Editor’s note:Tom Brennan, our revered technical editor and former editor, passed away in April 2006. Tom shared monthly here his wisdom and knowledge of the tactical aspects of our industry, but he also wrote about the social side of the fire service as only Tom could. We are very pleased that Tom wrote down some of these interesting, funny, insightful, and colorful stories. We are very proud to have the chance to continue to provide for you the random thoughts of our dear friend and brother. Please note Tom did not change any of the names, as he felt none of his friends mentioned in these pieces are “innocent.”
Personnel, people working on-shift, could not be unbalanced within the neighborhood (battalion) in which you were assigned. “Assigned” here may be an overplayed word to some who wish they read “worked in.” But, the assignment to a battalion was mostly for administrative responsibility and chain-of-command stuff. As a matter of fact, we were one of the busiest ladder trucks in the city and did very little fire duty with our assigned battalion. Actually, it depended on which direction of six we went in geographically for the response. Our fire response lay within the response borders of six different battalions. It just worked out that way in the center of downtown Brooklyn.
Most of the people working in Ladder 105 had some kind of “weight” or reputation or recommendation or a direct link genetically to a past member. In short, to get there, you were usually “taken care of.” The result was that favor on favor created an overloaded truck at the butt end of a battalion boundary. Because of this overload, there was always a detail to another unit for the tour of duty you were assigned. Members were assigned to work duties in this unit by the group number you were assigned in the chart and how they formatted for that cycle day-never mind figuring it out for now.
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