This state is a right to work state not supported by the unions. Pensions are paid into by the individual much like your 401K as is the medical. None of this has anything to do with what was going on with the Fireman hostages. I hope you never need one of these people that you hold in so much contempt.
You deny tens of millions of unionized government workers, including water and power, fire personnel, cops, city councils, their staffs, accountants, planners, etc and their bloated government salaries, pension and benefits are not choking off privater sector America?
You deny this?
I live in Cobb county Miss Aquamarine. I have a damn fine friend that just retired from Fulton county Fire. My dad went to school with the longtime chief of Cobb...Roy Hamrick.
Unlike most states...Our FF aren’t paid much...most have to work another job on their 24 hours off just to pay their bills. They pay into a private 401 K...just like everyone else.
During the epic..biblical 2009 flood here in Cobb county...Our FF’s went far ABOVE the CALL OF DUTY...risking their asses braving the cottonmouths...swarming balls of fire ants...and raging ass current..saving untold numbers of lives versus the 10 we lost. One rescue I watched the young boy FF...couldn’t have been more than 19...saved a woman from her car that had been washed off a bridge and pinned undercarriage against a tree...rushed out the truck before a line could be unrolled and DOVE into a raging 15 knot mass of ugly...barely catching himself on the car..IN THE DARK...HAD HE MISSED THE CAR THE FREAKIN CHATTAHOOCHIE RIVER WAS TWO BENDS DOWNSTREAM...30 FREAKIN FEET ABOVE FLOOD STAGE AND 55 degrees of twenty knot current...He woulda been dead before he got to Douglas county and woulda washed all the way to West Point lake...90 miles downstream.
I ain’t heard of any those folks like her....or the hundreds like her...getting any extra bill. Nor would I think they would give a f#ck.
I wonder if that crane operator rescued from his 200 ft tall perch....from the raging inferno of burning 15 story building beneath him...by that young ass Atlanta FF DANGLING FROM A HELO by what was pretty much a leather swing set seat and NO GODDAMN HARNESS....I wonder if he got billed extra? I’m sure the FF got a damn dime extra and did not give a f#ck...ain’t NO AMOUNT OF MONEY WORTH LAYIN OUT A SACK THAT SIZE....IT WAS DONE OUT OF LOVE FOR HIS FELLOW MAN.
I know that in my younger days....when I did some steel erecting downtown....it paid no more to be feet on the ground or dangling 20 stories up on a beam being hoisted in place and bolted...with that NW wind blowing hard down the Appalachains.
No amount of Combat pay was worth laying the ass on the line...whether getting shot at in Central and South America...or standing watch on the port side .50 cal during a good blow at night...or working on a live 480 volt panel rolling in 20 ft seas that HAD to be fixed quickly before we hit another ship or the jagged ass rocks the 40 knot plus gale was blowing us toward. No sir.
I wonder if the FF’s...rushing to the top of World trade...when EVERYONE ELSE WAS RUNNING DOWN THEM STEPS....Wonder if their widows think the money they got was worth watching them buildings come down with their loved ones inside...watching them die on national TV....was worth it?
And most importantly....when my wife had a reaction to her new meds and put her hand through our living room window...severing her artery with the smallest of four ugly lacerations....taking three of the 150 + stitches to close. I was around the corner at a neighbors and went running after the ambulance and first engine went by....I beat the squad rescue and chief to my yard...seeing my wife laid out on our deck covered in blood head to toe..looking very dead...the whole gory scene made worse with the splashing red from their lights running a circle...over and over and over.
I’ve seen some really gruesome...f@cked up shit in my life...I will NEVER forget that scene. And had she died...that image would have haunted me hard the rest of my life.
Her first BP was 70/30. There was one EMT trying to sew up the artery...the other was giving the IV with both the fluids and blood clotter that would save her life...One FF was taking her BP and reading it out every 30 seconds. One FF...rated in Advanced Life support EMT was in command barking out orders while another was on the radio with Cobb Gen ER telling THEM WTF was going on.
While the Chief stood right next to me...cool as ice...telling me this is his Ateam and they got this. SHe’s good...that EMT who so skillfully and quickly got the IV going...in the dark...before anyone else got to her....saving her life with his badassness like he did Marines in Afghanistan as a Navy Corpsman. His name was Steven Godsden.
He told me his head dude over there running the show was also a Navy corpsman combat vet...Brad Cummings. The rook of the crew...on the radio with the intern at Cobb..who thought they were all following his orders...was clueless. Another Steve..Steve Culbreath.
The EMT that sewed up her artery..in the dark...doing a better job than the er docs did in perfect light...Brandon Pirkle.
From the time they arrived till she was loaded was just shy of 5 minutes...two minutes later the Chief got the official “She’s good” from EMT Godsden riding in the back of the ambulance with my wife...along with FF Brad...the head dude.
Luckily for us...it was Friday night and the Trauma A team was on duty because Friday is usually a pretty busy night for car wreck trauma.
The only bill I got was from the ambulance company...a PRIVATE company...for $1500. It’s been paid in the year since.
I didn’t get jack squat of a bill from Cobb Fire. They did get a big fat delivery of Wallace BBQ one Friday night later on. Then another they got some deer chili. Another time I took them two gallons of untaxed Apple pie brandy. They got my undying gratitude and prolly tired of hearing my thanks....along with a letter to the head of Public safety in Cobb county.
Now some may bitch about the FF’s in their state. I bitch about bloated government employees myself....sucking up massive amounts of tax money for little in return. But to bitch about FF’s? Those who are the lowest paid amongst government employees but are expected to give the most...their lives...FOR YOU??
BITCH AT THEM WHILE THEY ARE SAVING YOUR LIFE. BE SURE TO BITCH AT THEM WHILE THEY ARE DYING SAVING YOUR UNGRATEFUL ASS...GO ASK THEIR WIDOWS IF THEY ARE ENJOYING THEIR FAT ASS LIVES YOUR TAX DOLLARS ARE PROVIDING THEM.
Go down to Manhattan and tell them how overpaid their dead brothers were...Do it next week so I can watch...you ungrateful bastard.
Aquamarine...Thank You.