Letter to the editor

Fight fire with fire

Dick Mangan Oct. 2, 2006 From the print edition
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  When Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., verbally attacked a Forest Service Hotshot crew in the Billings airport in July ("You did a piss-poor job. ... didn’t do a goddamn thing but sit around and get paid $10,000."), the Hotshots did the only thing federal employees can do: Instead of responding to Burns, they called back to the fire camp, which dispatched a Fire Information Officer out to the scene to find out Conrad’s problem.

Since most wildland firefighters in Montana are federal, state or tribal employees, they can’t say or do anything that might appear political. But as a retiree, I’m not bound by those rules, and decided to let my fellow Montanans know where we firefighters are really coming from.

Thus the following bumper sticker:

Wildland Firefighters for TESTER

Dick Mangan
President, 2004-2006 International Association of Wildland Fire
Missoula, Montana

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