Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington

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Dave Washington 0:50
day Las Vegas. Good day Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host, and I got a couple colleagues, fire service, colleagues that I'll have on shortly. However, I'd like to give a couple quick announcements. One certainly want to express condolences to Jamal the Malcolm Jamal Warner family man, what a tragedy for that young man, what an outstanding individual he was, and his legacy will go on through us talking about him and his role as Theo, of course, but beyond that, the brother was an outstanding poet because I've listened to some of his poetry since his his passing, his transitioning, other condolences, man, it's a mad, crazy world, and I keep saying that we we've lost our humanity some way, somehow. And I certainly want to acknowledge and express condolences to those folks in New York who lost loved ones in that incident. And the guy happened to be from Las Vegas. Also, we had a couple of different incidents here in Las Vegas itself. So again, to those families, we certainly want to express condolences. And the Middle East continues as as well as other places around the world, with all the madness of war and people being killed, starved, etc, so let's, let's pray for a better world. Now, I'd like to mention some birthdays, and boy, they are some in the month of August, dolours towers, tramina Monroe, who used to babysit our children many, many years ago, Sue gunner Lawson, she was the wife of my budget officer. Roy Lawson, great budget officer kept me on track with the money. And Ralph Robinson, Ralph and his dad used to call me the little militant. I'm like, Come on, man, I'm just trying to do my work. And then Trenton Holmes, young man birthday this month. Yvette Diaz, Donna Safford, cooks this month. And certainly want to acknowledge those individuals. Vershawn Jones, my god daughter, God niece, I should say, over in Detroit, Michigan, Candace fountain. Danielle Hoggard, a retired fire service person from Clark County, fire Tiana Randall, Betty Bolden, Stephanie, Simmons Johnson, and, of course, my our first born of marsh and i April, Washington's Birthday is this month when Walker, in fact, they're on the same day. Jan Davis, Randolph, former city of Las Vegas colleague with me and Pandora. Beeman of Pandora's burger. Some great burgers, and I love that turkey burger. So I just wanted to acknowledge those birthdays with that. At this time, I'd like to welcome Eb, Chief. EB, Chief. Eddie burns, I'm doing well, Brother, please. Eddie, I know your father spent some time in the military, if I recall correctly, what branch did he

Eddie Burns 4:01
serve? Eddie us, Army, yes, sir. Over 20 years. Over

Dave Washington 4:04
20 years. Cool. All right, so Eddie, give, give our listening audience a little bit on your background. Who was? EB, we call him chief. Eb, well,

Eddie Burns 4:15
you mentioned my dad being raised in a military family. We had the opportunity to see some of the world. He took us to Germany and Hawaii, another stateside location, while his tour of duty. But I was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, 65 years old, got on the fire department one year out of high school, and the rest is history, as they say, but I had the opportunity to get on at an early age. I had a very, what I consider is very successful career with the Fort Worth fire department where I retired as second in command, executive deputy chief, and then. Had the opportunity to be selected as the top firefighter in the city of Dallas, 2006 as the first African American fire chief. Served there for almost six years later, a assignment with the school district and over a coordinator over the fire academy, high school Fire Academy program did that for three years, got a call to be a fire chief again in a suburb of Dallas called Glenn heights. Went there five years, basically fire chief, police chief, left abruptly. They knew I had a Criminal Justice background. They invited me to be the police chief and then carry the title as public safety director. It doesn't stop there. I had another stint as a police chief. My last seven, eight years in public safety has been on the law enforcement side, so I've been the police chief twice and the fire chief twice.

Dave Washington 5:59
Wow, for the career, and you're still rolling.

Eddie Burns 6:03
I just took a position with the local school district as a EMT Health Sciences teacher, and we're gearing up for 2526 school year right now.

Dave Washington 6:17
Great. All right. What a background. Brother. Freddie, how you

Freddie Brooks 6:21
doing? I am wonderful.

Dave Washington 6:24
All right, Freddie, give our listening audience a little indication of who Freddie Brooks is. Well,

Freddie Brooks 6:29
he ain't gonna be like Eddie, and we the same age, and make it seem like he been here longer than me, and we the same age, but I was, I was born and raised right here in the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee to Frank and Mildred Brooks on September 11, 1960 and how ironic for me to get into the fire service with that 911 birthday. And that's a memorable day for us in the fire service all over this country. But I matriculated through one school here in the city of Chattanooga, from elementary all the way to high school. And that was Howard High School, and I was predominantly black school here in the city of Chattanooga. So I did that. Graduated in 1978 left here. Thought I wanted to go to Tennessee State. Got up there, went to every dusty Dave party it was, and they put me out two years later, so that that didn't work for me. So I'm still was trying to find myself end up moving to New Orleans and worked down in Norco, Louisiana at Shell Oil Refinery for a little while, and left that, came back home and did some substitute teaching at my old high school for a little while, but found myself want to put my hands on students, and I had to leave that to find something a little bit find something a little safer. And I got my way into the fire service in 1987 and I love to remember that the day that I finished a recruit or recruit school, Leroy Norwood handed me an application. Said, join this organization. No questions asked. Signed on the dotted line. And as Eddie said, the rest is history. You know, from where I came to where I am to this day, right? So, Freddie, here, here in my hometown,

Dave Washington 8:27
right? So, Freddie, how, why did you? How did you wind up with the fire department?

Freddie Brooks 8:32
I needed a job, okay? And, like I say, I had left substitute teaching, and I was trying to find something to do, and one of the black commissioners that we had that time, they could select the candidate to go into the fire academy. And his candidate failed the exam, and he asked me, if I could pass the exam, he would sign sign me off to go into the academy. And that's what happened. Wow, he selected me as his candidate because his previous candidate did not pass the test.

Dave Washington 9:06
So all you had, so all you had to do was pass the test, pass fail, I'm assuming. And then, because you had his designation, you're in, I was in. Okay, very interesting, very interesting process. Now I should tell the listening audience also that, again, I mentioned that we are colleagues. We also participate in the Carl Holmes executive development institute house down at Dillard University Freddie. Why don't you share some of your experience? And then again, because we have plenty time, then we're going to these leadership programs that you both have developed.

Freddie Brooks 9:42
Okay, I like to always talk about Leroy Nowell, because he's such a pivotal person in my life. You know, he was telling me for the first class at EDI down at Florida. AM, man, you need to come, but finances wouldn't allow me to come. First Four Years I ended up going that last year that they left Florida am and then went on to Dillard, to where I graduated in 2000 from the car homes executive development institute. And as I say, man, it was 46 magnificent people from all over the country. To this day, those that are still alive, we have relationships. You know, I could pick up the phone and call them, you know, that's, that's what that institute has done for me, and I've been there ever since, great, still there on the staff. You know, logistic role. There was a point in time where I instructed a couple of years, but I just don't mind serving right so we can have those off times more and talk to the students you know after class is over, in between class, just to share some some of our work experiences or knowledge about stuff. That's why I keep going going back, because it energizes me to just be able to see that many brothers and sisters from all over in the fire

Dave Washington 11:05
service. Excellent. Well, I can tell you, we appreciate the work that's done by logistics, because it's certainly helpful to our instructors. Chief Eb, give us some indication of your thoughts about the Carl Holmes executive development institute, okay,

Eddie Burns 11:20
Chief Washington, let me just back up, just for a second, because Freddie said he got home by designation because the guy didn't pass the test. So real quick, let me tell you my story and this I want to inspire and encourage somebody. It took me three times to pass the test. Now I want to blame my high school didn't teach me anything and all that other stuff. But I never gave up. Within a year from graduating high school, I took the test three times, and I finally passed it on the third time. Now had some other stuff in my background as an 18 year old that they wouldn't let me in at the time, that I should have got in. But within a year from graduating high school, I finally got on the fire department. So I'm telling you, if you don't succeed the first time, keep trying and trying, and I had great mentors along the way. That's one thing that inspired me to do what I'm going to be talking about here in a minute, because I had people that introduced me to the fire service. Didn't know anything about the fire service because that person told me say, Hey, keep trying. That's part of being a firefighter. Never give up, right? Yeah, absolutely. I started EDI. I would have been in the graduating class of 2006 as you guys know, Katrina happened and all this other stuff. I got promoted to the top job in Dallas, and just my world came, you know, everything was closing in, and then you have a lot of times that I think I completed three years of EDI, right? But I so inspired by Dr Holmes, because at that time, the current fire chief in Fort Worth Texas, him and Carl were good friends. He would come to Fort Worth fire department and put on seminars, and me and some other young African American guys said, man, that guy's awesome, man. And then we found out about EDI, and man, we were blown away. And so myself and one of the my classmate was chief Rudy Jackson, we said, we're going EDI. And we went a couple of years, and then all sudden, Katrina hits. And then next thing you know, we're moving to Clark, Atlanta, another year there. And then, like I said, I became the chief. And so things got a little tough for me, but one thing somebody asked me, said, Chief, do you mind helping to teach a class? And I said, Yeah, I'd be glad to step in. And ever since then, I taught one class called another class, and to the point where, you know, you guys thought enough for me to ask me part, be part of the curriculum committee, where we solicit instructors, facilitators to help with the curriculum at EDI. And so right now, I'm chair of the curriculum committee, and we have some other great guys part of the committee that help us select instructors and content and courses and so forth. It's been very inspirational. That's why I'm still there after all these years, just giving back, just seeing if I can help the next generation fire firefighters,

Dave Washington 14:21
absolutely and greatly appreciate it. And let me say again, and I've had several of our EDI board members and others to be on this show. And we always reiterate, or I do for sure, that none of us are paid. We do this out of the love of our business that we're in and and further, to encourage those who have joined this business. So with that, now I want to swing over to and we'll start with you, Freddie, with a program that you've built. You feel so inspired to try to help others, with respect to leadership, tell our listening audience the name of your program. What's the criteria to be involved in that program?

Freddie Brooks 15:00
Me, well, you speak of being inspired, and I was inspired by sitting at down at EDI talking to Dave is Floyd, up in the boom, boom room, then to find out that his vision for our organization was to have a youth camp for our kids, for our inner city kids, right? So as the executive director for the International Association of Black professional firefighters, I was tasked with putting that together with some assistance, but I said that the city of Chattanooga would be the perfect place to host the Dave Floyd youth camp, right? So that's what we did in 2023 we hosted it here in the city of Chattanooga for boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 16. So that being said, of course, Dave Floyd's daughter came down to the camp, and she was just so inspired, and the kids was inspired just to meet her, to have the opportunity to talk with her. You know how she is when, when she talks, everybody's listening. So ask the brothers, you name it. Let's continue this here in Chattanooga, because we have to be consistent with our kids. We don't stay consistent. We lose them. That's right. So couldn't get the younger brothers on board with hosting the camp. So I created a nonprofit, and it's called Team mentoring Incorporated. Name did that because it's going to take a team for us to reach out young people, absolutely. So I have various firefighters from all over the country to come in and be presenters. What my main focus is inner city kids such as Dave Floyd envision, but I host these retreats. I call them retreats because don't know kids want to think that they mama or their daddy send them to a camp. So I say a retreat so that we can refresh them, replenish them, and give them some renewed vigor to go into the new school year, right? So during the spring and the fall, I host a three day retreat at a construction career site to where we introduce our kids into the medical profession and the construction profession, if they're not seeking to go to Tennessee state such as I did, got up there and played around and found out that wasn't for me, but I did go back and receive my associates and bachelor's later in life. But what we're trying to get in is more opportunities to start looking at and just don't say that I don't want to go to college. Here's the medical profession, here's a training profession. So we do that at the spring and the fall retreat, which is three days. But our summer retreat is a six day overnight stay at Booker T Washington State Park. I try not to pound them with too many class room activities, but we go make sure we have some biblical principles such as integrity, community communications, conflict resolution. We also make sure we do CPR and stop the bleed so that we can give them that hands on, just in case they need it. But we try to have them to get out there every morning and walk. I got some military brothers, one so happen to be a Marine, and one in the army. So every morning they're up doing a two mile walk, right? So that's how we start our day. And I mean, you just have to be there to just hear the nature early in the morning, see the deers running across, right? There's no electronics allowed because we want them focused. That's excellent. My parents called me and asked me their phones not allowed. I said, No, Ma'am, did you read the rules and regulations? Of course, Edi has taught me we document everything. Here it is, right here, so her child didn't come these rules are not changing. We're working on our kids character. I'm not trying to teach them how to throw a football or bounce a basketball, right? We're teaching them to take their roles as productive citizens in these communities and for their families. So that's what we envision. And I always like to say we because it's not an act if that's what we envision for what we're doing, and we just completed the Summer Youth retreat, and, man, it was outstanding. Of course, we had some conflict. I normally would put kids out, but what I did is we gonna have this right here. We're not leaving. We're gonna deal with this right

Dave Washington 19:34
here. There's always, there's always something going on when you're dealing with young people. Let me say this, Freddie, not to cut you off, but you know, when I spoke to Dave Floyd, I was telling about a camp that I had started along with a couple other gentlemen. It's called Camp brotherhood. And after the third year, became camp camp brotherhood, Camp sisterhood. And it was for African American kids between 10 and 14 years of age. And after the first couple years. Is, oh, what are you gonna do about the girls? Well, we can't be all things to all people. Well, you got to do the girls. So we did the girls, of course. But when Dave told me his vision, I'm like, Man, mine is minuscule by comparison, because and I still see, ultimately, someday, some way, somehow. And let me tell you this real quickly with our alumni association, me and Sherman carton, our idea of of a camp, not a camp but but running concurrently with our with our adult EDI was to run a concurrent EDI for for young people to come and with the various regions that we have, and have chapters to pay for one or two students, and they run and again, like you said, Freddie, nothing about, in our case, will be nothing about pulling holes, putting up ladders, about leadership, management, those types of things, because all those things that you talked about are absolutely important. We'll come back to you, Eddie. I mean, Freddie, Eddie, tell us about your program and what's the name of it and where you at in the stage of what you're doing with it.

Eddie Burns 21:04
Okay, hey, Fred, it's great stuff you're doing, man, we're all on the same team. I'm stealing some of your information that you share with us today. Let me, let me tell you about the Public Safety Leadership Academy. It's my vision. Was great. This space a safe space for our kids, kids in the central city. I call mine Central City. And when I look at our city, it does a loop, and those folks inside the loop, that's who I was, you know, thinking about. So anyway, God gave me a vision. The vision was, was was hatched through EDI because of the things that we did at EDI, the selflessness that we had, that I saw giving back. Nobody received any money to come and share and pour into other people. And I saw that in our motto, all that I am I owe. I live eternally in the red. And I think about how I've been blessed to being at EDI to other people, other mentors and coaches and friends that I thought, what can I do? What legacy do I want to leave? And so my vision was kind of spurned from that also had some fire trucks already, and I kept telling my son. I said, Man, what would it be if we had a place where people can come do their birthday parties? Here we have fire trucks, we have police cars, we have we just need a facility. And so that's how my vision came about, to find this safe spot for kids. Target audience, elementary I kind of skip Middle School, look at high school and above. Because I get so many calls about, hey, my son, my daughter, my niece, my nephew, my grandson or granddaughter is going to want to be a firefighter or a police officer. Can you help them? You know, with some, you know, some practice or review board, some mock interviews and so forth, and just how the process works. And I've even invited you know young students in the academy over to my my space and say, Hey, have you learned how to pump a fire truck? Have you ever drove a fire truck? So giving them some pre knowledge about how all this stuff works. So mine's just a little different, because it is about public safety. My vision was to prepare the next generation of fire, EMS, law enforcement, police, leaders in public safety. Now with that, my key initiatives are leadership, character development, anti bullying, anti drugs, anti gang. Now the reason I come out, I came I know everything rises and falls with leadership. Everything is our country doesn't think it, but character does matter. Character matters, that's right, and those two things absolutely and then I thought about our kids that are suffering from bullying in high school. I'm talking about elementary all the way up through high school. I thought about the game on the law enforcement side that I've had to deal with the gangs and the drugs and so forth. So those are the five key initiatives. Now, with those five key initiatives, I also talked about the curriculum. What will we do now? Freddie, it's good stuff, but I want to you want to be it's kind of like the Explorer post. You know, the Boy Scouts have explore posts, right? The police and fire, some fire department had explored. So mine was more, okay, we're going to give you some real world experience, and we're going to talk about it. Got some practical training with real, retired firefighters, active or retired firefighters and police officers. We're going to find you a mentor, a personal mentor, that will help you through this process. One of our core values is community service. We feel like if we start pouring into you then talking about how important it. Is to serve your community and be transparent and be accountable what you do and talk about community engagement and what it looks like, and then like I always say, I think everything falls on leadership. And what is leadership? You know, we want to explain that to young people and what it looks like, and then ethics with once again, our our our country seemed like we forgot about ethics and being professional, and so those are some of the things ethics and professionalism, leadership development, community service, mentorship and practical training. I've been blessed to buy an acre and a half, about two or three miles where I grew up, and I've been dealing with our credit union, trying to get finance, and met with my bureau of contractors today. And my goal is to have this place up and running in 2026 great

Dave Washington 25:49
looking. Excellent interest. Excellent. We got, we got about three minutes. And what I like to do is, there, have you guys got a website? Is there a means for people to donate to what you're doing. You know, financially, we got about three minutes, and as you do that, give some closing remarks.

Eddie Burns 26:07
Okay, my website is T, M, I, u.org and our motto is connecting amazing people together so they can go on there. They can see what we've been doing over the last two, three years. But my closing remark here, people want to ask, why I do this? I do this because I had an elementary principal. Her name was Carrie Taylor. I lived in a housing project right across the street from the school. That lady would take me to Tuskegee, Alabama, her hometown, every summer. That was the impact that, that that was made on me as a little kid, seven years old, this lady taking the interest in me and got permission from my mama to whoop me whenever she needed, and she was all right, and she was all right with it. That's what. That's why. You know, I'm doing what I'm

Dave Washington 26:58
doing great. Well, it's greatly appreciated. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more.

Eddie Burns 27:04
GPB, yes, sir. The name of my nonprofit is Public Safety Leadership Academy, and that's PL S A academy.org, and you can reach me. There you go to our website. All the information there is about the program. You can also reach me at area code 817-913-9102, and once again, it's I've been inspired by a lot of people, but I think what brought it all this together was all that I am, I owe, and I think about everybody that has stepped up over my 45 year career in public safety, and this helped, help me. Nobody gets to the top by themselves. That's right. And I want to make sure that I can impact the little Freddie, the little Eddie and the little Dave that are out there don't even know about public safety, right? Yeah, that's why I'm doing I want to make an impact

Dave Washington 28:00
well, younger people. Once again, the work that you guys are doing is greatly appreciated by our country, man, because you're tapping into some young people from around our country, and we greatly appreciate it. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more ahead the great Freddie Brooks from Chattanooga and the great EB chief EB from he's now in Fort Worth Texas, yes sir, near them, Dallas Cowboys. Anyway, thank you gentlemen. I appreciate you very much. Take care. See you guys. My pleasure. You

Music 29:00
all the smoke in the air, till the hate when they stare, all the pain that we bear.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai