Veteran's Affairs Plus discusses the issues that veterans in Las Vegas deal with on a daily basis. Your host, David L. Washington connects listeners with relevant community resources and information that they need to help veterans or themselves.
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Dave Washington 0:42
what's going on good day
Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs, plus some 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. I have a former Assemblyman and press current president of the Martin Luther King committee he will be on to give us some update or advises on what's going to be happening next month for the Martin Luther King Week activities. So look forward to that discussion. In the meantime, I'm going to acknowledge some birthdays for this month. I got my sister animal. She's just celebrating my deceased brother, also deceased friend, Monroe Williams, their birthdays would be this month. And then we got grandson, kaisen, His birthday is this month. Have some others that I'll discuss next week. But we had a we had some great Thanksgiving get gatherings. I can tell you guys. We had family and friends and nothing more than hanging out with some family and KJ, our grandson, he brought in two basketball players, two of his teammates, and Wes, Can these young men eat? Man, I mean, they were plowing down food like crazy, but we all had a good time. And then on Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving, Amber and Nathan, they invited us to dinner with some friends from out of town, and we had a great time with them. And they're they're children, so all is good. All is well. And then I told my brother in law, catalog, man, it's going to take a while, but God will ease the pain of your loss of my sister, cat and his wife. So Amen, just hang in there, brother. It's going to be okay. And then, as far as far as announcements, again, I mentioned the Martin Luther King committee activities that window will discuss with us shortly, but also the Carl Holmes executive development institute. We will have a golf tournament coming up in April where we will honor both retired as well as deceased, fired chief officer Herschel Clady and chief officer Spike Jones. Both of those brothers have passed away, but we're using their names to raise money for our scholarship fund again, for the Carl Holmes executive development institute, and we will appreciate those brothers leadership while they were here on Earth, and hope that God will be pleased with the work that they did. And finally, I'd just like to say something. I'm kind of an old school guy. Kind of came in at the tail end of the greater activity, if you will, of the civil rights movement, but I can tell you that one thing that happened back in those days, and I know Wendell can attest to it. You know, there's a number of business I'm not going to call them, even though Jason has already kind of put it out there that we talk show hosts. We don't speak for the university. But I will say this, if there's folks, businesses, etc, corporations that don't support something that that you're in favor of, for example, diversity, equity and inclusion. There's a number of them that say they're backing off of that. So all I'd suggest to you guys, you consider not doing business with them, and see how they feel about that. That's just my thought. Again, that's from Dave Martin with that. I'd like to introduce a long time friend, former sentiment, who did great work up in the legislature, Mr. Wendell P Williams, how you doing? Wendell, hello, Wendell, yes, I'm here. Okay, now we got you guys,
Wendell Williams 4:09
so Team huachito. You know, it's always good to not only hear your voice as a friend and a long time friend, but to be on your show each year has been an ultimate pleasure for me. So I'm very delighted to be on for a second.
Dave Washington 4:24
Oh, good. Well, we just, you know, I just think it's important to start in December, because I know you guys are well underway and probably been working all year in preparation for what year will this be? Window, as far as it
Wendell Williams 4:36
should be the 43rd this will be the 43rd year. 43rd
Dave Washington 4:39
annual. All right, excellent. So give us an indication, or audience, an indication of what you guys got going on, and I don't know if you've got your speakers together and what have you, but please just give us a little report and an update, if you will. Okay,
Wendell Williams 4:55
this is our 43rd annual team week Las Vegas, and. Uh, the parade, as you know, Dave, because the very first parade you were there, you brought up, you brought the fire engine. It was the only major thing that we had at that particular time. But now we have, last year, we had about 240 entries in the parade. So people have, people have embraced it. Also this year, the state of Arkansas, the Martin Luther King commission for the state of Arkansas, has partners with us. They're going to be here. We're going to do a, a dual celebration, if you will. They're going to be here. We're going to we're going to have Facebook live in Arkansas and Vegas. They're bringing one of their radio stations with them. So we'll, we'll, we'll share the radio time, and we're going to celebrate King week with state of Arkansas as well as other states as well the the week sort of starts off on Wednesday with a pre parade mixer hosted by seasons entertainment that's going to be at the horseshoe. And then on Thursday, we're having the ultimate measure of a man. That's a form that we have for men, even though women are invited, but it deals with how to be a better brother, how to be a better husband, how to be a better community person, how to better be a be a better father. It's a measure of a man. On Friday morning, we have our annual Technology Summit that's held in Las Vegas City Hall. Last year, we had about 600 students from around the United States and the world participating in our Tech Summit. Wow, that's on Friday. On Saturday night, we having our 43rd annual MLK scholarship fundraising. Our speaker for that is Reverend Jamal Bryant from from Georgia. He'll be our keynote speaker. We're also bringing back members of our youth community from long ago, because our theme this year is honoring the past, embracing the future. And of course, on Monday is our annual MLK parade. And right now, we have a lot of people signing up. We have a lot of schools, ROTC veterans groups. We have even have a band that's coming from Toluse, Louisiana, HBC, new bands coming this year. So I would ask everybody to access our website and you can get all the information, which is King week Las vegas.com, King week Las Vegas is all together.com as a matter of fact, if you go on our website, you can see a photo of myself and chief Washington, your host, probably 35 years ago. We were young men at that time.
Dave Washington 7:48
Oh yeah, if my memory serves me correctly, what do we have? About 1012, entries in the parade. Something about
Wendell Williams 7:56
1313, and now we one of the largest in the nation. Wow, these key televisions doing a special on what they consider the four, the four major parades, MLK parades in the nation. We're one of those. You gotta be honored this this spring with that special on television. But, you know, with so much stuff going on in the world today, the uncertainty, the turbulence, we hope to make Las Vegas a better place, which is our goal, to bring peace and harmony among all people, to celebrate the life and legacy of MLK, excellent.
Dave Washington 8:31
Well said, Well, I want to go back to the men's function that you're doing. Where will it be held? And be
Wendell Williams 8:38
held at the West West Las Vegas Library on that Thursday, okay,
Dave Washington 8:43
all right, and this is to hopefully help young men, young well meaning, young and old, to be better people.
Wendell Williams 8:53
Dr King once said the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in comfort and convenience, but where he stands in controversy and challenge. So this is based on that quote. But here again, we want to have this to let men open up and express themselves, sort of a tone, if you will, right to become better people. Excellent. Speaking of UNLV, UNLV, one of our grand marshals this year is Coach Cooper from UNLV football, and he will be speaking at that ultimate measure of a man, excellent. Because, you know, as coach Cooper has influenced a lot of young men here in Las Vegas when he worked at a high school, and now he's doing a lot with the football team. As you know that our football team is doing great things. And he is the director of student and player personnel, so he's really safe for young men to be better citizens in our community. That is excellent. So we're honoring him.
Dave Washington 9:54
Oh, that's excellent, Wendell, and I can tell you that I think people will be pleased of. Yeah, but what you guys are doing, because I think it does so much for our community. So on behalf of our community, I want to thank you for for your diligence and continuing this effort. Because, man, when you put on something of this magnitude, it's not easy. And I put on small functions, man, and at this level, it's a whole different mentality and discipline that one must have in order to make it work. So on behalf of them, want to thank you. So when we'll get you back on again? So we got about another minute and a half. So anything you want to say in final comments to our audience, and again, we'll get you back on either late this month or early next month, for sure, because I think it's important. Yeah,
Wendell Williams 10:40
I just want to give out the website again. It's King. We've Las Vegas com, and our goal is to make Las Vegas a better place to live. We don't all have to to go out together and be together, but we all have to respect each other in this community. So our goal is to make Las Vegas a better place for our young people, our seniors and everybody involved, all races and creeds. Alright?
Dave Washington 11:00
Well said, former Assemblyman and current president of the Martin Luther King Jr committee. Thank you Wendell. We appreciate you, man, and we'll get you back on again to share further information as time moves forward. Thanks, brother.
Wendell Williams 11:14
Thank you, sir.
Dave Washington 11:15
Once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. On the other side, we'll have Jordan Moore, and she will have a guest. She's going to talk to us about her explore program. We'll be back shortly.
Once again, this is Veterans Affairs plus some 91.5 jazz and more. I have Miss Jordan Moore, who's the Las Vegas Fire and Rescue they have an explorer program. She has a guest with her that's going to help to fill in some of the the area that we need to talk about. So Jordan, how you doing? And please give our listening audience a little bit about your background, please. Well, first, thank
Jordan Moore 11:57
you so much for having us. Chief Washington. We appreciate the opportunity. My name is Jordan Moore with Las Vegas Fire and Rescue. I've been with the City of Las Vegas for about 10 years, with the department for about a year and a half now, and we're really excited that we're starting our next recruitment in January for the Las Vegas explorers. The Explorer post is an a preparatory program for those looking to join fire and really start to get some information, as well as some hands on experience, and it's for those 15 to 25 years old. I'm also here with firefighter paramedics Sawyer Epstein, who is the program coordinator, so I'll let him introduce himself.
Sawyer Epstein 12:33
Hi. My name is Sawyer Epstein. I'm a firefighter paramedic with Las Vegas Fire and Rescue. I have been working with Las Vegas Fire and Rescue for five years now. And prior to that, I was an explorer myself with the Las Vegas Fire and Rescue explorer program. I was an explorer from the age of 15 to 19 years old, so for about four years. And I'll tell you a little bit about the program in a minute, but yeah, the program helped me get hired with the department that I'm with today. So, excellent,
Dave Washington 13:02
excellent. So where are you from? Sorry,
Sawyer Epstein 13:06
I was born and raised here in Las Vegas, actually. Okay,
Dave Washington 13:09
so homegrown, young man, where'd you Yes, sir, where'd you go to school at
I went to Palo Verde High School. Okay, all right. And Jordan. Where are you from?
Jordan Moore 13:20
I am a navy brat. So I was actually born in Newport News, Virginia, and I've lived in Hawaii, San Diego, LA and then Las Vegas, but I did go to Valley High School as well as UNLV. Yeah. Okay, cool.
Dave Washington 13:30
Let me tell you guys a little bit about what I know about the history of the Explore program to include, you know, back way back in the day it was we will call the black firefighters. Will call the United firefighters of Southern Nevada. They wanted to hook to put together an explorer program. No, we don't need to do this. The department has one. We should recruit young men and women, black, white, male, female, and send them to that group. That's that already exists. They insisted. And you know, when people vote stuff in, you have to kind of follow suit. So I was the ranking officer. I was, I think I was battalion chief over training, so I went down to explore and got signed up. And guess what? It fell on its face because we didn't have enough staffing to come, and parents would call me because I was the name they were given by Scouts of America, and they would go off, and that was just unfortunate, but I'm glad that the program is still going and give us an indication of how long it goes either one of you guys, and you know What young men and women can do to prepare themselves to enter that program. And how many openings do you actually have?
Sawyer Epstein 14:49
Okay, so our explore program, we recruit every January and July. So we recruit twice a year. So our upcoming recruitment is, will be in January. 2025 almost it'll be a month from this past Sunday. So on January 5, the very first Sunday of January, we will have an open orientation. It's open to to anyone ages 15 to 25 they're welcome to bring their parents or guardians as well. That way, the guardians can get the information, and during that orientation, we will explain everything about what the program consists of and what is expected of all of our explorers. But our meetings are every Sunday, from 6am to noon, excluding holidays, obviously, and our explorers we so we train them on the academy standards. Our goal is to prepare the explorers for the Fire Academy so we closely follow the standards that the LFR Academy follows. And our goal is to prepare the explorers to not only meet, but to exceed the expectations once they do get accepted to a fire academy, our explore program doesn't directly feed into the academy, but it helps to make them into a much better candidate, and we also help train them as far as through The hiring process. So we give interview preparation. We give testing or preparation for the written test and for like the chief interview and the psychiatric boards. So all of the components of the testing process, we kind of walk the explorers through it and give them advice on how to be successful,
Dave Washington 16:38
excellent. So how long is the program? So
Sawyer Epstein 16:42
the program every Sunday, from 6am to noon, there is no start or finish. Okay, there is no finish of the program once you could or is
Dave Washington 16:53
it? Is it only that you age out, that's it. Otherwise, you can stay in and just continue to work until you get yourself employed with a fire department, or just decide, hey, I'm done
Sawyer Epstein 17:06
exactly yes. So once an individual becomes an explorer, typically, they will remain in the program as long as they would like, as long as they follow our our standards, and they stay within good standing in the program, we will allow them to stay in the program until they move on to whatever their goal was set to, right? So
Dave Washington 17:30
what is the have you guys got any numbers on your success rate at all
Sawyer Epstein 17:39
in our current academy that we have right now, we have eight of our former Las Vegas fine rescue explorers. I believe the Academy has around 25 recruits that they started with. So eight out of the 25 that's a pretty good number of you know, those who are explorers that were accepted. I don't have an exact percentage, but over the past 10 years that I have been involved in with the program, you know, being an explorer myself and now being an advisor, right, the success rate of those explorers who have been in academies is is almost 100% explorers very regularly struggle with the Academy because of the time that they spend in the program is directly to prepare them to be successful.
Dave Washington 18:29
Sure. So in terms of your capacity for numbers, what's the capacity? Or do you have a capacity? Look, we're not going to take more than x number of explorers at any given time.
Sawyer Epstein 18:43
So with the amount of advisors that we have, that volunteer on a regular basis, and our equipment that we have access to, we can usually handle upwards to 75 explorers at a maximum. We currently in our program. Currently we have just under 50. Okay, so in this new recruitment, we'll most likely be able to take probably around 25 to 30 new explorers. That number can change, but that's an estimate of about what we'll be able to take from this new recruitment, sure.
Dave Washington 19:15
Well, those are, those are good numbers, and it gives an opportunity, again, as you mentioned for that preparation, which is a key to success in any examination process for that matter, because I recall I ran a program to prepare women to get into the fire service, and some of those women, they didn't, they didn't all make it quite naturally, but others went on to corrections and other areas where they made A decent, decent living. So proud of you guys for and I can see, and can tell from from the numbers that you've given that the numbers have increased tremendously since I retired some 18 years ago. Now, how time flies? Jordan, you got anything else to add?
Jordan Moore 19:58
Yeah, I just first. Wanted to thank Sawyer and all of our volunteers, because this program is a volunteer led program. He shows up as well as the other advisors show up every Sunday. But I do want to let the callers know it is a competitive process. Last time we had over 202 100 people come out for about 40 spots. We have things like an interview and a written exam and the physical exam. Those things are not guidelines, but things that we need. Those are the minimum qualifications. So we want people who are serious, people who want to go up, people who are ready to take that next step, that and they have that high level of commitment to excellence. Those are the people looking for there's a lot of other programs. There's different things that the department does if someone's just looking to get their toes wet. This is really for those people who are really, really serious about it. And we want to think that not to discourage anyone, but to ensure that we have people who are really ready for what they're signing up for. When we say every Sunday, that really means you're waking up early on Sunday mornings to show up, to work out, to study, to do homework, to do additional community service, right? And I think if I don't say that, that's not honoring Sawyer's commitment to this organization as well as our department's commitment to this community, which is really to protect the loss of life and poverty, that's what we're here to do. So we want people who align with that mission.
Dave Washington 21:12
Well said, and I think that's the way it should, because number one has particularly when you're volunteering. I know in my volunteer service to community, I don't like going out and doing work on my time, not getting one penny for it, and I'm looking for any money. But certainly you want people committed, because if you're not committed, why are you wasting my time, in fact, your own time as well. So let me ask you this with the with the program, have you guys continued? And I asked because I don't know. We also used to have a cadet program. Is that program still in existence?
Jordan Moore 21:47
Yes, but the cadet program has altered a little bit, so pretty it's kind of transformed into people who have gone through the process and they're about to get hired. So in the process. Now, if you say, are going to an August Academy, we want to make sure, we want to retain you. We want to hire you. So that's kind of what the cadets have more transformed into. It's not the old program that a lot of people knew that was more of like an hourly job. We have some of those need the work, but not like the same traditional employment that you had when you were here.
Dave Washington 22:17
So you're saying that as a cadet now, it's like the next step will be into the academy. In the meantime, are you paid a salary of some sort?
Jordan Moore 22:28
Yes, you're paid and you're working somewhere in the department. Many times it's in logistics. Sometimes it could be at training, different things that we need around the department. And I think it is a great way to one keep those great people engaged and make sure that they have a livable wage while they're waiting to start the Academy. We want to retain those good people to ensure that we have the best
Dave Washington 22:47
Well, that's that's good to know that there's some growth there that gives people like you say, once you get them on the hook, and you know that they're they're going they have good character, and all the things that you are looking for in a potential firefighter, you don't want to let them go, because somebody else will snap them up very quickly after all that work that you guys have done. So sorry. We certainly thank you for what you're doing, young man, you and your entire team. So please express that to them all when, and I know they don't know me, and many of them I don't know, I see folks when I grow in the grocery store and they achieve and I'm like, Who are you? I came on like you, sorry, I came on 10 years ago. Well, I've been retired 18 but the bottom line is, we need people of good character to work in this profession, because we go here, there, we go everywhere. We see all people from the will to do to to poor people, and you got to treat them all with dignity and respect. Any closing remarks from from either of you?
Jordan Moore 23:45
Not for me. I just want to say thank you, chief Washington, thank you so much for having us, and thank you for all that you've done for this community as and you continue to do well.
Dave Washington 23:53
I tell you, Jordan, you can, you can thank my eldest daughter, April. She sent me the flyer this morning. I'm like, Whoa. Let me see if I can get a hold of chief and see if we get someone on the show, because I had an opening, and I'm very pleased that you guys were able to come. So sorry, what you got?
Sawyer Epstein 24:12
Yeah, say same for me. Thank you, Chief. I appreciate you spreading awareness about our program. We are. We're definitely looking for those who are interested in becoming a firefighter, this is the best way to see if this career path is actually for you, because it's always better to figure out if, yes, this is what you want, or, in fact, you know, maybe not, maybe you want to try something else. It's the best to figure it out doing the Explore program versus actually being in the academy, right? That way, you're not, you know, changing career path. It's just more of a volunteer thing that there's no consequences if you have to leave. So it's a, it's a great program. I benefited hugely from being involved in it myself, and we, you know. We are looking for some student athletes as well, because being, you know, being a student athlete, they have that regimented routine of, you know, going to practice every day, exercising, being on top of their education and their studies, that translates really well to the Fire Academy and being a good recruit and then eventually becoming a good firefighter. So I appreciate that you're helping us promote this program and get the word out to those people who would be who would benefit from it. Absolutely,
Dave Washington 25:30
we got a little bit more time than I thought we had. So let me ask you this in terms of the physical fitness part that is a part of the regiment as they come in on Sunday,
Sawyer Epstein 25:40
yes. So every Sunday morning, I'll just give you a little bit of a rundown as to what meeting looks like. So the explorers, they show up at 6am to our training center, and they perform their morning duties, where they will check out their equipment. So the explorers who have been in the program for a little bit longer. They have access to SCBA air packs. They have turnouts, so they have to do the morning inspection on all of that stuff, similar to how we do it. When we arrive on shift at the fire station, they start the small motors they and then they set up for training and for our morning gauntlet. And the gauntlet is the workout that they perform every Sunday. They perform the same workout. It's 10 stations with two minutes each of exercise, and then 30 seconds rest in between. And these exercises, they're all firefighter skill based exercises, so like climbing the tower with a with a high rise pack, pulling a five inch hose. Farmer carries with the foam jugs, things of that nature that prepare them for the actual physical labors of being on a fire, on a fire scene. So they perform that, that work out, and then afterwards, after they have a little break though, they will do a quick written, written quiz off of the IPSA book, the essentials of firefighting textbook. And then we'll dive right into our training for the day. And that can be anything from firefighter one skills like catching hydrants and pulling attack lines all the way up to some more advanced things, like we've done some high rise operations with them and vertical ventilation and stuff. But we definitely follow a crawl, walk, run ideology, where we don't just throw them to the wolves right away, right? So we'll teach the explorers day one is we always start off with with the basics of ground ladders, and we'll teach them how to tie the hand knots and stuff. And then, you know, then we'll get into more advanced things, like giving them turnouts and giving them air packs and stuff like that.
Dave Washington 27:45
So are you guys actually doing live fire training?
Sawyer Epstein 27:49
We do live fire training at least once a year. We have the annual explore Academy. So we work with other local departments like North Las Vegas and a couple departments from from California, they come in and we do. We call it the Explore Academy, where we invite some of our explorers, some of the explorers from the other departments, and all of the advisors from those departments work together to we host a four day Academy where we do live burns in the flashover chamber. We do car fires, auto extrication, stuff like that. So so we do that at least once a year. And so it gives the explorers who been in the program a while an opportunity to really benefit from something a little bit more advanced and give them some some more realistic training. Sure.
Dave Washington 28:39
And that said, I trust that you guys use is to not only ista, but the NFPA standards as you go through the live truck, the live Yeah, training, excellent, yeah. We
Sawyer Epstein 28:50
take the live fire training extremely seriously the explorers. So this year, we actually did the Explorer Academy. Last month, the the eight explorers that we brought to that Academy, they were prepared several months ahead of time before the academy. They were given special training that followed the NFPA standards, and they had to get fit, tested for an in service air pack, and they were fitted for actual duty turnouts so they weren't using any condemned gear for those life Burns. We made sure they were safe.
Dave Washington 29:21
That is good to know, all right, Jordan, so we thank you guys so much. I think this will be valuable information, as we did most of the show well, all of the show today on the plus side of Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. Thank you all, and we'll get you back on again to further promote the Explorer program. Thank you so much for your time.
Sawyer Epstein 29:41
Thank you Chief.
Jordan Moore 29:42
Thank you, Chief, bye, bye. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai