19/10/2024
Well I suppose now it's time to tell the story. After the unfortunate events of last night and my post from then. I will tell a story that I had not intended to tell, ever. For the last 17 years I have been a captain/paramedic for the Old Monroe fire protection district. I was recruited years ago from Winfield/Foley fire by the Old Monroe fire chief who was new at the time. But let's be honest, nobody really wants to hear the whole history of the last 17 years. Everybody really just wants to hear the end. So this is the story of what happened. Old Monroe fire had been dispatched to a motor vehicle accident, and I noticed the chief had been strange on the scene. When we got back to the station I just asked him what was up? He put it pretty plainly. The board wanted me gone, not because of disciplinary issues as my file is exemplary and clean. But, because they believed and had been told(of course by a magic anonymous source) that my vision and health was extremely poor. This of course being despite the fact that I had recently aced the driver's test with the highest score in the class and run my business every single day. But the board would never know that because they don't take the time to know anything about the personnel who work for them. Because unfortunately they like the department chief and the battalion chief, suffer from viewing people as expendable equipment easily replaced. Now it was true that I had suffered an eye injury in 2016 that left me mostly blind in my left eye. That being said, no major vision problems outside of only having one eye exist. So what the chief advised me is the board was giving me an option. I can either retire or they would terminate me. This wasn't really an option because as a instructor in order for me to still be able to teach I need to leave in good standings with the department. So I really couldn't fight this at all. And like that my date was given that I would officially be done with the department on August 1st 2024. I had not intended to tell this story because I didn't want to bring any negative light to the Old Monroe Fire Protection district, the Chief or the board of directors. That being said, in light of recent events I am not concerned by that now. On multiple occasions as a fire officer I was regularly excluded from officers meetings, as well as from equipment purchasing meetings, personnel meetings, hiring and firing and disciplinary actions. Even the board secretary who made our rosters would exclude my title of Captain from my name on the roster despite carrying an officer DSN. But it was little things like that that I would simply ignore. And continue doing the job. Over the years many of the very best certified and qualified firefighters I have ever met were terminated for no reason from this department. I thought I would try to protect each and every one of them equally as they had done nothing wrong to warrant termination. However once it was determined by the very upper tier command staff that a firefighter or fire officer in many cases no matter how qualified or how committed caused waves in any way they were terminated or forced to resign. Despite the fact that there are clearly written SOPs and SOGs relating to the hiring termination and disciplinary process of all personnel as well as qualifications for firefighters and fire officers. None of these are followed in any way. The only disciplinary action is instant termination for any offense that the chief deems to be an offense regardless of whether it violates policy or not. This could be something as little as not wearing the right colored t-shirt to a fire call or not going to a call while at work. The argument was made many times that the person terminated were either not coming to enough calls or not coming to enough training all of which are clearly outlined in the SOP and SOG guidelines despite the fact these were never followed. Attendance to trainings as well as calls are clearly outlined for all members including the chief which regularly fails to meet the minimum standard. But in reality only comes to the Firehouse once a month for the board meeting. And often calls and information about calls were changed and people were removed from calls logs lowering their number of calls they had attended to take it below the minimum threshold. This was a common termination practice. I always assumed that things would work themselves out and be better. Different times throughout my 17 years we were an excellent department. We had good personal who went to calls and gave their all. We also had several instances of mass Exodus because of extremely poor leadership. Because ego overran the purpose of the job. Because it was necessary for some people to be right no matter how wrong they were and if anyone objected to that way of thinking they were terminated, and then in turn others would say I'm out of here. But I held on, I did my job, I went to my calls, I taught classes, and I instructed new firefighters how to become old firefighters. I absolutely wouldn't change a thing. But what I would have changed is I would have pushed harder to achieve different positions through the department. After 17 years I had been passed over for promotion despite having more than an extensive training and background, I most certainly should have made battalion chief but I didn't because a less qualified, far more malleable YES man style candidate was available,a true Yes Man was put in that position. Had there been actual testing for battalion chief there's absolutely no way this candidate could have got it. Haveing seen them work a tabletop scenario many times and absolutely fail it would pretty much guarantee they certainly would not achieve that promotion.
This officer was perhaps one of the most disappointing. I've never seen someone more gleeful about terminating personnel, (except maybe the chief) it was disgusting. He would say so and so has been terminated, to which I would always say do you really think that was a good idea? His normal quote was “What are they going to do sue us? We have great attorneys” he also made a habit of not even having enough respect for people to tell them why they were being Terminated and would use the spineless HR line that “your services are no longer needed” when we were already 10 or 15 people short staffed. In the course of talking about if this was a good idea or not he would always point out “I'm just following orders and doing what I was told” I strongly disagree with this and would often remind him that wasn't a defense as many tried to use it at Newenburg. This did not help morale at all. I am sad to see where my department has gone and what it has now become under terribly leadership or I should say lack thereof leadership. I am sad to see people not responding to calls or there not even being enough people to respond to calls because so many numbers have been changed and inflated to make it appear that there are more qualified people than there are. One such tactic to make it look like there's more trained people was adding everyone from the fire one and two class to the roster of active personnel as well as random staff from another business also with no fire training .I certainly wish the best for Old Monroe fire. But they really need to get their stuff together. I dedicated 17 years of my life to the people and community of Old Monroe. They are some of the nicest, kindest people I have ever met since I moved to Missouri. They made me remember my home and I very much enjoyed serving that community. The board of directors and most chief officers used me, and then threw me away like like they have done to so many others to be cast into the pile of outdated equipment and misfit Toys, to be treated as absolute trash. Because I was never a Yes Man but a highly trained and educated fire officer. Which is more than I can say for most of their officers. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. There's not anything I won't answer.
Capt Andrew Dodd ,BS,NREMT-P-Tac
