Bury The Hatchet!

[EMTbravo 312]

Members,

Bury the hatchet.

Career vs. Volunteer. Police vs. Firefighters.

It's disgusting. Our jobs, volunteers or career, police officers or firefighters we are in it to serve the public. It's not always a perfect world, and there is always going to be politics, disagreements, etc. However, we all should be looking at it like this. How can we work TOGETHER to improve things in this moment of time?

It's NOT about us, it's about the public who depends on us to serve and protect them with the highest level of service possible. If, you, gosh forbid, got into a car accident and were pinned and in needed medical attention ASAP, wouldn't you want someone to get you out of there as soon as possible? We all drive through volunteer and career districts in the course of our days. Would it matter to you who responded at that moment? If you're complaining about the training of volunteers, do something about it. Sign up as an instructor. Figure out how you can help. And vice versa. It could be you that needs them.

If you're a volunteer, who cares what career firefighters think of your agency? If you're confident in the service you provide, there should be no reason to have to "defend" yourselves. There are issues between the two, but if you really look at it, a lot of the problems are very similar. We bellyache about volunteer daytime staffing. However, there are career departments that dont have any better staffing anytime. Can we all put aside egos to work together to solve the problems?

As far as Cops vs Firefighters, we work together and depend on one another. When we have a possibly violent situation, Fire and EMS stage, and Cops go in and risk their lives to make sure it is safe for firefighters and EMS to go in. They have our back. If that cop, gosh forbid, is to get shot, that Cop depends on Firefighters and EMS to save their lives. We have their back.

Those of us who are truly in it to help fellow citizens are sick of it. Open your ears, and learn from one another. You may just learn something simply by listening.

There can be respectful and producitve discussions regarding the issues, but by trashing one another, we only create anonymosity and more problems. This site will NOT tolerate it, and the staff is working on a specific set of rules and action/solution plans to address these threads, members, and posts.

My opinion represents my guiding views as the founder of this site and the Executive Director. I have many other administrative duties as well to keep this site online. I typically don't get involved with the various daily thread, post, or member issues which are handled independently by the staff, which takes a tremendous stressfull burden off my shoulders and are the reason why the site is still online..

The staff of this site volunteer their time to work together as a team to run this site, on a 24/7 basis.. I have full trust in them, and are an excellent team who have a tremendous workload which many members don't see or appreciate. Our staff consists of carefully handpicked active or retired Police Officers, Career and Volunteer Firefighters and EMS personel, Emergency Communications staff, EOC personel, and many other backgrounds. They understand and can relate to all the members and situations.They have accomplished many great things, and this site wouldn't be what it is without them.

Don't waste their time by making them have to "referee". And how can you accomplish this? Respect on another, and bury the hatchet already.

Seth G.

seth@emtbravo.com