Story on Resevists and Firefighting

[webteam]

Firehouse.com is currently preparing a story on firefighters being called to active duty to go to the military. If you have any members, or are one yourself, who has (or potentially could be) called up, please e-mail your contact information to news@firehouse.com with the subject line 'Firefighter Military Call Ups'

Thanks
WebTeam

[TailboardJockey]

Dear Webteam,
Although I believe your intentions are good, I don't think you realize how bad of an idea this really is.
While this may make a nice "feel good" story for the folks back home, the chances of my private information being used against me by those who do not have my family's or my best interests at heart is a risk that a lot of us in the military are not willing to take.

It may sound farfetched to you, but this story actually happened to a POW during the Vietnam war: The pilot was being interrogated and was giving evasive answers to his interrogators in the prison, until they pulled out a magazine article that was written about him a couple of years prior, with pictures of him and his aircraft, and names of his wife and family! His interrogation went downhill from there!

There have also been cases of anti-war protesters making phone calls and visits to the homes of military members while they were away at war.

Please re-think this endeavor. Thank you.

[DaSharkie]

I must agree with tailboard on this one. Due to the proliferation of personal infromation and the incredible ease information can be obtained nowadays this can be a bad move on many sides.

Large numbers of call ups that leave a certain municipality's response services at a lower level can create a more unprepared target.

There is a reason that the military has strongly urged their members to not use their last names when giving interviews and doing things publicly precisely because of fears for the member's family and MOST IMPORTANTLY, the location of that persons individual unit and capabilities.

Understanding that there is a story here, I must simply state that National Security for us and protection of the friends and families of our brothers and sisters is paramount and trumps every other endeavour.

Perhaps as an alternative, you could simply ask for the number of people called up from a community, the actual staffing of members' departments adn ask that the name of the department not actually be given so as to diminish the potential threats and damages to us.

[webteam]

Folks

We're not giving away any personal information here. This will be no different that the countless articles in newspapers across the country in general discussing troops being sent away from home.

Thanks
WebTeam

[E40FDNYL35]

City's Seabees dig in
New Yorkers say 'Yo!' to desert bunker duty
AL JABER AIR BASE, Kuwait - The best of New York's civil servants won a fight with the desert yesterday to build bunkers for the Marines.City firefighters, and sanitation and transit workers - all reserve Navy Seabees called up to confront Iraq - used backhoes and shovels to rip apart a sand berm and create concrete bunkers to shield troops against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's missile attacks.
The New Yorkers used their special communication skills - shouts of "Yo!" and loud whistles perfected by hailing cabs - to be heard above the roar of U.S. and British war planes taking off to patrol the southern no-fly zone over Iraq.
Kuwaiti civilians working on the base stopped in puzzlement at the curious city sounds coming from the nine.
Firefighters Mark Kurtz, 36, Paul Franco, 29, and Patrick Neville, 32; sanitation workers Patrick Sabatini, 43, Daniel Johnson, 40, and David Maldonado, 39, and Transit Authority workers Michael Davis, 37, Daniel Quinn, 40, and Antonio Serrano, 30, came together as a Seabee team in the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion based in Lakehurst, N.J.Becoming a Seabee was a family tradition for Kurtz, of Queens, a firefighter at Ladder 23 in Harlem. His grandfather John was one in the Pacific campaign of World War II, and his father, John, also was a Seabee.Seabee teamwork "is like an extension of what we have in the firehouse," said Kurtz. Franco, of Bayside, Queens, and Engine 76 in Morningside Heights, said his crew has one chance to "do it right." Neville, of the Bronx and Rescue 1, said he was encouraged to become a Seabee by Fire Lt. John Gormley, now serving as a backseat radar intercept officer on F-14 Tomcat fighters aboard the carrier Constellation in the Persian Gulf.
"It's kind of funny with all of us city guys here," said Neville. "Who's minding the store back home?"
Johnson said he'd never served on active duty or been called up from the reserves before Kuwait, and he viewed his presence here as "the chance of a lifetime to serve my country."

'Dirt sailors'

Several of the New York Seabees also share a similar view of military service - they wanted to join the Navy but didn't particularly want to be aboard ships.So they saw the "dirt sailor" Seabees - the guys who build things on land - as an alternative.
"The only ship I've been on is the Staten Island ferry, and that's enough," said Quinn, a Staten Island bus driver.
"I could never see myself on a ship," chimed in Big Mike Davis of Far Rockaway, Queens, a motorman on the subway's longest run - the A train from 207th St. to Far Rockaway. "Here, I get to play in the dirt and sand."In Kuwait, said Davis, "I just try to think that I'm doing my part to make the world right. We're coming together there for one common cause, and you can't beat the New York brotherhood."

[Resq14]

"I just try to think that I'm doing my part to make the world right. We're coming together there for one common cause, and you can't beat the New York brotherhood."

What a quote. God bless.