FIREMEN!

FIREMEN!

By Andy Weddington

Wednesday, 15 January 2025

The hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men.  - Henry David Thoreau 

None of the 343 firemen who died on 11 September 2001 at the World Trade Center, responding to the terrorist attack, were women.

What those men did, rushing into afire and collapsing towers, was comparable to what World War II Marines (some armed, ironically, with flamethrowers) did in the South Pacific assaulting defended beaches. 

Raw courage. 

Heroic.

Men doing what men were built - strength, speed, stamina - to do.

Our country rightfully reveres them.  

As to the LA fires, at this writing reports are of a couple dozen deaths (I don't know if any firemen but believe not). 

What the public has learned about the LAFD (never mind state and local elected officeholders e.g., governor and mayor) is it's a DEI disaster; made so over years. 

Bottom line: Failed leadership. 

With the citizenry ultimately at fault. 

Failed leadership destroys - manning and performance - the ranks. And public confidence and trust. 

The nonsense out west (our home for 15 years - including danger close to wildfire a time or two) and elsewhere hits home. 

I happen to know a young man who aspired to be fireman. 

His goal to earn his way on with the metropolitan department of his home; one of the biggest and best outfits in the southeast if not country. 

Couple years ago he applied. 

The multiphase application - screening, testing, interviewing, winnowing, and selecting - process spanned nearly six months. 

Educated, physically fit, strong, smart and destined to achieve great things in life he handily conquered each step. 

In the end, not selected. 

Disappointed does not begin to capture the feeling when that news delivered. 

He wrote a thank you for the opportunity letter to the Chief. 

As to traits, throw in class. 

Less than a year later that department contacted him about an opening as primary selects not making the grade. 

He asked questions (of some in the know) as to why he was not initially selected.  

DEI. 

He thought through the offer and replied no thanks - he could not see being part of such a demanding, dangerous profession knowing the best were being discriminated against. 

Logical. 

The department lost. 

And still I wonder just how many of the best qualified join him.

Too many, for certain. 

Loss for the department. More so for the citizenry served. 

His disqualifying factor?

White.  

Yesterday I watched the Senate confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth - nominated by President-elect Trump to be Secretary of Defense. 

In essence Hegseth will be a fire chief; sending forces into danger. 

He knows that danger.

His focus is fielding the most capable and lethal force possible.

Race moot. 

He wants the best and that does not include women in ground combat.

He calmly and strongly made and defended his position(s).

The females of the Senate Armed Services Committee can best be summarized as hysterical screechers. 

Thinking about them during this morning's walk in the bitter cold I concluded I'd not want any of them responding to fire alarms nor firefights. 

And I thought about my days long ago in Marine infantry. 

There was not women in combat arms; by law excluded.

And common sense. 

There was no place for women in Marine infantry. 

There still is not. 

Law was changed to defy common sense and align with agenda. 

DEI.

Behold! Common sense is on verge of making comeback. 

Men, even if white, back in the fight. 

They'll fight and put the fire out. Or die trying.