069. The Working Fire Is The Great Equalizer: Bobby Eckert [Part 2]

Some people post quotes. Bobby Eckert lives them.

In Part 2 of this no-holds-barred conversation, Captain Bobby Eckert gets brutally honest about leadership, firehouse culture, and the broken state of firefighter training. From how he sleeps better at the station than at home, to why he’s done playing nice with the fire service status quo - this one punches straight through the noise and hits the heart of what it means to lead.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why good officers don’t hover - and how Bobby lets his crew grow on their own
• The surprising reason he sleeps better at the firehouse than anywhere else
• The massive failure in entry-level firefighter training - and what needs to change
• How to lead with humility, consistency, and grit
• What happens when you stand up to the fire service “establishment” - and don’t back down

If you’re a firefighter who’s tired of the same old politics and wants to lead with realness, this one’s for you.

Transcript

TJ: Welcome back to Keep the Promise. If you thought Part one with Bobby Eckerd brought the heat, get ready. Because this one doesn't just turn it up a notch. It takes that entire knob and rips it off the stove. We're taking a deep look into what it takes to be a leader. Real gritty, uncomfortable leadership.

Bobby doesn't sugarcoat a thing from why he sleeps better at the station than he does at home. To how hovering officers are killing crew development to the absolute mess that is firefighter training right now. This one goes straight at the soft underbelly of the job. It's raw, it's real, and it's everything we need more of in the fire service.

So whether you're riding the front seat. We're still waiting to catch your first working fire. This conversation is a reminder of why we do what we do and how to do it better. Let's get into it.

Bobby: It's Christmas time. How in, in any town, USA, how does Santa Claus arrive on, around the town, right? On a fire engine. And what do we do? We take our kids and hand them to firefighters, strangers to strangers. If people trust us that much, why wouldn't we give them the best absolute product that we possibly could give of what we have to give it to 'em?

That's how I look at that.

TJ: Right, and that product being the best service that we can provide to the community.

Bobby: At and, and, and, and extremely nonjudgmental service as well, because, and then I'm not talking about like, uh, gender, race, or creed, any of that stuff I'm talking about like, listen, we know the public doesn't know what we know. They don't have our training. They don't know that, so. When you go at two in the morning for a gas leak or a water leak or a co run or something mundane that it's might be the dumbest thing that you're like, we've all been there, we've all gotten in the rig and just laughed.

Like, that guy's a fucking idiot. But we can't let them know that. We have to show them that, like there's, there has to be an empathetic approach to, to how we, to how we do this. Remember, there's tactical misjudgments on the fire ground and the fire department burns the frigging house to the ground and the homeowner shows up to the firehouse with a hogie tray and says, thank you for your service.

That's the thing. So

TJ: Yeah, that's a, that's a gut punch. When, when that sort of stuff happens, you're like, dude, like, thank you, but we're still beating ourselves up for that one. Let's

Bobby: it happens.

TJ: what you talked about. When it comes to basically not feeling that leader, like you're not in charge of them, you're, you are hands off. And again, I go back to something that you mentioned two things. The first one that really stuck with me is you said that your crew likes to go out, you know, a couple times, like maybe a month, I don't know how often, but they'll go hit the bar first thing in the morning right after work. you mentioned that you'll show up or whenever they're there, whatever time of the day, you'll hang out for a couple minutes and then you'll put some money in for their tab and make your exit.

Because even though you're part of the crew, still not there. And that sort of hands off approach is something that, that really piques my interest because you don't see it a bit in when, when it comes to fire officers,

Bobby: I, it you, you gotta like, here's the thing. I look at it like this. Do I want my people to follow my instruction? Yes, I do. I, I, I absolutely do. However, I want them to follow my lead. Meaning, if I'm going in a direction, I want them to want to go in my direction. Not because they have to, because they want to, because they know that's the, that's the most advantageous place for us.

And I also found that if you can be a little more hands-on, I'm telling you right now, we eat dinner at 6 30, 7 o'clock at night. I go do, I eat dinner, I try to do a dish. These guys I work with rip every sponge and whatever outta my hand and shove me outta the kitchen. I go do my nighttime paperwork and I am in bed, dude, in bed, sound asleep by eight 15.

Done. Done. Why? Because, well, I, I get the best sleep to fire us, which you might find hilarious. And I could talk about that if you want.

TJ: Yes.

Bobby: Um. But I, I find it healthy to not be around them. Like if, if they want to talk shit about me, I think it's healthy because maybe this guy's got a problem with me on something that is very indirect and he brings it up to the whole crew and they can talk about it.

And it's not a problem anymore. They don't need me there. Like I look at like the senior man to step in for the firehouse stuff, right? And, you know, run a drill or, or whatever. And I don't mind doing the training, but I, I, I think a senior man should, should play a bigger role in that situation. I am there to talk on the radio, do the reports, work the pedals, and make tactical judgements.

That's how I look at it. And obviously train firefighters and make sure they're there, but I don't need to be up in their, their stuff on the, on the everyday, all the time. Like, I don't need, I don't need to be there. Uh, they don't, they, I know I, I get made fun of for my favorite TV show, so I know they're not gonna watch my favorite TV show, so I'm gonna go enjoy that by myself, right?

Like, 'cause I don't get to enjoy it at home. Every TV in my house is taken by a FRI child, so it's, you know,

TJ: Paw Patrol and Bluey. Um,

Bobby: blue. I mean, it doesn't, it, it's not even that they're gaming, they're streaming, they're doing all kinds of shit.

TJ: right.

Bobby: But I, I, I just, I value my time in the firehouse because I, I lead a busy life outside of the firehouse from children to work to teaching. And if I can get a little bit of downtime, I take at advantage of it.

TJ: And it's that one kitchen comment that, again, with me. I started using that as a lens to judge other officers that I work with. I always pick, like the vibe was always off. Anytime that we had somebody float in some, you know, like most of the department would just promote somebody and send 'em out to float, send 'em out to be rovers. uh, so they would get exposure to different parts of the county. And there were a few who had their office for the day as you know, the acting lieutenant or the float lieutenant or float captain, whatever. they would just spend all day in the kitchen on their iPad or whatever. It's like, bro, we can't

Bobby: office go. Like, you gotta give people their space, but also like, listen man, I, I am super, I am the same person whenever you meet me, no matter where I'm at. And I, I, I show the human side of me. I really do. I, I don't, and I think it's very, I don't know. I'm not gonna say, I think it's very important.

It, it seems to work well for me because maybe people can resonate with me, but I, I don't know, like I don't have anything to hide. I I, I think one of the hardest things about being a fire officer is having that consistency of being the same person all the time. So if, if you, if your people deserve consistency, that's what they do, right?

They, they do deserve that. And you have to work on being consistent. Then you're not being authentic to yourself. Just be yourself. Just be yourself. It's not, it's the hardest, this whole world. It's social. Like, just be yourself. Be yourself. It's not that hard.

TJ: It's shit simple, right? But we complicated.

Bobby: Everybody does,

TJ: Let's go.

Bobby: but I, it, there, there's, I, I'm telling you, I, I, I, a couple of the younger guys, like, why do you go to bed after, after dinner? And I'm like, bro, I'm going to bed. Like I'll, there's a run. See you there. But goodnight.

TJ: Yeah, not to mention the fact that, again, you need to have your head on straight to make those tactical decisions. You need to sleep for that.

Bobby: Yeah. I You need sleep. It is just there, there's, there's a, there's a level of comfort I have when I'm in the firehouse. I don't have anywhere else in the world, and it just leads me to serenity when I'm sleeping there.

TJ: me more.

Bobby: I, I, I don't know how to, I don't know how to describe it. It's, it's just, I don't, I'm not, when I'm at home, I'm, I'm, I'm not in, not that I'm not comfortable in my home, but I'm not, I'm not in the comfort of knowing my job the way I know.

Like, I don't, I you're not trained to be a human being. Your parents do that. Right. And who knows if they did a good job or bad job, like you're trained to be a firefighter. You get experience along the way, and then you work and whatever emergency comes your way, you handle it. There's just, there's like a level, just a level of comfort of being there that, I mean, I drool, I had like drooling sleep at work.

I, I, I can't, I, I toss and turn at home.

TJ: It is so interesting that you mentioned that because I experienced something similar. We, um, we unfortunately went through a line of duty death back in 2018, probably for the next five to six years, I could only sleep well at the flyer house in that, you know. environment with dudes snoring and bells

Bobby: Oh yeah.

TJ: and shit happening.

That was the best sleep I have ever gotten. My, this little like sleep tracker would be like, oh dude, you only got three hours of sleep. You got a hundred percent recovery. Go seize the day. I'm like, how is this possible? I get eight hours of sleep at home and I feel like absolute shit the following

Bobby: Yeah, because you toss and turn and your mind, your mind, your, your pre I look at it as like your pre-program. Like, I love, I love going to work well, I don't always love going to work. Let's, there, there's days I don't wanna be there, trust me. However, when I walk in the firehouse door to go to work, to report duty, like I leave the world outside.

I just leave it there. 'cause I, I just, I, I'm like, this is a blessing being here for 24 hours. Like I don't have to worry about shit.

TJ: Yeah. Yeah. That's, um, whole world just kind of stops. Like you just press pause when you walk through those

Bobby: That's it. You're there. And then, but then the problem is all, all the shit you ignore when you're working hit you in the face. When you walk out the door, get in your car, right?

TJ: Like that Ski on Jackass, where I think they get bam with a big old hand that Spring Lotus, he comes

Bobby: Yeah.

TJ: Wham. Okay. We've talked, you've mentioned a bit, a bit about your, your teaching side of life. You're actually an author. You've written what, two volumes or are we up to three now? Of,

Bobby: I have three. I just didn't, I didn't unleash it yet.

TJ: okay, so we're, oh hell yeah. that one's coming down the pipe. Eckard Fire Tactics. 'cause that came from, and the books came from Tuesdays are for tactics. Right. That was the, the original came about on, on Instagram.

Bobby: Yeah, so I just kind of like took my Tuesday post and just kind of popped them in some book. I, I mean, I, well, the first one, I, I did a shoe job editing. I apologize. The second one, I, I paid to get edited. The third one I paid to get edited. Um, the third one would be a little more cleaned up than the, than all two.

You can pro you can laugh. My progression of gram learning, teaching myself grammar in my thirties and forties. Yeah, it was just, it was an idea. Um, I take a lot of notes writing shit down, just hearing guys talk, and I just thought like, man, what if I could just put them posts and help somebody out? And it, it, it made it like toilet, like bathroom size next to the toilet type deal.

That was kind of like my thought. And then. Um, then I learned how terrible it is to self-publish a book, not through Amazon, like do it on your own. Um, learned a lot about shipping, learned a lot about the US Postal Service. Learned a lot about things I never thought I would learn about. Um, yeah. Yeah. Um, I'm, I, I think I'm done for a long time.

If I ever do it again after this one, it's not just, uh, it's, it's, the fire service is very interesting place and it, it's not that I'm like the, the winds are outta my sails. It's just a, I kind of, I do write, I have articles on my computer, I just don't submit. They're there. I'll have a thought, write it down.

Um, with my Instagram, it's more of, uh, I have have 'em pre-written. I just need a video or a photo to go with them. I'm very particular with that. Uh, yeah, it. I never thought I'd be an author. I'm dyslexic. I don't consider myself an author. I just kind of wrote, and it's more just my thoughts put into words.

And there you go.

TJ: And they resonate. They,

Bobby: I hope it helps somebody. If it doesn't, that's fine. I mean, you know, everybody loves to hate me, so that's fine too. But if somebody gets something outta if, if, if, if somebody loves, if, if somebody gets something out of it, uh, please. It's my experience. And I, I feel that I'm been, I've had a good career in that I've been able to really apply my trade consistently and good.

I've had a lot of good things happen. I've had a lot of bad, bad things happen, and I've made a lot of stupid, stupid mistakes. And that's where a lot of this stuff comes from. It, it's not like, Hey, I know this. I knew that. It's like, yo, I messed this up, mess this up, mess this up, and here's what I learned from it and here's, you know, what I was told or taught.

And I, it's, it's not just my voice too, it's, it's also. All these guys that when I got hired it, the amount of experience that was there when I walked in the door, I, I can't even put into words the, the, these guys. And we just lost so many of 'em at the first of the year. I, I mean, a bunch brought me to tears at their retirement send off.

But it, it's their, it's their words too. 'cause they taught it to me. I didn't, I didn't go out there and invent this shit. It just, it, it works well for us. And, and it's, it's tried and true.

TJ: Yeah, you're almost giving a voice to those people who, for whatever reason, may not feel like their voice matters or they just don't want to be out on the spotlight. It's interesting and it's unique. Being able to be in that position where you can take all of that combined knowledge. The fact that you, that you pay homage to those people and say, Hey, this is all my combined thoughts.

I didn't reinvent the wheel. was taught to me. This is how we do it. Boom. In a very unique

Bobby: I do say it in the preface, but you know, people don't read that shit. But now it's, it is true. And I wish I could like give them like, uh, you know, money, but there ain't no goddamn money and stop publishing books, I'll tell you that much. You lose money.

TJ: business. Yeah. Business is a, is a tough mistress to deal with. That's for

Bobby: You ain't kidding, man.

TJ: Um, I wish you had made the book a little bit bigger because I can't find my OG copy of the first volume, the one that, um, I think, I think it might've been signed whenever you guys had the get together at Allison host

Bobby: Yeah, that was the, that was the, you probably have the one with the, uh, you probably, you have the first hunter copy with the misprint in it.

TJ: Hell

Bobby: There's a page, there's a page upside down in it.

TJ: Yes, I do remember that. Yep. I gotta go find it. I don't like, I'm lucky I found the notebook from, uh, from fireman days buried at the bottom of a box. Now I gotta go find the rest of those

Bobby: That's funny. Yeah. I, I'm gonna reprint the, the next two because people have been asking, it's just, it, it's been, my life's been so busy. It's just, I, you know,

TJ: Make it a

Bobby: you know how it's

TJ: sell it.

Bobby: All right.

TJ: Alright, where shall we head next? Do we want to talk about, let's talk about fire tactics. Let's

Okay.

your role as an instructor. What training has to change in order for us to stay aggressive and consistent with the ever changing landscape of the fire service?

The training has to change. Is there a certain, is there an aspect of the, of firefighter training that, that you feel We don't do we, we don't give it enough credit. We don't do as much as we should.

Bobby: The entry level program is disgusting. It's deplorable. It's absolutely deplorable. It, it's, it's public school. It's a, it's a no child left behind thing. We're not. We're, we're not. It's, we're not teaching firefighters to be firefighters. We're not managing expectations of the fire ground. We're not managing expectations of operational reality.

We're not managing expectations of. The good and bad and different. We're not managing expectations of making mistakes and learning from them and growing from them. We're not managing expectations of equipment. We're, I mean, the, it is just, it can go, I can go on and on and on and on and on, but the biggest problem is, is these dudes that are 10 or 12 or 13 or 14, 15 years older than you and I that won't give it the fuck up.

They're the ones clogging the drain in the system because it's the way we've always done it. And I, I've been director of this prestigious fire academy for 30. Well, dude, you, you're, it's not, well, it's not going well. You're not doing anything. It's not, who are you? Who are you? You look like you're 25. Oh, cool.

Well, I'm 42. Sorry. Gotta be a whiskey. I drank, but no, I, I'm being, I mean it as a joke, but No, it like, seriously, it, it, it's, it's, the problem with fire training is people, the problem with the fire service is people. It's, it, we, we, we screw it for ourselves. And then people, anybody who thinks I could break hearts on people's integrity and intentions with names in the fire service, right?

You, you have to be endearing to, to, to, to really wanna help somebody. And I truly care about the fire service and really wanna help people. But if you don't think people are making money off this bad, bad information and books and, you know, if Ifta IFTA should go be cut out to sea and just see you later, I mean, they, they, they're printing, they're literally printing, they're information and you call 'em out on, they tell you, well, we can't afford to reprint, can't afford to reprint.

You print more books than any public, public, uh, publication in the fire service. They don't care about the information that that information could get somebody killed, killed. They're, they're, they're building instruction chapter on the, on the type three ordinary page. They have a type two non-combustible strip mall building depicted, okay, go look it up.

A type two ordinary, I'm sorry, type two non-combustible. And a type three ordinary. That's like a zebra and a turtle. They're both breathing, but they're both two different things. If you fight, fire the way you fight, fire in the ordinary and a non-combustible, you're gonna die. You're gonna die. I don't wanna die doing this.

I wanna go out like Hugh Hefner, nine, nine women in my bed. Like that's how I want to go. Like what? They, they're, and then you, you see people trying to help or affect change and you're just met with resistance. Dude. Resistance. Not only resistance to the point where they will do anything to ruin you and suspend your instructor, sir.

Try ways to get you this, that, and the other. Slam your name, come back to your family, whatever. They don't care. You're taking money outta their pocket. That's how they look at it when you're going and not even thinking about taking money.

TJ: Right. You're, you're spending your own money to publish things, to publish stuff that you've experienced and not saying, Hey, this isn't the end all be all. No, no, no. You're saying this is what works for me. This is what works for us, and hopefully it helps you. And if it doesn't, then so be it. you're coming up against that, you know, I guess we have the military industrial complex within the US and I guess we gotta come up with a cool name like that for if stuff for the, um, we'll come up with something cool.

But yeah, it's, it's about

Bobby: Yeah, it's, but I've said it before, I, I said on the scrap accordingly. Like, you mean like a lot of, a lot of people don't want to have a, a, a vocal voice, but you mean to tell me. I, I, I, I can't go down to Baltimore City or in West Philly and find a guy who does it every day and get him to, to gimme some notes or take the notes myself.

On ground ladders and rewrite a ground ladder chapter. We're still doing the four firefighter coffin carry on a 28 foot ladder. Are you kidding me? That's in a book. That's in a book. You're wasting a page. You just wasted a tree. Don't tell the tree huggers. Jesus.

TJ: Maybe that's how we affect the change. Maybe we go

Bobby: Yeah. We'll get that, we'll get them on board. Yes. We'll get them. Listen, we need you.

TJ: a common

Bobby: Yeah. Stop going after the, the, the oil rigs with with boats. Come find, come with us. Yeah,

TJ: we're done with that, then we can all duke

Bobby: yeah. We'll go back. Go back to wherever you, yeah, wherever you gotta go after that.

TJ: I assume you've had those institutions and those people come after you. I mean, I've seen it happen on social media, but I'm, I'm, I assume it's, it's happened to you on other facets

Bobby: Yeah. I, you know, I, I, yeah, and I, it's funny, I had a guy call me a martyr twice last week, and I, I just say this, I, I, that, that's your opinion. That's fine. I. I've been drug through the ringer. And that's, I, I knew what I was getting into, kind of, but I didn't know it was gonna be this deep. And that's fine. I, I can just say this, that it is so much harder being a fucking asshole to somebody, than being nice to somebody and trying to figure, figure out whatever, whatever's going on.

But it is what it is, man. Like that's what it, that's how it is. Even the biggest of the big out there, even the biggest of the big out there. Do not take the time to get to know anybody. I ha I, there was a, there was a gentleman out there that teaches and, um, he doesn't like me. I heard that. He doesn't like you.

Oh, okay. I don't even know. I, if I fell over him, I wouldn't know who he was. Cool. Man. I'm at a bar standing next to him. He doesn't like me so much that he won't look me in the eye, man. What a badass.

TJ: Wow.

Bobby: Yeah. Yeah. If you got a problem, say it to somebody's face, dude. Say it to their face. That's all I gotta say.

TJ: A lot of the issues that we have in the fire service in life could be solved with a couple of those hard conversations.

Bobby: People can't have 'em because they, you, you, you, you'd have to exercise some type of humility and maturity and not, and not wanna get vi physical violences. I'll beat you up outside. Like maybe figure out like common ground. We, the common ground is already there, but we're too dumb to see it. The fire service.

I didn't think when I started er, fire tactics. I didn't think two things. One, I didn't think it would be a fight. Like it has been just a fight to train firefighters in any way, shape or form. It has been a fight from, uh, I'll name, names, I don't care from miry to, uh, you name it. I, I don't even care. I got you there.

And you do. Those guys. Those guys treated me, treated me so disrespectfully. It wasn't even funny,

TJ: not

Bobby: like. If my father heard how they talked to me, I don't know what my father would do to them. I really don't. But in in, in this world, in this world, they, people think that's okay. That's okay to talk to somebody like that.

And, you know, I, I won't, I, I won't go any deeper with names, names, but there's other people, big names that, that, that will talk to you like, like, you're, like, you're a piece of trash, bro. It's firefighting. It's firefighting. Guess what? When my time's done, I'm going to retire from firefighting. I'm going to collect my pension and I'm gonna travel and I'm gonna, I don't know, pick up surfing again.

Something. But while I'm here, I I, I would like to get back and I get a lot of mental health wise, I get a lot of it out, out, out, out of teaching. But you, you're gonna slander my name and come at me. No, no, no, no, no, no. So lately, the last two years, I've been pushing back hard. Hard 'cause I'm tired of it. I'm absolutely tired of it.

And then when I gave the name Ecker, I figure I'll give, oh, what better teacher, my father, his last name, man, there's dudes. Oh, then now if I would've named a flash funky fire training people like, wow, gimme a sticker. Gimme a fucking break.

TJ: Flash funky. That should be your mascot.

Bobby: I should be, I should get a i. I should be like gritty.

TJ: Oh, fuck. I just lost my train of thought. It was something

Bobby: Sorry.

TJ: No, no, no. It had to do with, with the training. I, I just keep going back to, again, you're probably done this training, so you, I don't know how, how much you remember, but in Harrisburg, I don't know if it was you, which one of you goons either hotwired or found the keys to a van that they were using for extrication training up at Hack? And that demon vehicle made its way all over the training ground while we were out there doing the, um, the

Bobby: The hands on. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah, we kind of, we commandeered that thing. Uh,

TJ: it in like in the two like posts in front of the hydrant for our evolution and said, Hey, your hydrant block, go figure it out. I'm like, this guy is unhinged. I fucking love everything about this.

Bobby: yeah, we had to,

TJ: kind of going,

Bobby: I gotta give it to the guys a hack. 'cause they, I asked for permission first before I did it. I didn't just do it, uh, you know, liability. I didn't want to, you know, God forbid somebody cuts their finger on a glass or something like that. But, uh, they were all about it. They were like, just get the thing started.

So we, you know. It's MacGyver time.

TJ: I mean,

Bobby: We did. Yeah. It's, that's, that's not hard to do.

TJ: a couple of guys that you work with who are in Baltimore City that I'm sure know things.

Bobby: Yeah.

TJ: Yeah, that was dude, that was one of the most phenomenal. I mean, it was a beatdown of a day 'cause I remember it was hot as shit, but it was, um, it was a great time. Let's go back to, and I mean, I don't want to keep. Going into Bobby, the villain, because again, we'll dig into that when we get to the social media part, and it's um, it's funny that I mentioned to, to Nick Lindsay, I was like, Hey, I'm gonna be talking to Bobby. And he goes, oh yeah, the, the villain. The villain. You're gonna get a lot of, of mileage out of that. Does that take a toll on, on

Bobby: Now

TJ: a person? Not at

Bobby: Nope.

TJ: Do

Bobby: Nope.

TJ: on that, that like pit bull mentality of like, Hey, you're telling me I can't do this? Or is it, if we're going with the animal thing, like is is it the pit bull or is it the duck where you're like, Hey, I'm gonna let this shit

Bobby: You are getting, you're getting who I am authentically. However, in the last. Ever up until about last year. This time I bit my tongue. I'm not biting my tongue anymore. I don't give a flying shit who you are. You're not, you're you. I, I'm gonna say it and I've said it on every podcast. I've written it. I care about my kids.

I care about my family, I care about my friends. And if you're not one of them and don't know me, your opinion means nothing to me. And if you're gonna come at me, I'm coming back at you and you're not gonna like it.

TJ: And that is who you are authentically.

Bobby: I, I would think, I would like to believe so every day. I mean, I'm not, I don't go out there and buy what's up with some lady with a vending machine situation earlier today.

So I always try to, she was an older lady having an issue with a dollar bill. I was, I just swiped my card for her. But yeah, like I got, I.

TJ: Fuck dude. I don't even know where we go from that one.

Bobby: No, I, I just, I, I'm, I'm over it, man. I'm over it because it, it, it's, I'll tell you what, it doesn't affect me in a way, like, like mentally. It, it's a distraction. It's a distraction. What? For, for the platform I'm trying to give and what I'm trying to really do all, all the time. Um, I, I, it's not like, I mean, you mentioned Nick Lindsay, he works with me.

Like I, I have people, like my staff's phenomenal. Their experience level's unbelievable. So you not wanting to bring them to your firehouse because of whatever you heard that isn't true. Um, that's on you. 'cause you're, you're, you're losing the amount of people that do use us. The amount of repeat customers we do have the amount of career fire departments that send recruits to our classes.

The amount of, like, all that stuff. So, you know, if you wanna miss on that, go get 'em, brother. I, I, I, I, I don't know what to tell you, but you, it is just, I, I'm not biting my tongue anymore. I, I'm done doing it.