Fallen FF Memorial

My speech at the 2011 Houston Fallen Firefighter Memorial

To the families of our fallen, honored guests and friends… welcome and thank you for joining us today to be a part of our ceremony.

 I was once told by a priest that he learned everything he needed to know about public speaking from his father by the time he was ten years old. “My father wanted all us kids to be brief and be gone,” he said. So I’m taking that advice to heart today.  I will be brief and be gone and be followed by Fire Chief Terry Garrison.

As president of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association I have the honor of speaking on behalf of nearly four thousand professional firefighters in the city of Houston.  That is a daunting task under the best circumstances.

Recent events have made that daunting task a difficult one, but don’t misunderstand me, I still regard it as an honor. 

It would be easy to focus on the challenges we face today and ignore everything else, but occasions like this one remind us we cannot do that. Houston’s firefighters face both a hostile political and a tough economic environment. It would be easy, as I said, but as I often tell my three kids easy is almost never synonymous with right.

And so for today we set aside those challenges before us for the righteous path of paying homage to our fallen brothers and sister. We do so not because it is our duty, we do so with honor.

As many of you know, I recently attended the Harvard Trade Union Program. There were students from various Labor organizations from all over the US, Canada, the UK, Japan and Australia.

One of my classmates was a scrappy Australian fellow named Chris Christodoulou. Between classes and in the evening Chris went about asking everyone in class to read a group of statements and choose the one that best described them. Well, Chris didn’t reveal why he was asking the questions until later. It turns out he is a poet and he had written a poem which corresponded with each of the statements we were to choose from. We were all given a copy of our selection.

There was only one other firefighter in class, Eddie Boles from the Uniformed Fire Officers of New York. Without knowing what the other had done, he and I both chose the following statement: “At least once a year I take time out to honor workers killed at work”. I think that selection by both of us speaks volumes about Labor leaders in the fire service.

You see, I believe our union is the foundation on which our brotherhood is built. More than a labor organization focused on wages and benefits, it is the repository of our organizational values. It is the place where beliefs like:

·        an injury to one is an injury to us all, AND

·        we leave no one behind, AND

·        we will never forget

 are born, breed and reinforced.

We have made a commitment and it will forever be honored. We will never forget.

You, the family members and friends, of our sister and brothers listed on this wall have given so much. You should know that we appreciate the sacrifice that your loved ones made and recognize the toll that it takes on you even today.  Thank you so much for all that you do and all that you’ve done to help us remember and honor our fallen comrades and thank you for coming out and sharing your time and memories with us. Thank you.

The Price of Silence in the Face of Injustice

First they came for the Communists,

  and I didn’t speak up,

    because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

  and I didn’t speak up,

    because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,

  and I didn’t speak up,

    because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,

  and by that time there was no one

    left to speak up for me.

This version of a well known poem by Rev. Martin Niemoller (taken from TIME Magazine, Aug 28, 1989) is one of many slightly different versions. The author of the poem is often not mentioned, but I think it is important to note the words come from a man who declared that he “would rather burn his church to the ground, than to preach the Nazi trinity of ‘race, blood, and soil.’”
Niemoller’s position in the church and influential friends protected him until 1937. Eventually, he was arrested for sedition. He was found guilty, but initially only given only a suspended sentence. He was almost immediately re-arrested on Hitler’s direct orders. From then until the end of World War II, he was held at the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps where he narrowly escaped execution.