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SIUSLAW NEWS ❚ WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018
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Siuslaw News
Community Voices
S IUSLAW V ALLEY F IRE & R ESCUE —
B Y P ETE “B OA ” W ARREN
Recruitment & Retention
Coordinator for SVFR
M
arch’s Fire Academy
brought together a
cadre of entry-level
potential Firefighters, some with
N ATURAL
experience and others without.
A few of the more knowledge-
able
recruits
came
from
Swisshome-Deadwood
Fire
Department (SDFD). Newly pro-
moted Operations Chief Danny
Morgan was among those who
took the first Academy offered in
2018.
One of his Captains, Jaime
McMasters, also gained valuable
leadership skills when tasked with
running the “whole show” during
one of the three weekends the
Academy was operating.
Chief Hertzbach’s son Aryeh
chose to join up and get some
valuable experience — possibly
for a leadership role within
Swisshome-Deadwood's depart-
PERSPECTIVE
Another academy graduates
ment after Chief Hertzbach
decides to retire in a few decades.
A couple of sisters, Harmony
and Lauren, teamed up to help out
their department too. Both have
won the top performer’s “Munster
Award” for their efforts. It took
Lauren an extra day to psyche
herself up for the first attempt in
the “Burn Box.”
When asked if she liked it, her
replay was like that of a champ:
“It was hot and I want to go
again!”
Our favorite Coast Guard sta-
tion offered new volunteers to our
ranks as they joined their
Florence cohorts in this academy.
Zach Beadon tore up the agility
test a few days before academy
drills started. His Coastie buddy,
Luc Pierce, wanted to do better,
and later texted me asking for a
retake.
Sorry Luc, you’ll have to wait
until this summer.
Mapleton Fire had Tim Moffett
and he will represent MFD very
well.
Locally, we had a few 18-year
olds who’ll be graduating high
school in another month or so. A
couple of them also won the
“Munster Awards” for their
efforts during the academy.
Sean Graham was the first win-
ner of the much coveted (but
essentially useless) bent hydrant
wrench. A week later, Andrew
Montgomery won it.
Station 2 in Old Town has two
new sets of turnouts hanging in
the bay from the from the Siuslaw
Schools too. One is Abigail
Pickett, who met the challenge of
the Agility Test.
Another proud new firefighter
is Kaye Fache who, if you’re up
early enough, you’ll see driving
students to their classes and to
events throughout Oregon.
Hands-on is a very important
term that directly relates to mus-
cle memory, and is what best
teaches firefighting recruits.
Repetition, repetition and more
repetition.
With that, I frequently have
flashbacks to when I first tried
donning all my gear in under a
minute. You could see a lot of
worried faces initially, as some
were breaking into the 2-minute
warnings initially. Then, after
wearing their gear, they have
another 1 minute 15 seconds to
put the air packs on and breath air
while properly wearing their gear.
After a while, they were all
able to don their full gear while
blind folded; all passed and went
on to finish out their academy.
______________________
Pete “Boa” Warren can be
contacted at 541-997-3212, or
the main SVFR station, 2625
Highway 101, or email
Boa@svfr.org.
—
Seals on the seashore
B Y E MILY J. U HRIG , P H D
Special to the Siuslaw News
T
he arrival of newborn
wildlife is a clear reminder
that spring is a time of
renewal when many of life’s cycles
begin again. Unlike a lot of marine
species whose lives tend to be hid-
den beneath the waves, harbor
seals are readily observable coastal
inhabitants and their pupping sea-
son is underway. While this season
may bring glimpses of cute baby
seals, we must remember to keep
nature at arm’s length.
Harbor seals can be distin-
guished from sea lions, which are
also found in our area, by their
smaller bodies and lack of ear
flaps. They also differ in the orien-
tation of their flippers which leads
to noticeable differences in their
movements on land: sea lions can
rotate their flippers under their
bodies to support themselves while
walking whereas a seal's flippers
are not as mobile or supportive.
This difference makes seals
awkward on land where they flop
along rather ungracefully in a
motion called “galumphing.”
Although harbor seal pups can
swim at birth, they are nursed on
land with milk that is 40-50 per-
cent fat. Human breast milk, in
contrast, contains only about 5 per-
cent fat. With this nourishing diet,
pups develop quickly and are
weaned around 4 weeks of age.
Production of such rich milk
takes its toll on the mother, who
may lose half her body fat while
nursing. To offset this cost, moth-
ers return to the ocean to feed dur-
ing the lactation period, often leav-
ing the pup alone on the beach to
rest. During this time, well-mean-
ing people are tempted to intervene
and ‘help’ what they believe is a
lost pup in distress. However, this
intervention is frequently harmful,
or even fatal, as it may result in
abandonment of the pup or cause it
serious health issues.
Even without human interfer-
ence, nature’s harsh realities mean
that pups often succumb to malnu-
trition, disease or predation. It’s
not uncommon, particularly for
young mothers, to have pups born
prematurely and underweight, put-
ting them at an immediate disad-
vantage.
Small pups are less able to with-
stand cold temperatures and may
have difficulty suckling. Their
demise is unpleasant to consider,
but important for keeping popula-
tions in check. Indeed, despite high
natural mortality, our local popula-
tions of harbor seals are doing
well.
So, as the weather warms and
eventually dries out, go enjoy our
beaches and our seals. Just give
them space and resist lending a
hand that’s likely to do more harm
than good.
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M ILITARY H ERITAGE C HRONICLES —
Our Vietnam veterans
B Y C AL A PPLEBEE
Special to the Siuslaw News
O
n March 29, we celebrated
a new federal commemo-
rative holiday, National
Vietnam Veterans Recognition
Day, with some great coverage of
the event by Mark Brennan here in
the pages of the Siuslaw News. It
was long over-due given the “wel-
come home” these vets didn't
receive originally.
While this form of recognition
is new for the Vietnam veterans,
recognition by other means over
the decades has existed and in fact
is still growing.
Numerous communities around
the United States have erected a
variety of memorials commemo-
rating either the war, the veterans,
or both. In Oregon alone, there are
over a dozen such memorials scat-
tered around the state, largely in
municipal parks or in conjunction
with memorial gardens at cemeter-
ies. But there are also larger and
more prominent formal memorials
such as in Canby and Portland.
The Vietnam Veterans of
Oregon Memorial in Portland is
located at Washington Park on an
eight-acre parcel in a garden-like
setting. Inspired by the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Washington
DC, this memorial was dedicated
in 1987 and contains the names of
all Oregon residents who died or
are missing in action.
The smaller memorial in Canby
is on a busy highway triangular
intersection, was dedicated in 2011
and contains a bronze statue of
Oregon soldiers as well as a full-
size Huey helicopter on a pedestal.
It is also a Blue Star Memorial
location. Despite the distraction of
the noisy traffic, it is well worth
the visit.
The Vietnam Memorial Wall
replica, or Moving Wall, has made
appearances in Oregon — twice
here in Florence. Museum found-
ing board member Tim Sapp
brought it to town originally in
2001, just prior to 9-11. A perma-
nent version of that memorial is
planned in the southern Oregon
town of Medford.
Even at 80-percent scale, it will
still be 360 feet in length and bear
the names of 58,479 Americans, at
current count, who gave the ulti-
mate sacrifice.
The effort by Southern Oregon
Veterans Benefit has been on-
going for a couple years and they
have received good support from
both the Medford community as
well as city leaders. It will sit on
2.1 acres within the Medford parks
system.
While the southern Oregon
memorial wall will be national in
focus, another memorial is also
being planned as a state memorial
in Salem, and it will be not only an
Oregon state focus, but will con-
tain emphasis on multiple compo-
nents of the veterans’ experiences
such as MIA/POW, nurses, Agent
Orange and other aspects.
The 1.5-million-dollar project is
to be located on the grounds of the
state capitol in Salem and is target-
ed for completion Veteran’s Day,
2020.
While segments of our society
will always debate the Vietnam
War itself, fortunately enough of
us recognize the distinction
between the war and those
Americans who served. Both of
these new and welcome Oregon
memorials will recognize and
honor those Veterans.
At our next quarterly Military
Heritage Day on Saturday, April
21, you can learn more about both
of these Vietnam memorials direct-
ly from representatives of the two
sponsoring organizations.
Southern Oregon Veterans
Benefit Member at Large, Russ
McBride, himself a Vietnam vet,
will be joined by the Salem spon-
sor Vietnam War Memorial Fund
President Steve Bates, and both
will share their projects with us.
We hope you’ll plan to join us as
well.
You can learn more about mili-
tary heritage by visiting our web-
site at www.oregoncoastmilitary
museum.com or visit the museum
which is open Thursday through
Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and is
located at 2145 Kingwood St.
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