call my uncle was transported to the airport detention area which was in another concourse. by then he was so cold he rapped the airport blanket he was given tightly around him as he crawled in the fetal position on the cement a bed until 7:15 a.m.. at around 7:30 they left the detention area to board. he was handcuffed but asked if my uncle wouldn't be because of his age. the officer agreed not to handcuff him but they told him that if he tried to east cape he would be shot.

>> he talks about the hazard of being hit high gear fighter and shares his experiences on the job for about half an hour. >> can you hear me at their? okay. >> thank you, captain and the chairman of the curator and curator of the norfolk fire and rescue museum for being a host an organizer of this event. and thank you fire department and chief jeffrey why is for allowing station one to be part of this event. this is local 68 annual retirement luncheon.

the list is really long and will have to be shorted and complete. for those of you i left off, my apologies but you are not forgotten. so, i want to thank my union local officers, specifically nick mills some of the president. i want to thank the retiree association officers, the newsletter editor. thank you come c-span for what you do for covering this event, and thank you, mr. friedman my publisher and friend. finally, all of you for being here. it's good to see old friends, it really is. and colleagues. it's good to see you at this event. first of all, let me say flames

and smoke visible is a book about you as well as me. there is nothing in this book that you as firefighters haven't experienced in your own way and i want to make that very clear, okay? firefighting is a calling, and if it isn't recalling when you are hired on the new discover it was recalling all along. but you didn't know it and until you got the job and you were affected by the five-year drought, you didn't know it. true firefighters notify your ground. it's a place of danger and hard work and where good deeds are done. it's a place where professional colleagues come together in order to accomplish the simple act of saving lives and protecting property. it's a calling. and like all of you, i

considered it a privilege to be a firefighter and a special privilege to be part of the amol norfolk fire department. flames and smoke visible is a memoir that depicts our experience that predominantly reads like fiction because i am a writer of fiction and my publisher convinced me to write this book. so i'm glad i did. this begins on a night that it woke me about 3:00 in the morning of fire station 15 on fisherman's road. the dispatcher announced at an address located at the ocean view district in norfolk. as soon as i swung my legs over the side and i stood up, i knew there was something wrong with me. i wasn't right. i wasn't myself.

and i collapsed during the incident and was transported to the hospital on an ambulance. suddenly that my eye was on the header side of my occupation. and the night became the catalyst for writing this book. it's a book about you and it inspired me to write about what it means to be. and i will read something from that section about what it means to be. every person at sometime or another asks what means to be. what does it mean to be a son or to be a mother. what does it mean to be an adult, nurse or soldier? firefighters by necessity must enter homes in order to save lives and property. they see people love their most

vulnerable. what does it mean to be one person's privacy were dignity has been compromised? a firefighter seas are death and destruction than the average person. asking the question what it means to be is almost inescapable. what does that mean when a person has survived the fire but has lost all of his possessions? our possessions are an extension of the we are. they define a person at least in part. in the aftermath of a fire, all that remains is a skeleton of dreams come a charred remnants of the work of art. what is it to be without that chronicle generations of family births and marriages and death? what is it to be without the treasures that traces the person's path? firefighters are often present

between life and death what does it mean when you are dying? because even not being there is still being in having them and sometimes the firefighter himself survives thanks to them flavor of the men and women he works with. i have asked myself the question what does it mean when you are no longer able to do your job? and answering that question i had to look back to wide then. these are some of the stories as i remember them. i also have to deal with the part of the present sharing a room with another man who had no memory. he could only live in the present and even that was a kump regulation.

he had a son who was 19 the next. yesterday she'd been in egypt and tomorrow he was good to be a race car driver. he could describe the events in vivid detail. although she was a tragic case he had times exhibited in a sense of joy. what is it to be a person with no memory and only fictitious presence? a small case in point about having no answer is this. where does he go when he leaves the fire station? that question i asked myself in this memoir. he was ever an official firehouse dog and the best way that i can portray him as to read a couple pages from a book

about him. he falls with a chapter heading and it goes like this. >> they were stuffed inside of the compartment. there is no more sleep for us tonight. you've got that right, he said. sam drove the engine passed the station them to shift into reverse and the apparatus opener the was clicked on to the engines cut sun visor. we didn't bother to get off of the peace to direct traffic. rick and i opened the side door to the jump compartment and stepped off the engine.

the captain team to the radio. engine 15 in porter's in tebeau as soon as the door raised a few feet i saw him at the threshold. what are you doing here so early in the morning? he didn't respond to human presence like most. he didn't wag his tail. what do we have here this morning of the hour, he said as he approached the station and three smile. i reckon he's hungry, i reckon so triet i will give him some of the leftover. >> don't give him any bone. i know better. i went to the galley while he went to unload. i will be right out to help you.

throw some coffee on while we are in there, too. right. he followed me to the galley door but he remained on the apparatus floor. he never entered any of the living quarters no matter how much we coaxed him to. he was a neglected creature to be yet he was short and stout and mean she. i opened the refrigerator and took to chicken breasts off a plate. after i with my hands off the paper towel i looked through the plaques the glass of the aluminum frame door. i'm coming, i said. i filled the bowl with water and pushed open the door with my foot and set the bowl of water and a handful of meat on the

front of the door. are you all right? he looked at me as if he were waiting for me to go back to the galleys of that he could eat undisturbed. >> one of these days i'm going to know something about you. i opened the galley door and i held it open momentarily. where do you go when you leave here? what do you do? >> i don't know what happened to him that for me he has a very special and a warm place in my heart. now, there is a lot of fire ground on this book, car fires, kitchen fires, they are all there but each incident from a different point of view such as

dropping a hydrant, being a backup, being a captain in the engine company, working after a fire and even paramedic runs like shootings and stabbings and auto accidents and heart attacks one thing i wanted to accomplish in this book was to give the civilian citizen reader and entertaining view of what a firefighter does. i should the anatomy of our profession piece by piece ankle by ankle true story and action and what you retire these should get from this story as an

entertaining reminder of what we did when we were on the job. so i've chosen a brief incident that i hope will give you some sense of the fire ground and the action of the work. this incident deals with a ladder company where i was filling in at that particular station. the head of the chapter goes like this. >> i was filling in at station ten which was a three piece station. i was assigned for 24 hours. the watch rooms radio turned

over the station over the speakers. engine ten respond to the house fired at 29 no one flames and smoke visible, timeout 1533. they came from all different directions to the watch rooms and the galley doors and to the officers difference. one man came from the outside and another came come the workshop. what had been a static space had become a beehive. man dashed to their stations, struggled into their turnout, climbed on board the engine without uttering a word. this momentary silence was entered the by the start of the diesel luncheons. wind and rain swollen through

the door, radio chatter filled the air and diesel engines roared. the latter was on the left side of the station and the chief's car was behind. lightning and thunder accompany the blair of the sirens and increase gloor accelerate the that the virginia beach boulevard where the engine followed by a ladder truck took an immediate right on to the area guard road and raced towards at a powerful speech. i tightened my strap and stepped into my seat and contemplated making the ancient element that i was about to be fully immersed water, wind, fire. i loved it.

they took up the hydrant already on the scene and in command and stopped near the structure in front of 314. the driver operator engaged in the 100-foot area latter hydraulic pump after setting the brakes and jumped out of the cab the others set the stabilizers plates in order to stabilize the truck. they went to the rear of the latter and climbed on to the table where he positioned himself where the operators controlled the pedestal. as soon as they were in place, the elevated the letter to the desired angle and slowly rotated the assembly until the tip of the latter was pointing towards

the roof of the house and extended the flight section beyond the roof and then lowered the latter and several rounds were projected past the roof with a letter in position they set the turntable locks. we armed ourselves with a roof ladder and a halgand tool and gasoline powered saw that use a circular blade to cut through the shingle and the web. the wind and the rain increased momentarily paralyzed us. take the roof letter and said it in place.

we set the roof ladder against the turntable before we climbed into position at the foot of the aerial ladder. the sky is forced us to flange unconsciously. i took a hold of the end of the reflector and started climbing the terri hail. until he was able to hook the heel over the shoulder and following. a crack of lightning split the sky and threatened to kill the world. that is a small sense of the fire ground. but as i also told you, flames and smoke visible also deals with what it means to be as well as what it means to no longer be but one has been. what i did in this book is a story about relationships and not a relationship with a fellow patient who occupied the window

side of my semi private room. he was a man who had lost his identity. he had a rare disease that occurs when a chronic alcoholism which depletes b vitamins essentially destroy use your web -- your brain cells. however the person is somehow able to hide his memory loss of confabulations. he fabricates stories and in bense images as he goes along and he doesn't even know. i will introduce you to kevin by reading a scene that dramatizes mauney interaction with him. by the way, he called me dana instead of danny and falls on the chapter heading the are not

dealing in and goes like this. dana, dana, are you asleep? i opened my eyes. kevin was shot. we are? >> you're not making any sense. i have to get you out of this joint. you are cracking up. i was in solitary confinement when i was a p.o.w.. i swung my feet over the side of my bed. kevin scrutinized me with an expression. i'm too young to be in the first world war. right. i took my portable heart monitor, stood up and maneuvered

around my bed table and i walked past the foot of the dead to get to his window. i stretched below a grand landscape that comprises several levels of complex. on one of the nearby there were three men working on in large air-conditioning units. as i studied the crew, kevin quietly approached the window and stood beside me a long while. he pressed his head against the four to the car window and he whispered these guys are so real. they are not alien. i suppressed by amusement. they are what are we? he turned away from the window and carefully surveyed me. you're crazy. i kept studying the maintenance workers. looks like they are repairing an air-conditioner. he directed us attention back to

the crew. look at all of those tools to be a can't you believe science used to be a firecracker? i suppose you've come a long way. no supposing about that. a beer would take mighty good right now. just about anything with taste pretty good to me. yes, it is not the best or worst. with results of a continued leaping into whatever the election he was taking me to. i ain't drinking, he said. once there is a hole in your stomach and starts leaking through you it's done. forget it, you're finished. i could believe that.

he sighed and pressed his head against the window against what appeared to be an effort to study the maintenance crew more intensely. i haven't said. i raise my kids, i worked and went to church. what happened? what did i do? i've been st up and down with you. he twisted his attention towards me keeping the top of his head pressed against the window and said but he hasn't told me nothing. he licked his dry lips. you know, i would really like to get out of here. you know, at first i was perturbed that i was placed in a room with a psychiatric patient. but after awhile i grew to like him and as you probably know in the segment i read you i learned to go along with his

confabulations and actually derived wisdom through this tragic event. there are times when i felt as if kevin was fully present, but i don't know that for sure of course. i don't know. now, i picked several other incidences to read that with typical and atypical occurrences and i will read them time permitting upon your request during the q&a. there are chapters on delivering a baby, false alarms, wrapping a hydrant, car finder and others. but with that said, i will close this presentation and bring us full circle by acknowledging this. iasf lunch at the norfolk fire department station one, we are

here and we are those retirees that had the privilege to serve in public safety and we have to be right about flames and smoke visible. i will end this presentation of how i ended my book, with a poem it's about what this in the aftermath of property destruction while standing ankle deep in water which is also the heading of the chapter and it goes like this. the skewed watercolors cracked and less what damage hanging on a long hallway in a burned out structure. from the blease death to death on both walls.

landscapes and seascapes covered and retired from the battle. overlooked decor by their owner, their existence forgotten. upon one thing my loneliness is amplified and my sadness is focused. upon this broken duty briefly captured by the silence, my admiration and appreciation while standing before the remains of the still life. there is still life after the life of being a firefighter. we love that life on the fire ground and having worked with those professionals to safeguard our streets.

they are fine people, good people who place their lives on the line every time they are on duty to protect the citizens of this nation and in fact all nations. it is a war that is waged every day and in every city in the country and in the world, a war that is generally ignored by most citizens until they are directly involved. until then, those of us who are employed in public safety are taken for granted as i suppose that is a worthy testament concerning how well we do our job. and this is also as good a place as any to end this presentation and provide you the opportunity to ask me some questions. thank you. [applause] for those that may not be able

to hear me -- >> it's not working -- [inaudible] >> we are on schedule. i think everyone for showing it tonight. i know everyone's stomachs are growling. if you'd like to ask a question i will bring the microphone to you. it's a remote microphone. we will rephrase the question and go on to dinner thank you. i have one question on the other microphone. after the book was published was their anything particular you wished you would have left out or put in the book? >> actually, no. there's always more you want to put in a book and as a writer, you always find that moment you could have said it better, written it better.

all writers do that after a book is completed and published. so no, there is nothing i would take out of the book and there is always that more that can be put in. is there another question out there? >> okay. right here. >> how many years from the time you had to leave the department to get in your book published how many e years did this take you? ..

>> hit it is in the same spirit another question? you have to understand i am among friends here. it is great to see wonderful friends and colleagues i cannot tell you what a great saying it is.

>> from your vietnam's experience out of curiosity how many have served from vietnam and our veterans? quite a few. i taco you got a broad star would it bother you to tell people how you got it? >> that is a good question. he asks how i got the bronze star i was in the first the recall and i was the combat korman and with one patrol we've made and to be contacted and was surrounded in my patrol leader was wounded and we actually wray and our point man ran into the end of the point man then this guy open and everybody shoots seeing at

each other the first one that was my patrol leader i was able to get to him to drag him to our perimeter and we waited for the choppers and that is the simple the answer to that question. anybody else? by the way i did not even note that i had the bronze star until after i was out of the military. they sent it to be in the mail. [laughter] >> the. [inaudible] spee cpac. >> the question is about my writing schedule i write every day. i am very disciplined that is what i can write to other books and finish them. figure for that question.

i believe we are out of time and i thank you for coming and i appreciate the invitation it has been a great great defense. [applause] i will be signing books over here as long as you want me relm

ring: stanley terick's iconic images of the march on washington." >> host: author kitty kelley, how did you get into the >> gueth both ft.raphy business? >> host: of 39 how did you get into the unauthorized biography business?her forthe >> i was a researcher forlefthep the editorial page