Jason Hoevelmann's Blog – February 2014 Archive (3)

The fire service has so many different sayings and mottos that they become cliche and difficult for newer firefighters to truly understand what they mean.  But, more than just saying these slogans and even understanding, in some cases we need to make sure we act on those mantras.

One of the sayings that I hear a great deal of and say myself is "do the right thing."  For some of us we probably take for granted that the persons we are telling this to know what it means to do that.  …

I remember being a young, volunteer firefighter and learning as much as I could from whoever would share.  Being in a small, mostly rural department, and with no social media--only the monthly trade journals---I depended on the more senior guys around me to pass on what they had learned and I always assumed that they knew what they were talking about.

It didn't matter what the topic was, I seemed to always come away with something I didn't know before hand.  The one thing that I can…

As progressive, engaged and enthusiastic firefighters, we all took classes, trained hard and created an image of the way we would be when we got promoted. We would do this and we would do that, damn the consequences and those we might piss off. But, when we got there, it may not have all gone as planned. Hmmm.....did you ever wonder why?

I have seen this happen over the years and it has happened to me during my first years as a young company officer and later on as a chief officer,…