volunteers and requests.
• 59:40
  I was just about to ask that too. Like, what does that look like?
• 59:42
  That's what volunteer recruitment look like. Is there, you know,
• 59:44
  we're not post, right, post 9-11.
• 59:46
  We're not, you know, sometimes it takes stars and stripes flying and all that
• 59:50
  other stuff for people to, like, what does the recruit pool look like right
• 59:54
  now? It's changed quite a bit. Like, I think I was talking about earlier, at least for our side.
• 1:00:00
  It's hard to become a volunteer because it's not a, it's not that kind of job.
• 1:00:05
  I mean, like people don't volunteer anymore.
• 1:00:08
  It's not a. I run a charity. Believe me.
• 1:00:11
  It's hard to get people to. And I understand like things have just.
• 1:00:15
  Bro, this is not a, you know, this, this is not an easy place to live in.
• 1:00:18
  It's not. Expensive area. Trying to make it in this area is tough.
• 1:00:22
  Yeah. And so. What happened to, what happened to high school volunteers?
• 1:00:26
  So they, the, the program and a job may know a little more about this than I
• 1:00:29
  do. I know the program went away.
• 1:00:32
  For whatever reasons, I thought it was great because I also thought as a,
• 1:00:38
  as they become volunteers, it's great to do it during, through the school year.
• 1:00:41
  And then usually you get those, a lot of those volunteers that learned at school
• 1:00:45
  and then became a volunteer. Most of them would go to Leesburg or Ashburn or
• 1:00:48
  Sterling, but a lot of those people became career staff.
• 1:00:51
  So either career or volunteers in the future, but that that's kind of where it started.
• 1:00:55
  I remember when I was in high school, that was a huge thing.
• 1:00:57
  It was high school volunteer.
• 1:00:59
  I did a program through our boat. We called it boat. I don't know what they call it now.
• 1:01:03
  I did fire science through that. That's what got me interested in it.
• 1:01:07
  And it started me down the path because I was getting college credit for the
• 1:01:10
  things I was doing there. And I was like, well, that's great.
• 1:01:13
  I can do my two-year fire science degree kind of simultaneously and go do this program.
• 1:01:18
  So I thought that was great. Well, I mean, that had to drive up numbers at the
• 1:01:21
  time, even without 9-11 events.
• 1:01:23
  Well, people used to enjoy volunteering. It was like, especially in Loudoun
• 1:01:26
  County, because Loudoun County was so small.
• 1:01:28
  So, you know, we all had the big, you know, air raid sirens on top of the station.
• 1:01:32
  When you heard it, people were understanding that you could leave work,
• 1:01:36
  you could leave wherever you could go to the firehouse and run a call.
• 1:01:39
  I mean, when I was young, when I first started, I mean, I ran from my house
• 1:01:42
  all the time and, you know, I would get there, I'd make, we had three engines
• 1:01:45
  at the time, so I would make one of them.
• 1:01:47
  So, but again, the time it takes now to do the job, it's very time consuming.
• 1:01:55
  I mean, between taking firefighter one and two and then going and do your EMT.
• 1:01:59
  And, you know, all these other things. All the search and research. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:02:03
  It's a lot of time. So, whereas when I was younger, it took me maybe eight months to get my, my certs.
• 1:02:10
  Now it's, you know, a few years. So, so I got a question. I went through combat
• 1:02:15
  lifesaver. I got the military side and I got the deployment on a,
• 1:02:19
  on kind of the federal side going overseas.
• 1:02:22
  Things have changed in what they're teaching people for basic first aid and
• 1:02:26
  some of that other stuff, right? I went through combat lifesaver.
• 1:02:28
  One of the things that changed there was when people get blown up,
• 1:02:33
  when they get shrapnel, when they tourniquet everything.
• 1:02:36
  Because it used to be they didn't have the tech.
• 1:02:40
  You weren't sure you were going to get them off the battlefield in time.
• 1:02:42
  You weren't sure. So they were either going to, one, lose a limb because you
• 1:02:46
  know this. Once you apply a tourniquet, you don't let that go back without a
• 1:02:49
  doctor there. You don't let that, you don't want all the poisons and toxins
• 1:02:53
  built up to go back through whatever.
• 1:02:55
  Now they teach tourniquet everything. Curious what you're, what y'all are taught
• 1:02:59
  on that. And number two is CPR.
• 1:03:02
  I noticed that change because I voluntarily went through one not long ago.
• 1:03:05
  We're no longer putting breasts and patients that are in the,
• 1:03:08
  in the, in the mouths of these mannequins, which thank God, cause I think that's
• 1:03:11
  disgusting. And you don't like that rubber taste.
• 1:03:15
  And I'm a germaphobe cause I know you're cleaning out here, but not inside that.
• 1:03:19
  So at the end of the day, it's chest compressions and just get the blood moving
• 1:03:23
  because there's oxygen in the blood. So curious.
• 1:03:26
  So that's what I'm seeing as a civilian and whatever. Curious what you guys are seeing.
• 1:03:30
  That's exactly right. Is, you know, when it, well, the tourniquet part's not
• 1:03:33
  for us, right? We, we still have. What happens when you're an explosion, John? You just told me.
• 1:03:38
  Well, we have a, well, there's, there's a difference between,
• 1:03:41
  I got a little scratch here and my hand's gone.
• 1:03:44
  So we're going to evaluate immediately how bad it is because there's a direct pressure.
• 1:03:49
  Then there's an elevation. So more and more of the police force,
• 1:03:53
  they all carry tourniquets now.
• 1:03:55
  And for them, it's much safer for them to be overly cautious.
• 1:03:59
  So for somebody like them to throw on a tourniquet and not needed it.
• 1:04:01
  Because as long as you're getting them to medical attention,
• 1:04:03
  they're not losing the limb anymore. And the time extended, it used to be like
• 1:04:06
  if you put one on, they're losing that regardless. But we're saving their life
• 1:04:10
  where the science has come out. You can leave a tourniquet on for a pretty good amount of time.
• 1:04:13
  And still save that limb. And you're much better off putting a tourniquet on and not needing it,
• 1:04:19
  Compared to the opposite, if you don't need one, I mean, so if you do need one
• 1:04:21
  and you don't put it on, there's no reversing that because they bleed out,
• 1:04:24
  right? Yep. And so that's for us is like, we'd rather go there and have the
• 1:04:29
  police beat us there because the shooting or whatever may be, they put one on, great.
• 1:04:33
  We can work with this 100%. And because now with Loudoun County,
• 1:04:36
  we're one of the first ones in the nation that have the Factor R program, which is whole blood.
• 1:04:41
  And so now our EMS supervisors have a specially built cooler inside of their
• 1:04:46
  response units that carries whole blood.
• 1:04:48
  So, the universal blood, right? And they can now give that. So,
• 1:04:52
  it all stemmed off of, years ago, there was an accident. It was a mile from
• 1:04:55
  a house, left of Watson Road to Evergreen Mills, where a family was hit by a large truck.
• 1:04:59
  And there were family members killed and others that were trapped for hours.
• 1:05:05
  And during that time, it was like, we just, they're bleeding out.
• 1:05:07
  We can't get them out. They're alive. We need to get them more blood.
• 1:05:10
  And so the on-scene supervisor was able to figure out, like,
• 1:05:13
  they were talking to our Dr. Morgan, our OMD, and was like, we need blood.
• 1:05:18
  And so they figured out by calling Inova, like, okay, we're going to send a
• 1:05:22
  firetruck and other things, and we're going to call for these helicopters.
• 1:05:26
  And they brought blood to the scene to keep these family members alive.
• 1:05:29
  And they're like, you know, we need to develop a program like this called the Factor R program.
• 1:05:33
  And so it went through. I mean, they got accommodation from the governor last year.
• 1:05:37
  And so now we have two EMS supervisors around County and they both carry the
• 1:05:40
  blood and then, you know, blood obviously goes bad. So working with Inova,
• 1:05:44
  if it's getting near their expiration date, they drive it back to the hospital.
• 1:05:47
  Hold on. How long? I'm curious. How long can you drive with that in there?
• 1:05:50
  That I don't know. I don't know how long.
• 1:05:52
  And I think you're full of crap anyway, because what I saw in the movies,
• 1:05:55
  you just shove a needle in your arm and run it through their arm.
• 1:05:58
  Oh, you just transfer it over.
• 1:05:59
  It's totally fine. That's what I saw. You pull a fuel line out of your diesel
• 1:06:02
  rat rod. to connect with a carburetor spring.
• 1:06:05
  Come on, MacGyver. Yeah.
• 1:06:09
  So it's something, and some of these horrible incidents create great change, right?
• 1:06:13
  And that's the thing that, what can we learn from something?
• 1:06:16
  And that's that incident, we are able to learn that like, and put something
• 1:06:20
  in good, a factor of art, to now save more lives in the future.
• 1:06:23
  And we've given out, I'll use the term, a shit ton of blood at this point.
• 1:06:27
  Awesome. From our EMS supervisors, everything from police officers shot to civilians,
• 1:06:32
  to you name it. So, awesome. It's kind of a nice thing, too. I think Loudoun is...
• 1:06:37
  Goes above and beyond on a lot of things. So like John's saying with the blood
• 1:06:42
  or, you know, and every department learns from an incident, just like a gas explosion.
• 1:06:47
  Things are changed tremendously on how you handle, you know,
• 1:06:51
  a gas leak at this point now.
• 1:06:53
  I mean, everybody's seen all the other explosions we've had even just over this
• 1:06:56
  last year in different neighborhoods. So I think. And now we have data centers.
• 1:07:01
  Yeah. I mean, you're talking about a whole different response. Yeah. Craziness. Yes.
• 1:07:04
  So actually, let's take a break Let's come back and talk I do want to talk about
• 1:07:09
  that And I got a couple other topics to bring up Sounds good Let's break.
• 1:07:33
  Touching on a topic I'd like to get back into. So for those that don't know,
• 1:07:37
  Loudoun County has become kind of the data center mecca of the United States, right?
• 1:07:43
  You got Silicon Valley and California, but what we're known for is these data
• 1:07:48
  centers out here. Yes, we are.
• 1:07:50
  And they're continuing to grow. We've talked about fire hazards.
• 1:07:53
  We've talked about batteries. We've talked about all these things.
• 1:07:56
  So that got me thinking, I'm very curious, what does that do to firefighters
• 1:08:00
  in response? Because here's the other side.
• 1:08:03
  You're also dealing with sensitivities of what's in there, right?
• 1:08:06
  And the information that's on these systems because some are government systems,
• 1:08:10
  some are all over the place.
• 1:08:11
  What does that look like for you guys? Are you saying it's making us a target,
• 1:08:14
  Eric? Well, you live near DC. You've been a target for a while, bro.
• 1:08:19
  Sorry, please continue with your question. My bad.
• 1:08:22
  No, I mean, for us, we're actually pretty high up in the nation for data centers.
• 1:08:27
  We've created a data center manual that a lot of our employees sat on and created itself.
• 1:08:32
  I mean, the IFF themselves, the International Association of Firefighters.
• 1:08:36
  Say that five times. Yeah, right.
• 1:08:38
  Has reached out to some of our employees that sat on that and asked for their
• 1:08:43
  advice and are using that as part of their training.
• 1:08:46
  And it is very interesting because when you go through, the first thing is you
• 1:08:49
  have to get into these data centers, which is there's one to two to three gates.
• 1:08:55
  And it has to close between each vehicle. And so you could have a lot of fire
• 1:08:58
  trucks. Even with you guys?
• 1:08:59
  Yeah, it's because they're a program to go up, down, up, down.
• 1:09:02
  Like they can't literally some,
• 1:09:03
  I mean, some of them, not all of them will not say up the entire time.
• 1:09:06
  They have to recode because there's a sensor that closes it right behind them.
• 1:09:10
  That's just even good. You haven't even arrived there. Okay,
• 1:09:13
  let me wait. There's not a, we called 911, override that thing and they all go up. Oh my God.
• 1:09:18
  No. So then, you know, with doing that.
• 1:09:21
  And, you know, so once you pass all these magical gates, then you have to get
• 1:09:24
  inside. And there are a lot of these that have either the air chambers or the
• 1:09:28
  spinning doors that then have to be overrided because you have to bring a hose
• 1:09:31
  through. Hold on, hold on, John.
• 1:09:33
  You don't fit through a spinning door anyway.
• 1:09:36
  I ride a lighter truck. Just don't worry about carrying these hoses inside of
• 1:09:38
  buildings. But just off your purse and you don't fit in those because I don't. So shut up.
• 1:09:43
  Yes. You know, they're not designed, right, to be put out. And that's why a
• 1:09:47
  lot of them are now building in.
• 1:09:48
  And like if something happens in a room, they're like, we're just going to close
• 1:09:52
  the door and turn off. Kind of like a ship.
• 1:09:53
  Yeah, close the door, turn off the HVAC to it, and then it snuff itself out.
• 1:09:57
  And they're so advanced of like if there's a fire in a certain area,
• 1:09:59
  they can then, once it's out, reverse all of those HVAC systems and just suck
• 1:10:03
  the smoke right back out of just that area. What the hell? Hold on.
• 1:10:07
  So because of what's in it, what do they use?
• 1:10:09
  Do they have water? Do they have foam? Do they have – what do they have in their
• 1:10:13
  systems? The old is halon. And so the idea is they just need to just place the oxygen.
• 1:10:19
  And so whether it's by a vacuum system or by inert gas, right,
• 1:10:22
  they just need to starve it. But it's very important to obviously know each
• 1:10:25
  data center, what they have, because as a fire department, you go in...
• 1:10:28
  Yeah. You need to know where, at what point do I put on my, you know, my, my mask?
• 1:10:32
  You got to know what you're dealing with. Because with us, it's called IDLHA,
• 1:10:35
  immediate danger, life hazard area, but you can't see your tasty oxygen deficient
• 1:10:41
  area, right? So normally it's okay. I see smoke up there. Let's put my mask on.
• 1:10:45
  So this is where the pre-planning comes in. Like all these data centers are pre-planned.
• 1:10:48
  And so we have books that say, here's what's, here's what's here. Here's what's there.
• 1:10:52
  But data centers are also very reluctant to give off any information because
• 1:10:56
  you're right. There are a lot of three-letter agencies that have data centers in this area.
• 1:11:00
  It may say something, but that ain't who's there. Yeah, when we're working here,
• 1:11:02
  it's amazing when you get dispatched to a fire alarm or something at a very
• 1:11:06
  building. It just looks like, oh, look at that brick building.
• 1:11:08
  After you go inside, you're like, that's not just a brick building.
• 1:11:10
  It's not just a brick building.
• 1:11:11
  Or the security guards look like Blackwater. You're like, yeah.
• 1:11:15
  You're not a- Sir, why do you have an M16 at the front door of this building?
• 1:11:19
  It says Brent Co. on the front door, but I don't think you're- You know what
• 1:11:21
  I mean? That's not what's happening here.
• 1:11:24
  But yeah, so they are a whole new animal. There's a whole different response manual for it.
• 1:11:27
  And, you know, a lot of it, and it comes down to that chief engineer,
• 1:11:31
  because they know the entire building, front and back, everything's so digitalized.
• 1:11:34
  They can control, like you walk into a control center, you can run that entire
• 1:11:38
  data center from that screen. And some of these data centers now are a million square feet.
• 1:11:42
  And they can see what's going on. And there's hardly any employees physically
• 1:11:46
  there usually at these places, right?
• 1:11:48
  Oh, very little. It's mostly security guards. You have a couple people that
• 1:11:50
  are running, I'll call it the front desk, to make sure that all the server racks
• 1:11:53
  are going or fix something. and then it's security guards. I got to ask you
• 1:11:57
  a question. Are they on scooters or segways or something? Some do have segways. Absolutely.
• 1:12:03
  They absolutely do because, you know, you just see them, they have a little
• 1:12:05
  tilt. Do you take them seriously when they roll up to you on a segway and go,
• 1:12:08
  the fire's this way. Follow me.
• 1:12:10
  What does it mean? Polar, Mall Cop, you know what I mean? They're just pushing
• 1:12:13
  that thing around at a...
• 1:12:15
  Well, I think the funny thing, too, is that Loudoun County in a general direction
• 1:12:20
  is so different from one end of the county to the other end.
• 1:12:23
  You know, like, I don't really know much about data centers.
• 1:12:26
  I mean, I've been in a few. They're moving out.
• 1:12:30
  They better not come to Perceville or Hamilton. I mean, I'll move.
• 1:12:33
  Hold on. Do you guys even have a police department yet? Yes,
• 1:12:37
  we have a police chief that's been assigned. Thank you, sir.
• 1:12:42
  One percent of crime in Perceville, by the way. That's right.
• 1:12:44
  But i hold on they do have vehicle uh break-ins a lot there yeah they need to
• 1:12:48
  get some of that maybe but they they it's and it was kind of nice for me as uh.
• 1:12:54
  Growing up in this county and then learning being a volunteer as i joined at
• 1:12:59
  sterling where you have plenty of water right and then you go to the western
• 1:13:03
  in a county where you don't yeah so,
• 1:13:06
  where you get 17 days of rain and they still tell you hey watch how much water
• 1:13:10
  hold on hold on is that what you're talking about drinking water are you talking about like no just
• 1:13:15
  water in general so when you have a rural water supply you don't have the hydrants
• 1:13:19
  right you're using the tanker task force you're you're drafting out of a pond
• 1:13:22
  a lake a pool wherever you we actually had this conversation on the way back it's very
• 1:13:27
  because when i first came out to out to the western end of the county,
• 1:13:31
  i'm like what the hell is this like i don't know anything about doing any of
• 1:13:34
  this so it was very interesting to learn so knowing both sides but so like when
• 1:13:40
  john deals with data centers i'm like i don't know a darn thing about that.
• 1:13:43
  I'm like, you know, that's not my world anymore.
• 1:13:45
  Mark brought up to me, he goes, you know, have you ever seen any fire hydrants
• 1:13:49
  in, in Purseville or Hamilton? He's like,
• 1:13:51
  come to think of not really not many i'm like yeah there's there's there may
• 1:13:55
  be a couple that i've i've been by but i'm going through my neighborhood now
• 1:13:58
  going so what are you sticking a hose in the neighbor's pool and pulling it
• 1:14:01
  out or what yeah i mean your draft your draft where we have
• 1:14:04
  john like john said you map everything out there's pre-planned so
• 1:14:07
  you you know we know the closest whether it's a dry hydrant the closest pond
• 1:14:11
  the closest creek bed wherever we need to draft out of is where we'll draw a
• 1:14:15
  whole nother thing it is the country sir yeah well that goes That goes back
• 1:14:19
  to how eclectic this county is, right?
• 1:14:22
  Because you really see it during a— It's insane. My gal works at the public
• 1:14:27
  school system, and you go, man, why is the school closed?
• 1:14:29
  But when you think about where Loudoun County goes, right, half of it's in the
• 1:14:33
  mountains. The other half, we're such a diverse county. People don't realize
• 1:14:37
  how many dirt roads there still are in Loudoun County, especially when you come out to our end.
• 1:14:41
  I drive them pretty much every day.
• 1:14:44
  I wouldn't give it up for the world. I don't want to fucking have data centers
• 1:14:47
  in my backyard. So being where we are, I love, but he's absolutely right.
• 1:14:50
  I'm like, he mentioned it to me about fire hydrants. I'm like,
• 1:14:53
  I don't. But from a fire standpoint, it's, it's much harder to deal with,
• 1:14:56
  in my opinion. So just because.
• 1:14:59
  Takes you a while to get there. Also, there's usually not a ton of room.
• 1:15:05
  The roads are a little narrow. Correct. Like even a driveway.
• 1:15:08
  I mean, it's, it's much, to me, it's much more difficult to, to even pre-plan for.
• 1:15:13
  So unfortunately it's kind of one of those things. Whereas when I was in Sterling,
• 1:15:18
  you know, you just pull up, you can park on a lawn, you can park on the street,
• 1:15:22
  you could do this, you could do that. And you got to hydrate.
• 1:15:24
  And you know, the fire was caused by a rice cooker.
• 1:15:26
  I mean too much grease on that i was good too much grease on the hood i was gonna say eric and his,
• 1:15:33
  his his monster truck for the he obviously has for compensation factors he he's
• 1:15:38
  come down my street a couple times i'm pretty sure another car isn't getting
• 1:15:41
  by him as he's coming down the road well it doesn't help at night because in
• 1:15:44
  my headlights they don't like that they don't like that,
• 1:15:48
  and for me it's just funny the differences from like where john runs and where
• 1:15:51
  i run is is like, you know, he's got the data centers, he's got the Metro,
• 1:15:55
  he's, he's got a whole different aspect of danger. It's different planning.
• 1:16:00
  John's got the politicians. It's a whole nother level.
• 1:16:04
  Well, you, you used to be able to, you know, when you're in the Western end
• 1:16:07
  of the county, you could hide from everybody. Yeah. It's not,
• 1:16:10
  you don't have that anymore. No.
• 1:16:11
  But, you know, people. That's why we're going to join Clark County.
• 1:16:14
  We're going to get out of Loudoun. We're going to join Clark.
• 1:16:16
  But, you know, again, like John's saying, Clark County is different too,
• 1:16:19
  because they don't have the budget that Loudoun has.
• 1:16:21
  And you know they run a dangerous ship and unfortunately until someone probably gets hurt.
• 1:16:28
  Again, learning a lesson until someone gets hurt, then they're going to go,
• 1:16:31
  oh, man, we really need to have more firefighters.
• 1:16:33
  We should do this. Well, that leads into another question I was going to have.
• 1:16:36
  What kind of system do, you know, I came from, I did a lot of work with some
• 1:16:41
  of the Wisconsin firefighters and things like that. Do you guys have a mutual
• 1:16:43
  aid system around here? Everybody that surrounds us, we have a different level
• 1:16:47
  of mutual aid expectations.
• 1:16:49
  There are some where it's automatic, and they have to guarantee us if we ask
• 1:16:53
  for X that they will send X.
• 1:16:55
  And then it's reciprocal the same way we will give them the same level of service back to them.
• 1:16:59
  Does that come with funding or does it, is that just an agreement that that's
• 1:17:03
  how we're going to cover down and make this happen? It's yeah.
• 1:17:05
  There's a, there's a really written agreement between the different,
• 1:17:07
  you know, there's some that are part of COG, which means that there is a,
• 1:17:10
  you know, like we're 600 series.
• 1:17:12
  So we're everything that is, you know, if Leesburg, their old firehouse is one, so they're 601.
• 1:17:17
  But when you get outside of this area, like mutual aid or into different agencies,
• 1:17:21
  they're not all part of COG.
• 1:17:23
  And so it's like car engine eight, Then engine 601, 602, 603,
• 1:17:27
  whatever the rest of our, and you can kind of realize, like,
• 1:17:29
  okay, that's, you know where they're coming from.
• 1:17:31
  And then you have a whole different, you throw a Mount Weather into it,
• 1:17:34
  right? You know, Mount Weather has their own firehouse, but,
• 1:17:37
  like, they only allow one piece off.
• 1:17:40
  And so, there could be a fire right across from their station,
• 1:17:42
  which they have an engine, a truck, and a medic unit, and you're going to get
• 1:17:46
  one of those three, and that's it. Nothing else is even going to be.
• 1:17:48
  Well, given what else they got going on up there that you're not getting anything else.
• 1:17:52
  Don't say anything. We can't talk about it. I'm not. But hey,
• 1:17:55
  the clearest road in Loudoun County right there.
• 1:17:58
  Always. Well, in the mutual aid system too, it used to be very different.
• 1:18:02
  Like Fairfax and Loudoun didn't work in an eye to eye type thing. So they might call you.
• 1:18:09
  There was infighting is what I'm hearing. Yeah, it was a lot.
• 1:18:11
  It was a lot. It was a lot of that back in the day. We would go. Dance battles. Yeah.
• 1:18:17
  I could see Chief doing that. Come on. I remember we would go to Herndon,
• 1:18:22
  go to Herndon, Phil Station over there. and, you know, it wasn't,
• 1:18:27
  It just wasn't a, it wasn't a good, it's, it's much different now.
• 1:18:30
  I'm sure John can attest to people get along so much better.
• 1:18:33
  Now you, it's so much more cooperation from, from different agencies that you
• 1:18:37
  run with, which is the way it should be.
• 1:18:39
  Sorry, I got dance battles stuck in my head. I'm picturing Mark doing a dance
• 1:18:44
  off with Herndon. And as the chief, he's going to lead that thing.
• 1:18:48
  So I do have a question from my personal experience. So tactical EMS,
• 1:18:53
  I don't know what y'all call it here or if you call it anything.
• 1:18:56
  So i've been in a couple departments that after my time in iraq and afghanistan and all that other stuff.
• 1:19:03
  The police departments realize you know the best thing for their swat team is to have dedicated,
• 1:19:09
  fire department support right ems and all that other stuff because what does
• 1:19:13
  that do you know during the days of active shooters and all these other things,
• 1:19:18
  you empower your team if they know they're taken care of in other words you've
• 1:19:22
  got you know a swat team is built up of all these shooters, but then they have
• 1:19:27
  dedicated EMS support to the.
• 1:19:31
  And I've been around teaching some of that and instilling some of that,
• 1:19:35
  which was interesting because then you're combining blue and red and yellow,
• 1:19:39
  which doesn't always work. And there's a lot of old infighting.
• 1:19:42
  I don't know, Loudoun County, do they have something like that?
• 1:19:44
  Like if SWAT team gets lit up, is there a TEMS system here? I assume that's
• 1:19:49
  what it's called. I don't know. Yeah, so we have an active threat.
• 1:19:52
  And what that really composes of is we will respond to the threat.
• 1:19:57
  But the fire department won't go into the hot zone immediately.
• 1:20:00
  Typically law enforcement so nobody will go in with law enforcement not immediately
• 1:20:05
  the first wave will go through and do the initial clear and try to find the
• 1:20:08
  shooter once say let's say if you're clearing through a house right or a big
• 1:20:11
  building once they've cleared the initial wave,
• 1:20:14
  the next round can then go through and but you're with a whole nother team so
• 1:20:18
  they would put a paramedic or a firefighter or whatever we have,
• 1:20:22
  that you're now following in you know in line without going into too much detail
• 1:20:25
  with another set because they have vests on you have vests on that end you'll
• 1:20:29
  go through the different rooms and the idea at that point is you're just going
• 1:20:32
  to a room to pick up to whoever the victim is and they get the back out,
• 1:20:36
  those cops are not actually clearing they're just in case somebody was hiding
• 1:20:39
  in a closet wasn't found and so you're going through and getting individuals
• 1:20:42
  that way before so the thing we were creating was for the actual to go in with the actual first wave,
• 1:20:48
  and your whole job was not to stop and help anybody else but if one of the SWAT
• 1:20:54
  team one of the initial people went down because what does that do.
• 1:20:59
  You go in with another level of security feeling that, oh, man,
• 1:21:03
  if I got Doc right behind me, I'm basically Superman. I'm good.
• 1:21:07
  If I take a round, I'm good because we are the only responsibility that guy's
• 1:21:11
  got, right? Right. And they don't help.
• 1:21:14
  They don't help other down people. They were just there to support the—I was
• 1:21:18
  just curious what they had to do. Yeah. For us, they just trained the other
• 1:21:21
  parts of the SWAT team members enough where if something happens to one of their
• 1:21:24
  team members, do the minimum amount to then be able to get them back out and save their lives.
• 1:21:28
  They're not doing advanced treatment. They're doing tourniquets,
• 1:21:30
  quick clot, those very minimal kind of things and then back out.
• 1:21:34
  And the county does do training on that. I mean, we just did one.
• 1:21:38
  Last one I did, I should say, was at Patrick Henry College in Percival.
• 1:21:41
  So, I mean, obviously you can't totally plan for what's going to happen,
• 1:21:45
  but get an idea to work with everybody and know what everyone's going to do.
• 1:21:49
  Well, the fact is, you know this, if I don't know your name and I'm seeing you
• 1:21:52
  for the first time when something goes boom or goes bad, that's a bad day, right?
• 1:21:56
  So you need to train and at least know what each other's capabilities are.
• 1:22:00
  Well, and then for us, it's also, it's called unified command because when you
• 1:22:03
  show up, I'm in charge, I'm in charge. Police chief, fire chief.
• 1:22:06
  We need to, one person has to be in charge. I'm sorry, it just has to work that way.
• 1:22:10
  And typically, sorry, my Leo brothers and sisters, you know,
• 1:22:13
  fire aside's a little bit better at the ICS system when it comes to managing
• 1:22:16
  an overall scene and how that works. It's just dull because you deal with it so much more often.
• 1:22:21
  That's what we operate in is ICS, it's a command system, So it's easier to break
• 1:22:24
  those down into sections, planning, logistics, all those different things and
• 1:22:27
  have fire and charge. Like, don't get wrong. We're not going to tell you what
• 1:22:30
  to do when it comes to pointing your gun in any direction.
• 1:22:32
  But overall management, we'll be doing that.
• 1:22:36
  So, I mean, I just heard there's still a little bit of a content between the
• 1:22:39
  police. There's always.
• 1:22:41
  They can just score higher on the test. They can fire me too.
• 1:22:44
  Bro, if you watch the hockey games, if you watch anything, that's just a rivalry that will always be.
• 1:22:51
  I was going to say, so Jen, my fiancee who was here, her son is in the police.
• 1:22:55
  And all I get from him is that you guys know how to cook better because you
• 1:22:58
  have less time to do. You have more time to do all this stuff than they do.
• 1:23:01
  Yeah, we don't get to go sleep in our cars wherever you want.
• 1:23:05
  Find a neighborhood get in the back of the cul-de-sac so hey hey john let's talk real quick so,
• 1:23:11
  i got the opportunity you and i have linked up a couple times because i'm mutual
• 1:23:15
  friends some mutual activities we've been involved in let's pick your brain real quick,
• 1:23:21
  do you remember so one time was kind of funny because me and john showed up
• 1:23:25
  in the exact same vehicle exact down to the color a jeep grand cherokee srt8
• 1:23:30
  white vehicle which was funny because it's like, what is going on?
• 1:23:35
  It made me feel special. But John, do you remember, I think I remember our first
• 1:23:40
  time, but when did we first get together?
• 1:23:42
  And I don't know if it was that or meeting through a mutual friend about the,
• 1:23:45
  you know, supporting the Ruck to Remember.
• 1:23:47
  And that's when I learned about the CJ3 Foundation. You know,
• 1:23:50
  I got to be in havoc for the first time to figure out what, like,
• 1:23:53
  what is this big, really large American?
• 1:23:56
  It's fucking really loud.
• 1:23:59
  What is he talking about? That is an understatement that he's loud.
• 1:24:02
  And, you know, that's what I was like, all right, maybe he's not an asshole.
• 1:24:04
  Maybe he's actually a good guy. No, he's an asshole.
• 1:24:07
  He's still an asshole. But he's an asshole with a mission and I support the
• 1:24:10
  mission, right? And that's the key to the day. But that was,
• 1:24:13
  it was between, you know, I think it was that organization, the Ruck.
• 1:24:16
  So, John, you're saying a Ruck. Is this putting a sack on your back and actually
• 1:24:20
  running? Is he doing this? No, this is no bull.
• 1:24:23
  This is no crap. This is, so it was called the Ruck to Remember.
• 1:24:26
  Keith Jolly was our mutual friend that put this on.
• 1:24:30
  And it's a 60-mile Ruck from Harper's Ferry to Arlington on Memorial Day. No.
• 1:24:37
  That's where I was getting confused. So here's the problem. So year one,
• 1:24:43
  I actually signed up to do it and was whatever.
• 1:24:46
  For those that don't know, when I took an IED, one of the things that happened
• 1:24:49
  to me was my big toe is blown away from the rest of my foot,
• 1:24:54
  right? So it flops around.
• 1:24:56
  Well, when they were doing all my surgeries, they said, hey,
• 1:24:59
  we'd like to cut your big toe off. I was like,
• 1:25:01
  fuck you want to do that for? They're like, well, it just flops around.
• 1:25:04
  I said, well, do a capillary refill.
• 1:25:06
  Is there a circulation? Is there what they're like? Yeah, there's circulation.
• 1:25:09
  I was like, well, then leave it alone. They're like, yeah, but it just flops around.
• 1:25:14
  And they're like, why would you want to keep it? I said, maybe one day I want to wear flip-flops.
• 1:25:18
  So here's the problem. So what people don't understand is when you walk without
• 1:25:23
  having the support of your big toe, the amount of stress that puts on everything else.
• 1:25:28
  Right. And so So that thing was doing this for about 20 miles,
• 1:25:33
  just slapping the concrete and going in all different directions.
• 1:25:38
  And then because of that, the worse that gets, the more I limp,
• 1:25:41
  which then throws your back and your spine out and all that stuff.
• 1:25:44
  And there was just a point where I couldn't, I was almost ready to throw up
• 1:25:48
  the pain from my big toe, slapping the concrete and not being connected to anything.
• 1:25:53
  So I did about 20 miles. I was like, no, I'm done.
• 1:25:55
  So you jumped in the van and watched everybody else for support?
• 1:25:58
  No, I still supported. and went down and hung out and helped out and then the
• 1:26:01
  next year I had to do it virtually because I think COVID and then after that
• 1:26:06
  I just I'd go out and support and,
• 1:26:08
  Cause God dang, man, I'm not that young anymore. You don't have to tell me that
• 1:26:12
  twice. But John was doing it, man. This dude was, he's on it.
• 1:26:15
  You, you ran the whole thing? Ran.
• 1:26:17
  Ran. I'll keep you on it. Walked, whatever. You know, I, uh,
• 1:26:20
  was a very high level supporter of it, right? Helped organize it. I mean, led teams.
• 1:26:25
  Yeah. I've did it for about a dozen years. Yep. Okay. So it's a good event.
• 1:26:28
  Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt, but I had to understand. You're like,
• 1:26:31
  I met him at the, I'm like, really? That, that tells me he had a sack when I
• 1:26:34
  was back and he walked in.
• 1:26:35
  Well, dude, and, and no joke. Like there's different levels of what you carry and, you know.
• 1:26:42
  Eric had the one pound bag on. Everybody else is carrying 40 pound bags. I wish.
• 1:26:46
  Well, it's funny. I mentioned the very first year we ever did it,
• 1:26:48
  people are like, I'm going to put all the, like literally had dumbbells and stuff in there.
• 1:26:52
  And then, you know, we start and, you know, Harper's Fair, West Virginia,
• 1:26:55
  and you go over into Loudoun.
• 1:26:56
  It's called the roller coaster. It's the most elevation gain in the loss.
• 1:26:59
  I was going to say, you're going the wrong way.
• 1:27:01
  And carrying this extra weight. So people, not me, may have jettisoned some
• 1:27:06
  dumbbells and shit that you could probably still find on the Appalachian Trail
• 1:27:09
  because they realized how dumb it was because you're now in the middle of nowhere
• 1:27:12
  to put this. Why is this 10-pound dumbbells?
• 1:27:15
  But I'm sure they all went back and got them. Was Max Walsh a part of this?
• 1:27:18
  He is 100% Max. Yep. He's one of the team leads.
• 1:27:21
  And there was a number of firefighters out there, met some phenomenal people,
• 1:27:25
  appreciate the hell out of them, great folks to be around.
• 1:27:29
  Because let's face it kind of the ideology of this thing we come together through
• 1:27:33
  the suck right you rely on each other and along the way there's stories of valor
• 1:27:39
  that go along i got the opportunity to tell one during my my portion of it.
• 1:27:44
  It's a good event, right? So, it was a good time. So, yeah, I got to know John there.
• 1:27:49
  And then kind of throughout, we've been bumping into each other.
• 1:27:53
  And then we had an issue with a dog in the fire department. Yeah.
• 1:27:58
  So we had a gentleman that's a former Army Ranger, multiple tours, multiple decorations.
• 1:28:04
  And, you know, he got, you know, let go from the Army because of, you know, he had.
• 1:28:08
  His injuries. Had enough injuries where he could no longer do the job.
• 1:28:11
  So, they let him go, and then he suffered a lot, like a lot of our veterans do afterwards.
• 1:28:16
  He lost that feeling of the teamwork, of meaning, of having that person,
• 1:28:21
  and couldn't find a job, was not sober, you know, got into drugs and alcohol.
• 1:28:26
  And then finally, he found Loudoun County and was in part of the dispatch center.
• 1:28:32
  And let me even butt in before that. Oddly enough, the organization— You butt
• 1:28:36
  in? No, never. Yeah, but I have to say this because it brings context to it.
• 1:28:39
  So it was, it was kind of cool actually.
• 1:28:42
  So Joe, we'll just use his first name.
• 1:28:45
  He and I both got our dogs from the same place and we, we ran with the same
• 1:28:50
  organization for a little while.
• 1:28:52
  So that's where I got to know him. I was like, Oh, we both had the same trainer and the same, whatever.
• 1:28:56
  So we'd been to some dog events together, got along, kind of lost contact like
• 1:29:01
  you do with folks, right? Because he's in different area of his life. I'm somewhere else.
• 1:29:05
  And then long comes, I didn't even know he was coming to Loudoun County.
• 1:29:09
  Until i'll let john go yeah so uh joe got the job here and any any you know
• 1:29:14
  as a union represent union president i represented him and we just happened
• 1:29:18
  to be talking one day and he's like you know really you know i really wish i
• 1:29:20
  could have my dog i was like you have a service dog he's like yeah i just,
• 1:29:23
  i know i don't want to bring him to work because it's too much work there i'm
• 1:29:26
  afraid they're gonna say no or whatever and this dude i'm gonna tell you this
• 1:29:29
  i'll say some things john can't say this dude's my size like he's a big boy oh yeah and.
• 1:29:34
  But you can kind of tell he was kind of broken at the time, right?
• 1:29:37
  Like, he knows he needs a dog. He wants a dog.
• 1:29:40
  He needs a support. But he also doesn't want to upset a new system that he's
• 1:29:43
  in. Yeah, he's got this team now.
• 1:29:45
  What he's afraid of is if all of a sudden he says, I want to bring my dog in,
• 1:29:49
  they're going to be like, ooh, okay, well, then we're going to go through the
• 1:29:51
  ADA process and move you somewhere else.
• 1:29:53
  And you're no longer going to have this team. He didn't want to break up this cool thing.
• 1:29:57
  Which he's now sober at this point. Yep. Was on the up and up, doing very well.
• 1:30:01
  And he's like and the thing that helped him right is the the dog is a large
• 1:30:04
  part of this right sure was all of this and the one thing that helped him get to where he was
• 1:30:08
  he has to leave at home and then he has to have his friends his family and everyone
• 1:30:12
  else walk watch his dog while he's at work for 12 hour shifts and our dispatch
• 1:30:17
  works two 12 hour days two 12 hour nights then you're off for four so really
• 1:30:20
  for all intents and purposes he's without his dog half the time
• 1:30:23
  and let me tell you i will tell you this when,
• 1:30:26
  and john i mean you're kind of in the same boat whether you wanted to or not
• 1:30:29
  when you come to rely on these things,
• 1:30:32
  and i've rarely been without havoc but you know he got injured one time and
• 1:30:36
  i had to go to work with him one time or work without him one time,
• 1:30:39
  brody amount of stress that creates that you that you don't have your battle
• 1:30:43
  buddy and joe already had stress and other things going on but the amount of
• 1:30:46
  stress that creates so i can't fathom the fact that,
• 1:30:50
  he was going to work that much without his battle buddy that was given to him,
• 1:30:55
  to quell those same problems.
• 1:30:57
  So, you know, I convinced Joe is like, you know, this is important for you because
• 1:31:01
  my big thing is mental health, right?
• 1:31:03
  That is my calling. I'm getting my second degree in psychology.
• 1:31:07
  My goal is when I retire from this job to do mental health for first responders
• 1:31:10
  and veterans. So that's my jam, right? And it was cool you were supporting a non-firefighter.
• 1:31:15
  Like my point is, John, you're there for everybody. It's not just,
• 1:31:18
  it's for the folks on the job.
• 1:31:21
  That doesn't just mean firefighters, which I thought was cool.
• 1:31:23
  So, you know, convinced Joe to like, hey, it's time to, no, you're going to
• 1:31:26
  do this. And so he put in, he's like, you know, put in for his dog named Duncan,
• 1:31:30
  and was like, you know, I want to bring my dog to work.
• 1:31:33
  And so, you know, the department was supportive as in fire rescue,
• 1:31:37
  right? Where the issue came on
• 1:31:39
  was the larger department size of human resources, we'll call it, right?
• 1:31:44
  And it became a battle. That's my world, John. So. It became a battle of wanting
• 1:31:48
  a lot of information that's not technically required by ADA, right?
• 1:31:53
  And he would give a document and like, well, there's no official letterhead on this.
• 1:31:57
  Meanwhile assigned by the the creating i will say this and it's not a hit on the,
• 1:32:02
  bro i deal with this i've i've gone around the country and dealt with this so
• 1:32:06
  i'm not i'm not sliding our area the problem is in the absence of knowledge
• 1:32:12
  or the absence of knowing we create processes and create.
• 1:32:16
  Issues right and so the problem is they were almost backing themselves up into
• 1:32:20
  a corner because they were asking him for
• 1:32:21
  things that almost were becoming inappropriate yeah yeah so i was like I.
• 1:32:28
  I, I was new with having birdie, but of course, birdie's different, right?
• 1:32:31
  I, birdie's not my dog. He's not a service dog. So I didn't have to go through
• 1:32:34
  the ADA process to bring him to work.
• 1:32:37
  I, I have an official. But the funny thing is he, he could go to work.
• 1:32:39
  Because I have an official memorandum from the chief saying that birdie's allowed
• 1:32:43
  to come to work, all the stations, and this is his job. Right.
• 1:32:46
  And so I was like, I don't think this is right, Joe. And I was like,
• 1:32:48
  I know a guy. So this is the guy I know, Eric. Right. And all of a sudden.
• 1:32:53
  Wait, Eric Thomas? And wait, Joe? Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like,
• 1:32:55
  then I found out the two of them know each other. Like, oh, and they do the
• 1:32:58
  whole really weird shit thing. We kissed on the mouth. We kissed on the mouth.
• 1:33:03
  And Eric comes full force with, like, the equivalent of, like,
• 1:33:07
  I don't know, a battalion's bigger or whatever. In military terminology,
• 1:33:10
  a shit ton of information, I'm like, holy hell. Well, because I'd already,
• 1:33:14
  I've been down this road, right? It wasn't to overwhelm.
• 1:33:17
  I what I wanted to give John I wanted to empower John and Joe with with the,
• 1:33:23
  full force of what we've been through so that way.
• 1:33:27
  Candidly a lot of times you just need to overwhelm the force that's against you,
• 1:33:32
  and go here's what we got here's the legal read through it figure out where you're gonna be
• 1:33:37
  yeah I don't think you want almost as a hindrance right I don't think you want
• 1:33:41
  this this should not be the hill you want to die on well it's it's the oh shit
• 1:33:44
  they know what they're talking about we're fucked yeah i mean because
• 1:33:48
  we at this point we've already gone up against the state of florida like we got we got a guy,
• 1:33:52
  his dog at disney world and no offense but if i can fight disney world i can
• 1:33:56
  fight louden county right.
• 1:33:58
  Like no offense yeah so i mean yeah through through working with eric and providing
• 1:34:03
  the information the we were able to get joe's dog and he
• 1:34:07
  brought to work afterwards and it was fantastic and as expected duncan had provided
• 1:34:11
  no problem whatsoever. He becomes a morale piece, right?
• 1:34:14
  Moral piece, like when other individuals were on break, obviously,
• 1:34:17
  you know, people think that a service animal can never be pet.
• 1:34:19
  And that's not really, like, if the handler slash owner is okay with it,
• 1:34:24
  any service handle could be a pet, right? You don't know what that dog provides
• 1:34:27
  that human. So you do need to be careful and ask first. And where Duncan would
• 1:34:32
  be like, ECC is, I think, one of the hardest jobs in fire rescue because there's zero closure.
• 1:34:38
  You have somebody calling and screaming that their child's not breathing,
• 1:34:40
  their house is on fire, whatever.
• 1:34:41
  Then all of a sudden the fire department shows up and they hang up the phone.
• 1:34:44
  And you have no idea, are they still alive? Did their house burn down?
• 1:34:47
  What happened? And then the phone rings, next. Oh, okay, next call 911.
• 1:34:50
  And so, you know, Duncan even provided the same thing that Birdwee was up there.
• 1:34:54
  Like, there'd be other dispatchers, like, during their break,
• 1:34:56
  like, I'm just going to, and Joe'd be like, yeah, come sit with Duncan. Absolutely.
• 1:34:59
  It would just sit there and cuddle with Duncan. It was an asset.
• 1:35:00
  It became an asset. And, you know, it's hard because we all know whether it's
• 1:35:04
  a military or first responders is every policy has a name on it, right?
• 1:35:09
  Either good or bad. And Joe was the one that I'm thankful that he had the courage
• 1:35:12
  to do this because now the next individual that comes through,
• 1:35:15
  the process is there. The precedence is set.
• 1:35:18
  They know what they can and can't ask for. And that way should be a next smoother
• 1:35:21
  process. Cause I think a great place for veterans is our UCC because there's,
• 1:35:26
  especially for the ones that, that are not able to go out and ride a fire truck,
• 1:35:29
  right. Or, or they want to be, it cannot be a police officer.
• 1:35:32
  It's the next thing where you are still part of a team. You're still part of
• 1:35:35
  emergency services. You're providing a service that doesn't,
• 1:35:38
  your body doesn't necessarily have to be able to run around to.
• 1:35:41
  So. Yep. No, I, I, and, and phenomenal on you. I appreciate the hell out of
• 1:35:46
  you reached out that actually it made i was i was thrilled to support whatever
• 1:35:50
  and i don't feel like i got to do enough i was glad to do more,
• 1:35:54
  But that's what's phenomenal about these connections. John does some phenomenal
• 1:35:58
  things. I've had to reach out for advice and assistance just for guidance.
• 1:36:02
  Hey, what does this mean? Or what has—John's been phenomenal in that.
• 1:36:05
  So great relationship. Yeah.
• 1:36:07
  John, he's told me about you for a while now. I just—I'm glad to finally meet you today.
• 1:36:12
  It's an honor, honestly. Good, dude. I've admired you for a while, brother. Mark.
• 1:36:18
  Dude, you—I'm going to tell people that this dude has not talked about his rank at all.
• 1:36:24
  No he did not this this mofo is laying low as hell.
• 1:36:31
  He's like i i'm just a i just still do the work i carry the hoses,
• 1:36:35
  i uh i turn wrenches yeah i mean that's what i'd rather do honestly i mean hey,
• 1:36:40
  but let's actually talk but i still do a lot of that from a leadership perspective,
• 1:36:45
  it's a hard decision because i remember i remember doing it when you're successful
• 1:36:48
  with something and you do well at it it's actually a tough thing because you
• 1:36:52
  have to make the the decision.
• 1:36:53
  There's some point in your career where you go, I'm not going to be the guy
• 1:36:57
  doing it anymore, but I'm going to empower the job, empower the people and make
• 1:37:01
  positive change in an organization.
• 1:37:03
  But it's a conscientious decision that you got to make that I think we all look
• 1:37:08
  back. There's some days we go, why the fuck did I do that?
• 1:37:11
  But you know, overall, I think it's a good decision. Do you remember when that came about?
• 1:37:16
  Yeah. I mean, I was approached by a few people that asked me to run for that position and I wasn't.
• 1:37:21
  What position is that? Because we all want to hear how cool you are chief but
• 1:37:25
  no i i honestly was i was very,
• 1:37:28
  shy to it because i again i'm that guy that wants i i enjoy being a leader because
• 1:37:33
  i think it's a an important thing,
• 1:37:35
  that you're passing down your experience to other people to become a leader
• 1:37:40
  hopefully one day i think that's super i'm sure that's why john does what he
• 1:37:44
  does as well too i mean he is a leader because,
• 1:37:48
  he was positioned to put there be put there.
• 1:37:51
  I just think in, in a sense, I took on a role I probably wasn't ready for. Did you, can I say this?
• 1:37:58
  And I believe this doesn't matter whether you're a fire service or whatever.
• 1:38:01
  You're a narcissist if you think you're ready for it.
• 1:38:04
  Like, just like, candidly, the number of people I've seen that the ones that
• 1:38:07
  say they're ready, they aren't. And so I appreciate the humility of you probably
• 1:38:12
  were more ready than you thought you were because you, you were humble about it.
• 1:38:16
  I learned from a lot of good people. And I think if I had to say I was ready,
• 1:38:21
  it's because I learned from those guys and I, and I talked to some of those
• 1:38:25
  guys. I, you know, John knows chief Collins probably very well.
• 1:38:30
  Him and I grew up together. He was, you know, a chief in the county for a long
• 1:38:34
  time. And, you know, and I talked to him about it. And I'm like,
• 1:38:36
  man, I don't I don't know.
• 1:38:37
  And I respect his opinion so much as a as a person and as a leader,
• 1:38:41
  especially growing up with him being, you know, best friends for 40 years.
• 1:38:45
  That's, you know, I had to ask other people first, you know,
• 1:38:50
  to get different perspectives on it and then kind of take on that role to do that.
• 1:38:54
  And it's, it's interesting from time to time.
• 1:38:58
  So I don't like dealing with the political aspect of, of that side of it,
• 1:39:02
  but I just like being the person that goes out and tries to lead by example.
• 1:39:07
  I mean, I think that's all you can do. Knowing Mark, for the time I have,
• 1:39:10
  he's a very no nonsense person and the common sense is what really rules him.
• 1:39:15
  And he gets very frustrated with people that don't have no sense.
• 1:39:19
  Well, I work in the federal government, so imagine when I'm here.
• 1:39:24
  But I think as a leader, I would assume John probably is the same way.
• 1:39:28
  It's probably a lot of, you know, as a firefighter, common sense plays a huge
• 1:39:32
  part of it. It's not always, it doesn't have to be complicated.
• 1:39:35
  I feel like, trust me, on my part of it, I'm more physical than I am probably technical.
• 1:39:44
  John may be opposite I don't know But for me,
• 1:39:48
  I think I'm more of a I try to lead by physicality On how I'm on a scene And
• 1:39:53
  how I'm dealing with something You know Getting the job done And showing people
• 1:39:57
  I can do the job too That I'm not just in a position Because somebody thought It was a good idea.
• 1:40:03
  No, that's difficult. So I guess here's how I know it's worthwhile.
• 1:40:07
  John, what if your kid looked at you and said, I want to join the fire department?
• 1:40:10
  What would your reaction be?
• 1:40:11
  My son right now, it goes to Fairham College, plays football down there and
• 1:40:15
  has joined their cohort and is their very first program for Firefighter One
• 1:40:19
  and just went through the Firefighter Academy. There you go.
• 1:40:22
  He's a volunteer down in Fairham at the Fair College. So you're supportive.
• 1:40:27
  Well, it's one of those things I try to talk him out of it, right?
• 1:40:29
  Because I know what I go through. only because he can answer all of the dangers, right, of this.
• 1:40:34
  And then he said, I still want to do it. He's like, all right,
• 1:40:36
  I'm behind you 100%. Right? So by talk out, I'm like, are you sure?
• 1:40:39
  All these things are bad.
• 1:40:40
  And he's like, yep. I'm like, all right, cool. 100% behind you.
• 1:40:43
  So also a test in that to see if he's willing to back down off of it too.
• 1:40:46
  So the fact that he didn't, that speaks volumes. Yeah, he never calls and tells
• 1:40:49
  you about English class.
• 1:40:51
  But when is he done with the firefighter one out of the burn camp?
• 1:40:53
  He calls me immediately. Because he's not sure you all understand what the hell
• 1:40:56
  he's saying. Yeah, exactly. It's going to paint by numbers. But, you know.
• 1:40:59
  Mark, what about you, brother? Well, I would just say at first,
• 1:41:01
  I would say it's a testament to John too, because that your kid wants to follow
• 1:41:04
  in your footsteps after you shows that he's obviously a good father and,
• 1:41:09
  is a good example for his own child, which I think is- Totally great.
• 1:41:13
  Or his allowance is really amazing.
• 1:41:15
  Right. He's like, hey, you made this much money, I'm in. Yeah.
• 1:41:18
  I've tried to groom my grandson at four already to become a firefighter.
• 1:41:22
  So, I mean, yeah, I'm a hundred percent. I had a daughter, obviously she wasn't
• 1:41:25
  into, you know, she spent a lot of time in the fire house. Yes. So she was raised by.
• 1:41:30
  She followed Mark in coaching softball, apparently, from what I hear.
• 1:41:34
  But I'm going to tell you, a lot of guys got some badass female firefighters. They do.
• 1:41:37
  Because I work out with a couple, used to be at LA Fitness, a couple of,
• 1:41:42
  dude, there's some badasses. They are.
• 1:41:44
  And I'm not just saying like fit and whatever, but they're smart as hell.
• 1:41:49
  Absolutely. And they're go-getters. And oddly enough, humble as hell on top
• 1:41:54
  of that, I was actually really impressed with some of them I met.
• 1:41:56
  I would say for me, a lot, I think has changed in doing this.
• 1:42:00
  I don't know if John feels the same way, but I would say...
• 1:42:03
  The generational now, I think they're way smarter than us.
• 1:42:07
  The amount of information they have access to and what they know, I think so.
• 1:42:10
  I feel like sometimes there's a lack of maybe physicality at times.
• 1:42:15
  But as far as like the way they do certain things, the common sense thing is
• 1:42:20
  a little bit different from probably older school like me to now.
• 1:42:22
  But I feel like book-wise and the way they read, the way they absorb.
• 1:42:26
  I'm sorry, I'm not comprehending.
• 1:42:28
  We had a conversation about this in the military. you got the divide between
• 1:42:33
  officers and enlisted is different now you get you got e2s e3s with master's
• 1:42:38
  degrees now so going back to your what you were saying about book smart and knowledge,
• 1:42:44
  we're seeing it in the military it's almost like well this is this is kind of
• 1:42:47
  crazy are you guys what are you guys seeing that same dynamic in a fire department
• 1:42:51
  where i think for these kids are coming in with these ridiculous and you guys
• 1:42:54
  i'm sure know in the military is book smart and having What a master's,
• 1:42:57
  does not mean shit to be a good leader.
• 1:42:59
  Right. Right? It means you've studied somebody else's system.
• 1:43:03
  That just means you went through a process. Right. Instead of creating your
• 1:43:05
  own, you're going to implement. It's like the, I call it the good idea theory.
• 1:43:08
  Somebody goes to a training or seminar and listens to Bob speak.
• 1:43:12
  And all of a sudden, they come back and they're like, I'm going to implement
• 1:43:14
  this now. This is great. I learned about it.
• 1:43:16
  And then it fizzles out, right? Because it's not their own. The idea behind
• 1:43:19
  it is you need to have an encyclopedia of so much information and takes one
• 1:43:24
  thing from each page and make it your own.
• 1:43:25
  And create your own leadership and mentorship model. Like I had a lot of good
• 1:43:29
  mentors, you know, growing in the fire department and then had one really shitty
• 1:43:32
  one. And that's why I'm a lieutenant.
• 1:43:35
  But tell me, tell me this. And you know this because I had a bunch of shitty
• 1:43:40
  leaders. I'll tell you, I had only a couple of good ones.
• 1:43:43
  Dude, the amount you learn from even the shitty ones, you go,
• 1:43:46
  I know that's not what I'm going to, I know, you know, there's a whole lot you
• 1:43:50
  take away from that. Like, it doesn't have to be a complete detriment.
• 1:43:53
  You know what you don't want to do.
• 1:43:55
  100%. And it's good to have both. It's kind of like I watched Roger be a bad
• 1:43:59
  father, and I was like, I'm not doing that.
• 1:44:01
  I'm going to be a much better father than Roger.
• 1:44:06
  Funny for me is. Such a dick. But I would say from my perspective,
• 1:44:09
  I've been really lucky through LCFR.
• 1:44:13
  I've, all my mentors have been very good. I've had a couple not so great officers
• 1:44:18
  I've dealt with here and there as when I first started. But for the majority.
• 1:44:22
  It was that chief financial officer that just.
• 1:44:27
  That guy is a hundred percent pain in the ass for sure. So, hey,
• 1:44:31
  here's the real question.
• 1:44:32
  Me and Roger have been waiting the whole time to ask this. We didn't care about
• 1:44:35
  anything. Anything else?
• 1:44:38
  Are we going to get a ride along? When can we get on a fire truck?
• 1:44:41
  That's all we want to know. All you can do is fill out a piece of paper.
• 1:44:43
  We can have you ride a fire truck. Just saying, hey, release if something happens.
• 1:44:47
  I mean, guy wants to get on with his kid.
• 1:44:51
  I'm just saying this. I mean, one, the fire department in Loudoun County has
• 1:44:56
  been phenomenal partners. John, you know this. We work together all the time.
• 1:44:59
  So, one, I'd love to just get some pictures, whatever. Two, it'd be a great opportunity.
• 1:45:04
  Would love to get out there. We can sneak our stickers on their trucks,
• 1:45:07
  and they won't even know.
• 1:45:07
  Oh, yeah. Put a sticker on their truck, see what happens. That mug would kill
• 1:45:11
  you. Hey, this is a great car. This is a great vehicle. Although,
• 1:45:13
  I would love to see the Hamilton Station have a CJ3 Foundation banner hanging
• 1:45:18
  up in their fire station.
• 1:45:19
  Can we make that happen, sir? I would provide it for free if somebody would
• 1:45:23
  put it up. Hey, I'll put it up. All right.
• 1:45:25
  Because we did have one up at the Percival Station. I know that. Back for the Rook.
• 1:45:30
  I don't know if it's still there. Don't know. But challenge accepted.
• 1:45:33
  But now, hey, guys, I appreciate the hell out of y'all. You guys reminded me
• 1:45:37
  once again, and the same thing I've said over and over again.
• 1:45:42
  We talk about our veterans all the time, but you guys live it,
• 1:45:45
  eat it, breathe it on a daily basis. You don't get a break from it.
• 1:45:49
  This is in your community.
• 1:45:51
  So hats off to y'all. The stuff y'all go through, the stuff you put up with,
• 1:45:55
  both of y'all in your own rights have become phenomenal leaders and are just
• 1:46:00
  doing amazing things for the people that work in this career field. So hats off to you.
• 1:46:07
  I started off in that career field, so I think it's cool as hell.
• 1:46:09
  Thank God I didn't finish in it. That's all I'm going to say.
• 1:46:12
  But yeah, they wouldn't want me here. Believe me, I've become that fed.
• 1:46:17
  They don't want me. But no, thanks for everything you do.
• 1:46:20
  I look forward, John. You know, I know we're going to continue to work together.
• 1:46:23
  Appreciate the hell out of it.
• 1:46:24
  You guys are. Yeah, thank you both. I'm going to tell you this.
• 1:46:27
  I'm going to make you both cringe because we love to say it here.
• 1:46:30
  And you guys here, you got it on your shirt. You guys are heroes to me.
• 1:46:34
  Thank you for what you do. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your service,
• 1:46:37
  guys. Appreciate you both. Thank you. Let's be here. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:46:40
  Thank you guys so much. Appreciate you guys.