While most of my return trips from FDIC – the Fire Department Instructors Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana have been unremarkable, I’ve shared previous experiences of traveling home from this conference that have had an impact on my outlook on life. However, the way my most recent trip home from FDIC2017 played out is nothing short […]

In July of 2014, I had enough! I couldn’t go on. I was so confused not knowing what was going on in my life − why was I like this? I had to stop myself from hurting my family. I felt I needed to eliminate myself; they would be better off with me not hurting […]

Incident Management in the Fast Lane: Reducing Responder Road Rage! “From our perspective, we considered it a minor accident: two passenger cars, a few bumps and bruises but no serious injuries – to either driver or their vehicles. However, the way the vehicles were positioned in the roadway and the amount of clean-up that would […]

It takes a lot to shock me but this is the most sickening, disturbing story I’ve read in a while. There is no such thing as recreational drug use any more. Abstinence is the only real solution to this crisis. Once they’re in deep enough it’s difficult to bring them back from the depths of […]

For me and I’m sure many others, February 12, 2009 was one of those moments in your life where you’ll always say “I remember exactly where I was, what I was doing … at the moment I heard of the crash.” My wife Laurie and I have always had an unwritten rule that we don’t […]

I originally wrote “From the XboxTM to the Box Alarm” in 2008 as I stumbled upon what I saw as a direct correlation between Generation Y and the influence of video games on virtually every aspect of their lives. Based on my reading of some formal research conducted by those a lot smarter than I am […]

The term “Brotherhood” means different things to different people. Ask 100 firefighters what brotherhood is and you’ll get 100x different answers. You know it when you see it; you miss it when it’s gone and you certainly feel it when it’s turned against you. Used gender-generically to refer to this special, sometimes inexplicable bond that […]

I’ve never really bought into the whole idea of spirituality in terms of auras and orbs and such, but I have to admit that I had somewhat of an out-of-body experience today. Bob Newell, who I’ve spoke and written about at length, has been on my mind all day as it was seven years ago […]

While I believe it was P.T. Barnum who referred to the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus as “The Greatest Show on Earth!” – I’m not clowning around when I tell you that FDIC should be one of the definitive destinations for every firefighter at least once in their career. Unfortunately, as fire department and personal […]

Call me old-school but even with all the desktops and devices I own, I still love the feel and look of a print publication. [I hope the folks at FireRescue Magazine are reading this! lol] And I don’t know about you but, when I read a magazine I most often flip the pages from back to […]