Dear Editor,
After completing the compensation survey online regarding the
Gilroy Fire Department salaries, I would like to see one more
survey asked of your readers.
ARE YOU WILLING TO:
1. Work 24 to 72-hour shifts without seeing your family.
Dear Editor,
After completing the compensation survey online regarding the Gilroy Fire Department salaries, I would like to see one more survey asked of your readers.
ARE YOU WILLING TO:
1. Work 24 to 72-hour shifts without seeing your family.
2. Not be home for Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, birthdays and anniversaries because you’re working.
3. Respond to vehicle accidents and try to help the victims who are injured with blood and brain matter at your side.
4. Crawl on your hands and knees in black smoke in temperatures between 180 and 200 degrees searching for a person who may or may not be in the house. While wearing 100-plus pounds of protective equipment.
5. Tell the parents of the drowning child that their child did not survive.
6. Be on the roof of a burning structure cutting a hole and knowing that there’s a working fire right below you.
7. Tell the children of the man who just had a heart attack that their father has passed away.
8. Choke, gag, and vomit on the smoke of a vegetation fire that’s heading right for a block of houses with wood shingle roofs.
9. Put your life on the line in a attempt to help someone you don’t know.
10. Work 30 years for the fire department knowing that your life expectancy after retirement isn’t as long as your brother, sister, or neighbors.
Gilroy Fire Department has a reputation of being aggressive and progressive. For a small bedroom community whose fire department is understaffed, they do a remarkable job to protect and serve the citizens of Gilroy. Every one of the firefighters that work for Gilroy Fire Department puts their life on the line for us. Let’s pay them so they can afford to buy a house in the same community they’re willing to die for.
Skip Bloom, Gilroy
The Golden Quill is awarded occasionally for a
well-written letter.
