People Write Letters

San Luis Obispo Tribune, Letter to the Editor, 8/15/07:


Oh captain, my captain


Once, there was a fire department captain who authorized a small blaze in a large building that housed many residents and their priceless heirlooms—to drive out the rats. The blaze soon got out of hand because the captain had not carefully considered the situation.


He began to lose men in fighting this fire. These he considered to be heroes in their attempt to save the structure. More firefighters were called in, but because there was again no thoughtful plan, this “surge” only resulted in more firefighters being killed or wounded; and the blaze continued unabated.


Before the captain’s decision, it was found, by a disregarded fire department intelligence report, that there had been no rats in this building. The fire continued to spread to other buildings where there were rats; these promptly spread into fire-free and rat-free structures.


The captain attempted to justify his decision by stating that if he had not gone in, undoubtedly rats would have crawled into this structure, creating a districtwide problem.


With the building burned to the ground, the captain turned to all of the former residents and smilingly said, “There, I’ve taken care of your rat problem.”


W.R. Cole


Arroyo Grande, CA