Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington

Wesley Knight 0:00
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Music 0:42
what's going on Good day,

Dave Washington 0:49
Las Vegas, good day, good day. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz animal. I have a former fire chief, Eugene Campbell, is sitting back waiting to get on the line after I make a few announcements. I'm pleased to say that gene did an outstanding job, as Wes has pointed out as well. On last week's show, I had to make a trip out of town to go to the funeral and memorial services of my dear, dear, dear sister in law. She told me, they'll call me sister. I'm your sister, and you're my brother, not in law. That's Ava Marie Campbell, Marsha's younger sister, and I don't mind putting it out there, and Marsha don't care that. She really took it hard, because that was her baby sister, and they were really, really tight. In fact, I'll say this to the listening audience. Sometimes I would hear them talking I'm thinking they're talking about this somebody that we knew, that we all knew. They're talking about Victor Newman on one of these soap operas. I'm like, Are you kidding me? And they talking to them just like they real, everyday people that they know very, very well. But anyway, also this month. You know, I always mention birthdays I really wanted. And this is a young man who's been gone for some time. He's in certainly an ancestor, but Paul Robeson was, I believe His birthday was, April 9, but he was an outstanding individual. I mean, this guy, he lettered in 15 different sport. Got 15 different letters, I should say, football, basketball, baseball, track, outstanding, and he was a renowned baritone based concert singer and artist. I mean, he did film and stage, and the brother could speak over 20 different languages, and I'm talking about fluently, and on top of all of that, he had a law degree from Columbia University. So you talk about a bad dude who they tried to erase from history, but we will not forget you, Paul Robeson, for the magnificent job you did in paving away, even though there are people who still try, once again, to rid your name from our history. But it can't be done, because we all know and I will continue to spread those types of words. And last month, I failed to express condolences to the family of former boxing great George Foreman, who passed away, George was one of the good guys. He was my Ali was my man. But I like George because he had the fire in his gut, and when he left box and he became a preacher, so condolences once again to his family. Then one other quick announcement, UNLV is having a student athlete career fair. And I know that brother Orlando rice and his crew is going to be involved in that. So just want to give him a little shout out. It'll be on the 21st of this month, at 6pm I don't know the exact location, but it will certainly be here on the campus of UNLV. So just wanted to give them a shout out. Chief Eugene Campbell, how you doing? Brother,

Gene Campbell 4:09
good morning. Chief, how are you I'm

Dave Washington 4:11
doing okay. Brother, doing okay. And thanks again for standing in and that man, that young lady you had on the show, boy, she has quite a resume, quite a resume. And anyone who didn't hear that show last Saturday, I would encourage you to go to wherever you get your podcast and pick that up, because what this woman talked about man was so important. And she talked about the discipline that she got while in the military or learned to be a very disciplined person. She and her husband also owns a business, a janitorial service, so just an outstanding individual who does some work for Mandalay group and Gene know more about that than I, but chief Campbell tell us about the experience you had with taking over for. Your namesake here, Dave Washington. When I had to go down to Houston to my sister in law's service and Gene you and April took that over and did a fine job. I got a call today from a brother, James William. I call him James Williams number two. He said, man, they had so much fun. They can't wait till next year. So give us a little feedback on that gene. How did it go?

Gene Campbell 5:25
Well, yeah, Dave, before I start on the on the fundraiser, I just like to say, Boy, you hit some good points here this morning. You know, you talked about Victor Newman. That's why that's that brings back a long time ago, some memories, right? You know is that our days are a lot of one of those, right? And so it's interesting how, how things transform through generation and generation. Then you talked a little bit about Paul Robeson that goes all the way back to my mother's college days. Mm, back at ot a and I, okay, she talked about Paul Robeson. And you know, the different roles that he had in acting. And so back in the day that my mother went to some of those plays. So that brings back some things and speaking of those many languages. So appreciate, appreciate you keeping that that history alive, man and and talk a little bit about Miss Maui Wallace. Just want to make sure the veterans reach out to miss Melanie Wallace and or MGM properties Corporation in general, keeping in mind that we have over 100,000 employees in the state of Nevada, those veterans who are coming home or looking to do something different. MGM has a program where they work through and help veterans transitioning to find positions that they want to to acclimate to. So anyway, I just like to bring those three points up as we start to talk about the Carl Holmes executive development institute and the golf tournament that you that you have been the leading and that you let me leave while you had to go down to Houston, we had a great tournament, and was honoring chief spike William Spike Jones from St Louis, Missouri, as Well as chief assistant chief Herschel Clady from LA County Fire Department, two great warriors, two great people, one who graduated from the program Herschel, the other one, who was a longtime instructor. Spike, over 30 years there, Spike Jones have just been such inspiration, inspiration to firefighters and just people in communities their whole careers. And so it was. It was something that people from Baltimore, Maryland to Sacramento, California to Houston, Texas is Dallas, Texas as well as we had some people that would that came out from the Sunday ducks right here in Las Vegas Valley, right as well as we had some some ringers there. I said we had a few ringers that show up there. So anybody long time know a couple of those ringers that they had out there, but we had a great time and raised some money for firefighters who are up and coming so they can get the same opportunity. Chief Washington as you and I did absolutely,

Dave Washington 8:24
you know, you mentioned Sacramento. Man, I went down and had dinner with Joe cherry Julius, Joe cherry man, me and me and Joe hadn't seen each other in probably 20 years. Man, and when he and I talked, you know, about the fact that he was coming to to participate. It was exciting. And then to see and talk with him, and it brought back many, many memories here. This, this for our listening audience. This guy is was not only the fire chief of Sacramento, he was a practicing attorney at the same time. I mean, very, very bright brother, and appreciate him coming down. And he got an opportunity to see, as he told me say, Man, I get to see some people I haven't seen in a while. And also I like to say condolences to some of the people that our good brother and one of Herschel's aces, Ali lenson, he had to say, hey. Man, I can't even make it. Man, I had to cancel everything, so we put someone in this place, but Ollie had some of his friends or family members to pass away down in Florida, so he had to head to Florida from Mississippi, and he has a place in Mississippi as well as in Florida. So we missed that brother, but we know that he was there with us in spirit, because I know Ali. Ali and Dan Scott were the first two people gene to I knew they would be. I wasn't surprised they were the first two to send their dollars in for the golf tournament, because I knew how special Herschel was to them and they were to each other as a group. And I always used to say to Herschel man. I'm, you know, I'm a little jealous, man, because you got a whole posse with you, and not to discredit them, but all I got is two guys, but they are warriors, and that is gene and Burt and all the rest of the guys, man, they were kind of like slow you have to pull their teeth to get them to come along with fighting discrimination and all these other bullying types of things that was occurring in the fire service, particularly here in Las Vegas. So I will always continue to honor you and Burke for standing tall with me as we went through some of the various battles, both but it's nice to know that everybody had a great time at the tournament, and it is my hope gene through you and the other broad board members that we be allowed to do it again here next year, because I think it's a it's an outstanding event, and we're honoring two of our of our ancestors to fall and warriors who did such tremendous work, as you already mentioned, in terms of the being instructors at the Carl homes executive development institute. And I didn't I just learned this this past weekend that spike didn't even graduate or go to EDI. I'm like, what? That's a studio? He said, No. Man, Spike came in as an instructor, and all I did was laugh, man. I said, Well, you never know, but just an outstanding individual, and I've mentioned many times on this show, gene that spike coached me a lot because he had the same kind of cancer that I had, and he was telling me different things to do, and also made me very much aware of the Whipple type surgery that I would have to have, and as I studied that stuff, man, I'm like, do I want this to happen to my body? But yes, I went through it and it was. Man, what a journey, and I'm still on that journey, but yeah, thanks for mentioning both of those guys, man with and us maintaining their legacy by having this, this golf event,

Gene Campbell 11:49
exactly, Chief and you had some great volunteers. Also want to shout out to United firefighters of Southern Nevada, for for for stepping up. And they put a team up, and they had David Hackard battalion chief there. I I don't know if it seemed like one time. Seemed like he had to run off the car to answer some calls for work. And he made sure that he handles, he went out to handle that business man. So I want to thank him and his wife, because she came out, Didi, she came out and she she volunteered. And we had over 10 volunteers. We had Wendy. Wendy came out your, your, your granddaughter was leading, leading the charge in so many areas. And grandson David was out there, Chief Danny Smith from from Houston, Texas. We had so many other people there volunteering, Arlene, Arlene Jackson and Miss Linda Willis, our long time she rose at Las Vegas Fire and Rescue. They were out as well as Herschel's widow. Mm, hmm. Miss D Clayton, she came and she spoke about a little bit about Herschel and and what what the fire service meant to him. So we just had a nice little turnout there. And we had some people win. We had brother Lou there. I think Brother Lou, longtime city employee, right? He hit the longest drive and donated the winnings back to the scholarship fund. And then we had some people who were the most honest, your friend Byron, as well as Bob ginger, former former director too, with you at the city. So we had some fun. We ate a little ate some food, and we had some great laughs. And looking forward, we had some great sponsors to us. Don't want to forget real quick, Dave. We don't want to shout out to the wellness you know, Mr. Frank Hawkins and his group sponsoring the team, them coming out there, trying to, trying to set up some ringers, right, right? Well, as we had quite a few other organizations. There's so many organizations. I can't name them, but, you know, Chief Berkshire, Washington signed sponsors, and so many other people. Brother don the insurance man, he had, he had some signs out there many others. Don Marquez, I want to, want to thank Chris also for for helping us out and and just sharing the word. So we had a lot of people coming out this year. We had 54 golfers. Next year, we're looking to get you 120 so if you're interested, just reach out to Dave or I. You can. You can sponsor a team. You can sponsor the whole event. Yeah. So we have a price point that anybody wants to support and donate some time. We appreciate all the community. Help us raise and give opportunities our young men and young women. No,

Dave Washington 14:41
that's well said. Gene. In fact, I can tell you Nathan with his good works business, it's a hospitality business that he has. They sponsor the team. And also want to shout out, you remember Luke? Luke Young. Luke young sponsored. To the team. It was a bunch of youth that that Jim Hart put together. So we're pleased with the support that we got. And also the hanks brothers, they came out. Greg McCurdy, I mean, these are, these are people that Jean and I have known over the years here in this valley, and they came out. These are former police executives who came out to support us. So hats off to them, and we hope that they will return and be a part of what we're doing next year. And as Gene mentioned, anyone who's interested, because next year, in fact, Bert was asking me, as we we try to meet every other week or so and just talk about as Burt Washington, former fire chief, he's our our treasurer, and he asked me about the sponsorships, and don't if you put up X amount of dollars, don't you get so many tea signs, so many golfers? I said, that's generally how we do it. But I didn't do it this time, as I was trying to keep it as tight and easy going as possible. And it was the way to do it was to do it without having those additional type sponsorships, but next year. And also to further critique, critique, critique things. Stu said, you need that. What's the thing on that gene where you can, what does it call it? That code thing, God. What is it called? But anyway, yes,

Gene Campbell 16:19
you need to have some sort of a code so we can have the different apps. Yeah, yes, Cash App and so forth. Have a QR code to go right to the Cash App. QR code,

Dave Washington 16:29
that's it. Because we are, we are Zelle under the Carl homes executive development institute. But how to hook all that up? We will ensure you public, because we want to make it as easy as possible for for folks to be able to to to sign up and get their money into our treasury. And as Gene has mentioned several times, it's important for us to feed our scholarship program, because each year we give our four scholarships as students from all over the world. And Gene expound upon our brother, if you would, that recently transitioned from this world.

Gene Campbell 17:07
Yes, you know, one of the things I think our listeners would like to know is that we have people from all over the world that go to the Carl Holmes executive development institute, and so David and I haven't had opportunity to work with and I had an opportunity to travel over and visit him in Ghana. So he's a Deputy Associate Director of Public Affairs for the nation of Ghana. They're in Accra, Ghana, and he was, he was going to graduate this year, and we just got the word about three weeks ago that he had passed away as he as he looked towards graduation. And I tell you what that sure did hit home for us. Not only that, hey, we all need to make sure that we have our affairs in order, but you never know when one of your friends at comrades is going to go to a better place. And so, you know, David this week, I'm hoping we're going to be able to honor him with a with some some things that we can send his family, and maybe look at some opportunities. And maybe, because we have, I think we have two applications from Ghana, this country is asked that this one officer take the scholarship, so I'll be bringing that to the board tomorrow evening. But Brahma was a great brother anytime anybody wasn't just African Americans. If you were a brother in the fire service and you were coming to Ghana, Brahma was the person that you wanted to see because he arrived at the airport, went through customs, and he took you all around the country. And he was always trying to uplift the young brothers and sisters there. He was so proud when I visited their headquarters, I visited the mayor's home. Bro took me to all these places and said, Hey, this is my chief. He's from EDI, and this is the school that I'm going to. And so it just kind of hit hard there when we heard that the brother had passed David, and I appreciate you allowing me time to honor him, and hopefully we'll get an opportunity to further honor him with a proclamation from EDI as well as possibility of him graduating

Dave Washington 19:26
from mod five, no, well said gene, in fact, yeah, he was a, he's just an outstanding individual. And you know, some people, you can feel their spirit when you're talking to him, how genuine and authentic that they are. And that was Brahma. He was a outstanding individual. So gene, now that we made those comments about our good brother, who was a was a current student, tell our listening audience about EDI and what we got going on in this upcoming year, this will be out for the pleasure of. Purpose of the listening audience. This is our 34th year. Next year will be 35 years in existence as a Carl homes, executive development and, say, a training leadership. You know, we only do management and leadership type courses. We don't we don't lay hose lines, we don't raise ladders, we don't do none of that physical stuff we all we work the brain, if you will. So gene give them, give our audience an indication of our time frame, and we still have openings for you firefighters out there who are listening to have an opportunity to sign up. And it's going to close down pretty soon because we have a certain number that we can only accommodate on the campus of Dillard university.

Gene Campbell 20:44
Well, one of the things I like to bring to your listeners, David, is that there was a time where it was pretty narrow the places you could go and educate yourself, as far as being a officer, if it wasn't your department, it wasn't a lot of things. It wasn't until the 1970s that the government really started to look at the fire problem that we had around the United States. There were two reports, America burning and America burning to basically said a lot of the areas similar to some of your listing, you're listening local listening members were burning up at a higher rate than other places in the community, right? And from that, those different thoughts started going out to the community, as well as education, the National Fire Academy, which is the which was the result of that coming out was one of the places that all firefighters could go. But often time we found that some firefighters could not go there, especially some firefighters of color, or if their fire chief didn't sign off on them, they couldn't they couldn't get it, even if they met the qualifications right, their fire chief said no, he can't go, or she can't go. They couldn't go. So that's how this program came involved, through Dr Holmes and quite a few other people, Romeo Spalding and some other ancestors, who really thought about, how can we do this? Man, we'll start our own school. Right? So the International Association of Black professional firefighters came and went through and said, Hey, Dr Holmes, could you create something for us? And we started 34 years ago at Florida, and that was the first year. And then, you know, Dave, you and I were students of the second year. That's right, we were there. We were there the second year. And so we've been, we've been involved for over 33 years, and from that, we started this program that has over 50 offerings every summer for a week long class where we have people from all over the world. You heard about Africa. We have people from Great Britain. We have people from the Caribbean and all the states they come and they learn a little bit about what it takes to lead, manage and make sure that a fire department gives the citizens what they need to make sure they address the fire problems, as well as the firefighters all the tools they need to excel. And as I, as I round this piece out, David, I just like to say from that we've had probably well now over over 2700 to 3000 people that went through the doors and graduates, but we've had quite a few people become chief officers and some major city fire chiefs, and so we can track their career from coming up to Being lieutenants and captains like chief Annette Hall, Commissioner. I knew her when she was a lieutenant out of Chicago. She's currently the city commissioner of the city of Chicago, the fourth, I believe it's the fourth largest city, the third largest city in the country, as well as chief Darrell Osby, who just retired last year, was was the chief of the County, Los Angeles County, and I knew Daryl since he was a lieutenant Captain also. So it's great to see that the program really developed leaders from all over including myself, truly, who knew the fire chief, including Burt Washington to Clark County Fire Chief. So it's been a really a good program, and folks, I just want you to know it's done, nobody gets paid. It's done free. We do allow special speakers out of rooms, but other than that, our program is nobody gets paid to do that. Students do pay a small stipend to cover the food as well as their boarding but the instructors and most of the support staff or former firefighter administrators, firefighters or current firefighter administrators who are giving back their time because they're looking to uplift the next generation of firefighters, yes,

Dave Washington 24:55
and thank you for all of that gene in fact, the unfortunate thing. The National Fire Academy, which is our national training school for firefighters. As gene mentioned, it's kind of like the Quantico for for police, police officers. And unfortunately, 47 has shut that program down. And the sad part is, I know he got a tremendous amount of support from firefighters, and guess what they got in return, they got slapped in their face. They got slapped in their face. Jean, you're doing a great job. Man, we got the entire program. Wes just gave me five fingers. Man, so we got five more minutes. Man, I appreciate you, because I haven't heard from the assembly. Woman, Tanya Flanagan, so maybe she'll call but really, we really, really appreciate that gene so you know. And as you talked about Commissioner Annette Nance Holt gene to our public audience, he was a firefighter when he started the program and ultimately became a fire chief. So it tells you that we have some outstanding curriculum, and we do have a curriculum team led by fire chief, former fire chief. He's retiree now. Eddie burns out of Dallas. Also Kwame Cooper, Dr Kwame Cooper, out of LA City, currently doing some work for the New York City Fire Department. So I can tell you that, as Gene has mentioned, we have some very, very qualified individuals in the leadership roles, and we certainly wouldn't want to discount the fact that we got a great executive director. She started out as interim, and now she is our permanent director at this time, Carla Holmes, who is the daughter of Dr Carl Holmes, and she is a professor at I forgive one. I always confuse the gene. Which one of them Oklahoma schools, the one in Lawton, I know that's not the one down now near Langston University in Stillwater. I know it's not that one. That's where our good friend Dr Kersey is, whom I saw in Dallas, not in Dallas, but I saw him in Houston. He he's up there for surgery. I'm like, oh my goodness, man. But gene give some close remarks, man, I

Gene Campbell 27:04
think it's, yes, I think I think she's at, I think she's at Oklahoma. Let me see. I'm reading it right now. University of Oklahoma is where she's at. Okay, cool. Yeah, and so yeah, we want to shout out to Carla. But hey, you know my closing remarks are, hey, Dave, first of all, thank you for being such a person that shows my leadership when something hits you. How you keep going Dave, I and I can tell you through, you know, being with you now with 37 years, you know, when I first met you, right hearing about, you know what it was like to get on the fire department. You definitely believe by leading up to getting out in front and you didn't allow this illness to slow you down, and now you're shaking it and you're putting weight back on, I'm going to take your money on that golf course in next year's event, you know. And so I'd like to thank all the guests for listening in while I, you know, supported Dave while he was on his travels. And I want to encourage those people who are still struggling with getting their VA benefits to reach out to one of those advocates right on associations, whether it's whether it's the Veterans of Foreign Wars, VFW, or if it's the DA V Disabled Veterans Association, anyone else organizations, because a little help, a little guys can go a long way to getting the benefits you deserve. Well. Said,

Dave Washington 28:27
Thank you gene. Appreciate you very much. And I want to shout out Theodore, Teddy Parker, who's having a golf tournament this weekend for his sister, who was deceased. She was a, I believe, she passed away as a result of cancer. So thank you gene. This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 Hey.

Music 29:19
Oh, all the smoke in the air till they hate when they stare all the pain that we bear, all you bear.