Trenton Fire Chief Rick Morris presented the program at Thursday’s meeting of the Trenton Rotary Club. Debbie Carman was the program chairman.
This website brought to you in part by the following sponsor:
Morris talked about his work as a federal firefighter, which included four deployments to Iraq. He was among several firefighters sent to Iraq to set up 26 encampments, all of which had a fire department. He was stationed at Camp Bucca near Umm Qsar, which was an internment camp that held as many as 28,000 Iraqi prisoners who were there on a variety of charges.
He said his particular camp had 50 to 70 fires a week because of the prisoners, who would set fires with the matches/lighters required to be given to them as they were allowed to smoke. They also fought fires resulting from incoming attacks by the opposition as well as equipment fires, including airplanes and tanks.
Morris said the U.S. Government has fire departments at each of its military bases as well as other government sites. There are currently around 6,000 federal firefighters. Morris, before his retirement from the Air Force, served as a fire chief at Whiteman Air Force Base.
During the business meeting it was announced that Winston Mackey has been selected to attend the Rotary Youth Leadership Academy this summer. The first entry for the Missouri Day Parade has already been received and chairman Steve Maxey said the committee will be meeting in the next few weeks to begin official planning of the event, which this year will honor the local National Guard Unit and have a patriotic theme. A letter, thanking the Rotary for its support of the Friends of the Arts, was also read.
Next week’s program chairman is Don Woodard.