Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington

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all that I've

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got you prove it all the time. No,

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I know that

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you made it this

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way. You made it this way. Did you sing for me? Oh,

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oh, you keep me smile. Nothing you do

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for me. You're always I know

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you do Oh, I just good day Las Vegas. This is freshness affairs plus some 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host, and as you heard earlier, with the song thank you by Frankie Beverly and Mays, you know, condolences to his family and and all of his fans. We lost him last month or earlier this month, I should say. But anyway, I have a lot of thank yous that I want to to put out into the universe, you know, doing my my illness and and the work that had to be done in terms of surgery down in MD Anderson, I had a lot of contact, a lot of love that was shown to me by a lot of folks. And I'm telling you, that's why I am thankful. And first of all, I want to thank God. In fact, when I went into the to prepare for the surgery, Tim, I was like when I went for fire chief. I had never been in the zone before or since the fire chief interview. I was in the zone. Man, I was like, and I know we gave up brother Muhammad and brother Youssef Muhammad and Rudolph Muhammad. That will be on shortly. I'll have them to properly introduce themselves. But there was so much that was going on in my life, and I had what was called whipple surgery, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy man, but when I was getting ready to go in, I said, well, they don't need me being anxious. He don't need me being nervous, you know, needing me being afraid of that, because it's all in God's hand, and God saw fit to allow me to get out of there in one piece. And when I came out, the first thing my wife said is, I didn't see your mom and dad, and I didn't see my mom and dad. She said, Why are you talking about dead people? I say because they say, when you go into surgery and you see dead people. They come in to get you. So anyway, I didn't see anyone, thank God, but I can tell you, it was one heck of an experience, and I am so pleased that, according to them, it was in the head of my pancreas, and they got it. But I still must go back and have. A couple other tests done just to ensure that everything was moved out for sure, and that is the tumor that was in the in the head of my pancreas. But once again, I want to say thank you to all those folks. Man, from those who you know, I had one one person who paid for six round trip tickets for my wife and my four children, which I Tim, I didn't want them to come. They say, Oh no, you've been a good father. We're coming, and I'm glad they did, because I was wearing the heck out of Marsha. But I just want to let the world know how grateful I am. And you know, you never know how you feel about things or people, or even how people feel about you. To be honest, you may think certain things, but when these calls start coming in, and these text men and people tell you how much you mean to the fire service and to those who are in the fire service, as well as those who are retired and and your commitment talking about me, my commitment to to mankind, was was very heartwarming to me. So I just wanted, once again, to say thank you to all those folks, man, it would it really made me feel my worth as a as a fellow human being. So with that, we're gonna, you know what, all that's been going on in our world and in our country even. And as today, as I would look at my final call, they said, Helene, and what was it? Milton, they probably have $50 billion in damage. Wow. So as I was thinking about just in general, I say I got two guys that I have, two gentlemen I've had on, you know, their EMS, you know, public safety type officers. I've had them on the show before to talk about disaster management. And I said, I need to have them on again, because we need to, we need to spread the word on how we need to take care of ourselves. And then I thought about a former Pio Public Information Officer for Las Vegas Fire and Rescue, Tim symansky, I say God, Tim ran some stuff for us, the CERT program and other things. I think he'd be a great guest as well. So with that, I'm going to start with you, Tim. Just give the folks listening audience a little bit about your background, if you would. I've

Unknown Speaker 6:59
I retired two years ago after 51 years in the fire service. I worked in three different parts of the country. I worked in Cleveland, Atlanta, and then 26 years here in Las Vegas. So I got to see a wide variety of different types of disasters, blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes, you name it. I was on it in my spirits when I left the department. When I retired, I joined the Civil Air Patrol, which is the auxiliary of the US Air Force. And actually that's where I was, and the fire chief asked me if I wanted to be a firefighter, and I got hired back in 1970 so I kidded my wife, and I says, I want to go back to the Civil Air Patrol when I retired, and it was a joke, but I actually went. I'm with the Nellis group, Nellis Air Force Base group. And a lot of people don't know what we do, but what we do is we do respond to all the disasters. So we have the largest we're all volunteers. There's 70,000 of us with 550 aircraft, and we do all the aerial photography. So the first pictures of the giant fire and Maui, the first pictures of 911 the collapse, all the damage of valuations and assessments are being done by volunteers of the Civil Air Patrol right now. And they got sophisticated damage assessment equipment in the planes. And they just keep flying back and forth, and they're telling FEMA how much damage, uh, occurs. So I get to keep doing something every week I'm with them, uh, doing something we're practicing and that sort of a thing. And then here in Nevada, we look at the avalanche possibilities over on the mountain, and any storms that we have in that so I'm staying in there, growing up with disasters. Great.

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Well, we're going to get back to you on some of the things that we that possibly exist here in our valley and in the state of Nevada that a lot of people aren't aware and I think you brought this to our attention some years ago. Yousef, give us a little background, sir, if you would, and then we'll have brother Rudolph to come in. Thank

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you, Brother chief. First of all, we want to thank your listening audience on Veterans Affairs for their consistency and constancy. All of us, of course, are praying for you, beloved and your family. And you know, we just want to throw our good vibrations that you continue to heal well and feel well, sir. So thank you for your contribution. I've spent 30 years in the fire department in White Plains, New York. Retired as a Lieutenant. I also served as the president of the International Association of Black professional firefighters from 2008 to 2012 I'm a proud graduate of the doctor Carl Holmes executive development institute in 2007 and I've been an instructor there at Dillard University in New Orleans since then. And I'm currently a co host of a podcast called disaster awareness for community preparedness with my dear brother, brother, Rudolph Muhammad. Thank

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you, sir, brother Rudolph.

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First of all, let me do the same. And first of all, of course, thank you, God for life, health and strength and the ability to conduct myself without the use of any mechanical instrument or without the aid of any assistance devices, and then, of course, thanking God for bringing you through your tumultuous surgery that Whipple, yeah, that's something that's we learn about that in school. It's one of those real hellacious procedures. But good thing that you know, you have a relationship with your Creator, and he brought you through it. Yes, sir, you know. And want to thank your station there for all that it does in the way of waking up people and keeping people informed. And your guest brother Tim there, thanking him for his not just support, but his sacrifice in doing what he did as his job and career and employment. But even so, now that he's retired, he still has the desire to utilize what he's learned for the betterment of mankind, and so we want to thank him and his family for that. I'm an EMT instructor. I started in 1988 in New York City, in the New York City EMS system, and then Murray sent to the FDNY. And I'm one of the co founders of the bed for status and Volunteer Ambulance Service, which is the only volume black Volunteer Ambulance Services in the United States, and it's still up and running in Dr savison, New York. I'm currently now in Detroit, Michigan, where I'm co owner of another ambulance service here, and I got into disaster services in the United States Navy on board the ship that I was on. That's also where I got into the medical field. So I've been in the medical field since I was 18 years old, and I'm currently 61 right now. So I, you know, I just brother Yusuf and I, I'm not gonna say how long we've been working,

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but yes, but it's been a labor of love this whole time, because I just love the work that I do. I love the ability to be able to help people at the worst time in their possible life. I think it's a blessing that we who are in this field, that that you know you have to be chosen for this. This is not something you can choose. That's right. So you know, thank God for using us to do his work here on Earth. Thank you. Thank

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you, brother, Rudolph. And to your point, you know, I recall many times when I be at the hospital visiting someone, I get on the elevator and I tell nurses, boy, I really love you guys. Someone looked like me, like I'm some kind of pervert. I said, No, it's the heart that you have to do the work that you're doing, because not everybody is capable or willing to do that type of work to include Dave Washington. When I came on the department in 1974 I got basic first aid training, you know, press, press, press and wrap the bandage type. And, you know, they start paying us, I think 5% more if we would become certified EMTs. And Marsha, my wife, said, You need to become an EMT. I said, Why are you talking about money? She said, No, I'm not talking about the money. What about you? If your kids get injured or hurt or what have you? I say, I'm gonna call 911, and she looked at me like she wanted to slap somebody. Because one thing you know, in our business, you guys, we know that we see burn people. You know. We see dead body. We see it all, but one thing, Dave Washington always knew, brother Yousef, if I saw somebody with a bone sticking through their skin, I would fall, I would fall out right there on the spot. So I wasn't doing nothing medical under no shape, no form. Keep your 5% and I know people say this dude, this dude is really weak, but you know, the dead bodies, needles, all this, none of that bothers me, man. But I'm telling you, what bothers me is protruding bones All right. Now I got a little bit off the side track. Now look what I want to what I want to do, and have shared with our audience. Give us some of the things. And again, we're going to have another 10 minutes if we don't get this all finished in this first show, we'll have you on the following Saturday as well. So we'll have about 10 minutes of that show that we can work with. So I'm going to start with with you, Tim because, and I'm starting with Tim because Tim brought to our attention. Tim used to. On a program called cert explain to our listening audience what certs about, Tim and and how did you come about doing that particular program. And something I recall you saying to the press when you had one of your press conferences, you talked about there are many more. What do you call it for earth,

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for earthquakes?

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Yeah. What are the what are those things called faults, faults. There's so many, you said there's so many faults in Nevada that people don't even think about it.

Unknown Speaker 15:27
Well, there's actually faults all over. And I don't know if you notice it on the news, but they've been having earthquakes in a lot of other places. They just had one up in New York, I think, at the beginning of the year. And that and Nevada is the second or third. There's a debate most seismic state in the United States. The program, the community emergency response team, was organized in Salt Lake City, where they have significant earthquakes, and if you have a significant earthquake or any other disaster, hurricane, tornado, it's the local residents that are actually the first responders, the one on the scene. And if you have hundreds or maybe 1000s of calls coming in at one time, the fire department, the police department, they're not going to be able to respond to all the calls in the first 72 hours. Is the most critical. So sir taught local residents what to do for those first 72 hours. They had a class about 40 hours, and it taught them first say, how to use two by fours for leverage, for lifting heavy objects off of people that might have fallen in that the program here in Las Vegas is taught by the city's emergency management office. They've taken it up for about the last 10 years, and they have instructors, and ironically, it's a lot of retired firefighters. They want to get involved, so they become instructors for cert for the city's emergency management agency, but it tells those people it's very popular in a lot of states like California, Nevada and Utah, where they have earthquakes. So

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that's that's good to know, because when you left, I'm like, whatever happened Well, when I retired as well, I was wondering whatever happened to sir, but you're telling me now, because they did take emergency management from the fire department. In fact, I told Betsy Fretwell, who was my boss at the time, the Deputy City Manager. I said, Betsy, I will go and talk to my staff about, you know, your idea of moving emergency chief. There's nothing to talk about. It's all I can do. All I can do is just start laughing. And sometimes you get those calls by the boss and say, This is what's going to happen. Brother Rudolph and brother Yusuf talk about some of the things that you guys have done because I've listened, I haven't listened to your show in a while, but I know you guys really lay out things, kind of along the lines of what Tim was doing with cert on, on things that they should do and have around the house, etc, etc. So if you guys can give us some detail from your perspective on that. That would be great either way. Well, chief

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Washington, we always say, just try to prepare. Take one step toward preparation, and you'll be surprised of how many people will take steps toward you to help you with whatever it is you're concerned about. Relative to disaster preparedness, we say disaster preparedness is about community investment, community involvement, community partnership for community risk reduction, but first, as an individual, you must take the first step, and we encourage our listening audience to one, get informed. To two, develop a plan. To three, periodically adjust or reassess your plan and your tip. Of course, there's a term called the go bag, which you really need to be concerned about. Putting your supplies in a go bag that you can use if you have to evacuate or if you have to shelter in place. Think in mind of preparation. Take one step and try to prepare for at least 72 hours, you know. And there's a scripture that talks about study the ant and become wise. Well, the ant prepares for the winter in the summer, and the ant prepares in the summer for the winter. Don't be like the grasshopper. He just lives for the moment. And then, you know, the rest is history, you know. So I'll just leave it there as a baseline assessment and Let brother Rudolph pick up where I left off. Well, you

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know, stay right there and just say that disaster preparedness is about strengthening the weakest thing. Because no matter how well prepared you are, if that what you're connected to is weak, then it will drain you. So it's about each one doing their due diligence to make sure that they are individually as prepared as they can be, and then helping those that are around them to strengthen their own and fortify the things in. They need to do for themselves. It's really, you know, you keep hearing that you keep hearing. We try to break it down for people to make it as simple as possible, so that it's not as terrifying as it sounds. It's, it's really a basic principle of just having what you need when you need it, so that you don't have to go find what you need. And it's just, it's basic things, you know, our grandparents, Big Mama, used to tell us about, about that, you know, not putting all your eggs in one basket. Save some for a rainy day. You know, those cliches. It's a poor rat that only has one hole, you know. And we never understood what those symbolic sayings meant. We thought that that was just the way old people talk, right? But now, since we're the old people and we're saying what they used to say, you know, it's a different connotation, but you know, it's just a basic like with our thing that we do how every few years the terms have changed, but the actuality of it stays the same because it's just the same soup reheated from the duck and covered days of the Civil Air Patrol to where we are now. The only thing that has really changed, the technology has helped us to do things faster and to be able to predict more. But the basic sentiments are still the same. You're going to be on your own for a while, so you need to have the things that you need for you and your family until help arise

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Absolutely. Well said. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. The guest today we have is Tim skew, retired Pio for Las Vegas Fire and Rescue. In fact, about midway of my tenure as fire chief, me and Tim put together a Pio conference. I think we did it two times, and I just believe in my heart of hearts, we had continued. Because I tell the world all the time, I had the best Pio in the world, because Tim handled it all. In fact, he would tell me, tell you what Chief, if you don't address the press, they gonna make up whatever they want to make up. So whatever to tell me you need to talk on this one, not one of your deputies, because I didn't always go before the press. You know, let them other guys talk. I don't have to talk all the time, but I really appreciate him. Look once again. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more I have also on the line is Yousuf Muhammad and Rudolph Muhammad. They have their own radio program that really talks a lot about disaster preparedness, and their show is greatly appreciated and have a wide listening audience. So Tim, talk a little bit more about the Civil Air Patrol. I didn't know. I wasn't aware you had got involved in that. I should have known, because it's,

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it's a volunteer group that was formed right at just before World War Two started, and it was made up of volunteers. Pilots used their own private planes, and they had 232 locations along the coastal east, west coast and the Gulf Coast, and they just flew back and forth looking for a sneak invasion or submarines. They have the largest cadet program that's kids 13 and above that, if they successfully complete a program, they can join the Air Force, and they they get an automatic first stripe. They're usually picked, or they can get into the academies. But we do also volunteer programs. I know they're working over there in a hurricane areas, passing out food and water, using, using, again, with the damage assessment and stuff like that. We meet once a week. We've got, like, five squadrons in the Las Vegas area, and then we teach everything. They have one of the most sophisticated educational programs, online educational programs, and it's a it's a great place if a person wants to give back to their community, and really get involved and say, I want to be in disaster preparedness, and you want to learn, they would love to have you. And it's also for the kids. The kids learn a lot. They do the search and rescue on the ground. They have very sophisticated communications equipment, and it's a good way to give back to your community. All you have to do is look up their website. Is go Civil Air patrol.com, see what you'll find out, and you'll find out it's just a bunch of people from your community that want to give back, and once they get there, they find out that they have a lot of fun. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 24:37
all right, brother, you said, Brother Rudolph, you guys got any kind of collaborations going on outside of what you're doing with your radio show? Is there means of making contact with others to, again, spread this word about how we and why we need to prepare ourselves

Unknown Speaker 24:54
well, Chief, that's what's really it's all about partnershiping and networking one with another. No one can do it by themselves. We are members of the Ministry of Health and Human Services of the Nation of Islam that encompasses all kinds of subject matter experts, from adopters to EMTs to paramedics to nurses to firefighters and the like. I too have been a co chair of the black family summit as the co chair of the Emergency Management Task Force, where, back in 2012 we signed a memorandum of agreement with FEMA, who at that time was chief Craig Fugate was the director or Superintendent of FEMA at that time, the black family summit consists of approximately 25 to 30 national organizations, albeit the National Association of Black social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, a various network of people who we found out that when Hurricane Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, There was some impediments and some challenges to get people with what they call cultural competencies in the city, to get to our people. So we made an effort to try to eliminate that challenge in forthcoming emergencies. And so we were able to do that. We all heal this Mental Health Alliance and what's called the Black resiliency network. These are just other people that we working with in order to get to our people, you know, expeditiously, as best we can. Okay,

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brother Rudolph, you got anything to add to that? And we will wrap it up. And I, I'm asking that you guys will come back for the start of the second show, which will be the second week in November. Go ahead, brother,

Unknown Speaker 26:41
yes, sir, no. All I'll add today is that this is an area where everyone can play a part in you won't have to have any special credentials, any special training. All you have to do is be one that is that wants to survive when disaster strikes, and you can learn what you need to learn. And everybody already has a skill. You just don't realize it until you're put in the area where you need to use it, and then you perfect it. Sure. So you just have to have the heart or the desire to do it, and everything else will come to you. All right? Well,

Unknown Speaker 27:19
as we run out of time here, I got a couple of other things I want to add to the show. And also, again, I want you guys back on the other side, where we would have our next show that I'll give you guys an opportunity to say some some additional words about, again, disaster management in particular. So I want to acknowledge coach Tate. He has a golf tournament, and he had a pretty successful program next year, we'll try to get him a little bit more play on the show, and we're going to ask for God speed and travel for those of us who are members of the Carl Holmes executive development institute, who will be going down for a retreat this weekend down in Oklahoma City. And also condolences to the family. We had a family of six, and I think four of them perished in a fire just, I think, last week or the week before. What a tragedy. And I'm glad that the school is doing something about what would you call it? You mentioned some of this brother Youssef, where they're bringing in, I don't know if a psychologist or psychiatrist, whatever it is to assist these young people, because they are hurting with the loss of two of their close friends in class. So those kinds of things are important. And then I want to say Happy Veterans Day, because it's coming up for our veterans out there. And then to the family of Melvin Givens, he recently passed away a long time member of our community. And then a final congratulations to Kimberly and Charles to row. They do the at the end of the month each year. I think for eight years now, they've done a what is it breast cancer parade or caravan right down the heart of the strip. So want to thank those guys once again. This is Dave watch Washington with Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. I certainly think the producer engineer Wes, and also gene for covering for me the last two shows. So we'll talk to you again soon, on 91.5 jazz and more. You

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