Sullenberger Gets Hero's Welcome From Hometown Danville

I'm almost about to do an Andy Rooney, "Did you ever

notice."  Well did you notice that things suddenly have

changed, that they feel different, and despite the

darkness of our times, a bleek outlook for an immediate

future of financial uncertainty and the sure knowledge, as

events are wont to happen, that our new President will

again be "tested" by yet another world crisis. Still

somehow we feel uplifted that we are on the right course,

that we have a strong leader at the helm, with a clear

head and a steady hand on the wheel. That he is resolute

is stressing a return to our core values and stressing

personal responsibility and self-sacrifice, and we are

moved and prepared to all shoulder this burden together.

I attended Danville's home town hero's welcome to US

Airways Flight 1549 Captain "Sully" Sullenberger and his

wonderful wife Lorrie. I just had to be there, to also

participate in honoring this great man, a hero indeed.

Heroes we are all capable of being in any crisis, of mind

or body, by doing everything to the very best of our

ability and functioning as a member of a well practiced

team. Mark Curtis covered the event and posted it on his

website www.markcurtismedia.com and on YouTUBE

'MarkCurtisMedia' at http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=DpbeBj9BFIg http://www.markcurtismedia.com/blogs/mark-

curtis/2009/jan/24/captain-sully-sullenberger-gets-heros-

welcome-hometown-danville#comments. I sent him some of

these thoughts regarding this "Sullybration" love fest,

for it was, indeed, a Sullybration!!

My tribute was also much more personal for I was also

there to give to Captain Sullenberger a very special video

DVD I had prepared honoring him, his flight crew and all

the first responders of Flight 1549's "Miracle on the

Hudson".The Danville Police Chief accomodated my request

so I was assured Capt. Sully and his family would get the

to see the video tributes I had made for all the Heroes of

Flight 1549. It was a gloomy day, threatening to rain, and

from where I was in the crowd of 5,000 I could barely see

anything, but it was Sullenbergers' day to shine, to be

honored for the home time hero hewas.

I wonder if a new word should be coined, to do a "Sully",
or that public safety will have a "Sully" award to honor
first responders facing all types of difficult situations
where training, dedication, experience, self-discipline
and all around professionalism are tested to the extreme.

To honor those who perform as expected true to their

discipline, training, skill and experience by handling

life-and-death emergencies to a successfull and aparently

remarkable conclusion. By deliberately acting with a cool

head, a steady hand, eyes firmly focused on the emensely

difficult task ahead. By acting and doing things precisely

and in exactly the right way, in precisely the exact

order, the way things will and must be done toward that

very end. Only by such deliberate and forward-thinking

action, by well-tested and well-practiced emergency

procedures will our actions take us to otherwise avert

certain disaster and in due course make apparent miracles

happen.

Heroes are made, it is a product of our character,

training and experience.

A well trained team and coordination by all those

responsible for emergency management makes all the

difference in the world between success and horrible

failure. There is a monumental diference between the

successfull ditching of Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in

stark contrast to the shameful, horrible, indifferent and

irresponsible and outright failed response of the Bush

Administration and local government that New Orleans was

caused to suffer and endure still under Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans still has not recovered, the residents of New

Orleans remain far and scattered, it is a scar and cross

we must all bear.

Here in our San Francisco Emergency Dispatch Center we

cried out to the TV monitors pleading for the helicopters

to just even throw down some water to those poor

unfortunate people struggling to survive on rooftops,

trudging through contaminated and infected flood waters

carrying their children on their shoulders. The failure to

vacate the city in an orderly fashion while busses stood

by idle. Disgracefully and indignantly cramming and

subjecting so many thousands of people, men, women and

children into totally inadequate and filty quarters. It

was a sick, totally disgusting and revolting response that

even a 3rd world county would be ashamed of. We righly

felt bad for ourselves and our country knowing that this

was just plain wrong, that things should and could have

been done so much better. Where indeed was a emergency

disaster planning response in place especially when all

concerned agencies had even been forewarned about what

would happen in a levy break, and reportedly "practiced" a

barely a year earlier. "Nice job, Brownie".

In November we called for "Change" and CHANGE had come. We

accomplished change and could again feel proud of our

shared sense of community, shared responsibility and

purpose. It was a very real and palpable feeling, and the

feelings just grew more intense as January approached. The

Inauguration neared and we were counting down the last

days of George W. Bush. I, indeed perhaps "we"-- we

continued to look forward to January 20th 2009, counting

off the days. President-elect Obama was already acting

presidential. He was already hard at work and we looked to

him for leadership. The "Obama Onslaught" continued with a

most vigourous pre-Inagural weekend. Monday's Martin

Luther King Day was a sobering reminder that "change" had

indeed come, even though he was not there with us, the

promise was about to be fulfilled. Each pre-Inaugural day

followed another feeling more and more renewed, reborn and

assured in a very real sense that what America is all

about was again about to come again, and come soon. The

heroes of Flight 1549 --  Captain, crew, first responders,

public safety and Joe-citizen alike, showed us again what

America was capable of. Yes they did.

Flight 1549's heroic and successfull water ditching was a

signal that better days were already here even despite a

deepening financial crisis and the realization that Bush

had left behind a "legacy" of shame, citizens destitute,

jobless, homeless, death and destruction, the promise of

America betrayed and we debated if he was the worst

president ever. Obama was bringing change. Both Flight

1549 and the election of a new president were all part of

our shared American experience. We again had reason to

look to each other with pride that Americans can and will

do the right thing. Tuesday a now fully sworn President

Obama called for a return to our core values, strength in

our institutions, faith in the sacred charter he swore a

oath to preserve and protect. He called upon us also, to

each and every one of us for certainty in our actions, for

a return to individual and personal responsibility. That

we all by working together will acheive "a more perfect

Union" and yes we will.

Flight 1549 signaled that by doing the right thing that we

all have strength within ourselves to be heroes, for we

know a hero when we see one, and when crisis calls to also

act as a hero would act. Dedication to our core values and

certainty in our actions makes us all feel pride and

rejoice in the knowledge that we can all be heroes. Our

government must to do the right thing and we also must do

the right thing.  That is why we are a nation of laws,

that our history and ideals must not be betrayed, that we

must be true to our past if we will be assured of our

future.

Individuals, each and every one of us, must do that right

thing, and know that by doing just the right things in

precisely the right order, something which our training,

experience and discipline prescribes and knowing that we

can equally depend upon our co-workers, our team mates,

our partners, our families, to also do the right thing. To

also do exactly what is expected, to move forward with
certainty despite facing our darkest hours and the gravest

crisis. It is a mutual contract with our government that

the actions of our government, our country, will also be

true to our laws and institutions and act with certainty

of purpose toward actions and outcomes we can all be proud

of because WE can and precisely do the right thing.


s/ Gary J. Mondfrans

911/Emergency Dispatcher for the past 27 years and Former
Mayor of my own Hometown
www.GShotsTV.com
http://www.YouTUBE.com/GShotsTV
GShotsTV@gmail.com
(650) 219-8188