September 12, 2021
A Gazette Editorial
First of all, why not keep that Tribute in Light on all year long? Everybody loves it and it’d probably bring more money into NYC than it’d cost the City to operate. Isn’t that what they always tell us about new sports stadiums that we then have to pay to use?
Second, this EMS Battalion 4 patch was from before 9/11. The WTC was attacked with a truck bomb back in ’93 and it earned its famous nickname, Ground Zero, after that.
Third, that huge, rusty cross by Good Shepherd Church really did come from Ground Zero, courtesy of the late Father Kevin Devine.
Fourth, this is a low rez scan of a filthy, faded old 35mm slide originally shot sometime in late 1970s, from the ESB.
Fifth, lessons learned: Afghanistan really is the Graveyard of Empires, the Middle East was more stable before Iraq invasion, and nobody in DC ever questions how we’re going to pay for military costs…but they should. The projcted cost of President Biden‘s proposed infrastructure package is $3.5T over a decade. That’s half the annual Defense budget over a decade. It’s also the exact same as what the war in Afghanistan cost (or $7T over 2 decades). The difference is that the infrastructure package will make life better for many Americans. The trillions of dollars wasted by a Defense Department that couldn’t even defend its own HQ on 9/11 and then couldn’t defeat a developing country’s ill equipped insurgent forces after 20 years of war are never questioned. They should be audited before they get another dime.
Finally, it’s “Police Fire and EMS” not “Police, Fire, and first responders.” A first responder is a bystander who knows CPR or first aid and holds down the fort until EMS arrives. This erasure of EMS from the endless retellings of September 11 is no accident. “America’s Mayor” Rudy Giuliani very deliberately demolished the country’s premier EMS service in order to spare FDNY from layoffs 25 years ago in 1996. His plan called for the creation of a new job title, “Certified First Responder” which ranks below the EMS entry level position of EMT in training and scope of practice. It also transformed EMS into a waiting room full of firemen’s relatives with zero interest in patient care and who are simply waiting to become a firefighter via a promotion from EMS.
Think about that: the NYC Fire Department holds EMS in such contempt that it considers the move by an experienced EMT or Paramedic into the entry level job of Fireman in their department a “promotion.” Some Joe Blow can be hired off the street for that entry level job, but for an experienced EMT or Medic, it’s considered a promotion. So they’re saying that EMS personnel aren’t just “less than” every fireman. They’re saying EMS personnel are “less than” some nobody that just walked in off the street 10 minutes ago.
75% of EMS has less than 5 years experience as a result of this sick setup. That really says it all, twenty years after Rudy and 9/11. If, or when, the next Big One comes, the same people who are badly mismanaging EMS now will probably still be running the show. Because just as with the Pentagon, nobody can question their inefficiency, even in light of obvious failures.
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Clarification: The 25 years figure refers to the FDNY takeover of EMS in 1996.
