Memory Markers
Written by Gordon on September 5th, 2008
Gordon Graham here and hello again. Time again for my monthly opportunity to say hi to all visiting this great site and to thank you for your continued great work. I am so grateful that the majority of the fires around our State are finally out, but what a price we paid for this year in terms of lives. I was chatting online earlier today with a fellow (a forty year veteran in the wildland community) who was on scene at the helicopter tragedy in Northern California near Shasta. Oddly enough, his eighteen-year-old daughter was working with a crew not to far from the site of this tragedy. Like any LODD families continue to mourn and hopefully the investigation will identify the true cause(s) so that something like this will never happen again.
And if you listen to the prognosticators who are supposed to know these things – they are already talking about the devastation we will experience next year with wildland fires… and again in 2010. While I don’t like the message, I do like to listen to people who look into the future and predict where we will be next year, and the year beyond. Where do you think you will be five years from now? Where do you think our great nation will be twenty-five years from now? And what is the future of the fire service?
And if I had the definitive answers to any of the above questions, I would be at the nearest liquor store right now picking those special six numbers and waiting for my ship to roll in on Saturday. Predicting the future with specificity is very difficult in any field of endeavor. However, we do know that things are changing – and changing rapidly and the really smart people are spotting trends and acting today to make sure that they will have (as Spencer Johnson would say) “a piece of the cheese”.
I chose this as my topic for this brief piece because I just finished up a great book – “The Unthinkable” by Amanda Ripley and while it is not my goal to take money out of your wallet (or Los Angeles Firemen’s Credit Union Account – and yes, that is a shameless plug) to buy a book – I do think the book is worth a trip to the library. I read a similar book a couple of years ago – “Deep Survival” by Laurence Gonzales and I put it on my recommended reading list and if you have read this one – you will love Ripley’s work.
The subtitle on Gonzales’ book was “Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why” and for those of you who know me I jumped on that like the bass falling for the “red hook” trick. And in his book he gets into quite a discussion on how the brain works and how we react to serious events when they occur. And Ms. Ripley is a journalist by trade and has tremendous writing skills and writes like I try to lecture – by making the point through parables and stories. And what a great job she does at making it interesting and simultaneously relevant.
Without violating any copyright (and I am aware of that issue) she starts off with more on September 11, and what was going through the minds of people in the Twin Towers – and how some people reacted to the attacks differently than others – and why they reacted differently. One major company in one of the Towers had a former military man on staff who was regularly forcing all the employees in that company (including the management team) to study evacuation plans in the event of a tragedy and forcing them to walk down the stairs of the Tower on a regular basis. You can probably imagine that he was not all that well liked by the employees and I can only imagine what some of these people said about him and his preparation efforts – then.
And as you probably already figured out – this company had a very high success rate in evacuating their people and getting them home that fateful day seven years ago. The “brains” of these employees were loaded with experience – “memory markers” – and these little bits of experience allowed for better performance when it was absolutely necessary. And it is important to note that this experience did not come from having lived through a similar event – but rather this “experience” was gained through regular and ongoing training. I don’t have to imagine at all what these survivors thought about his efforts – after these vicious murders (and if you are reading this piece on September 11th )– seven years ago today.
And not to digress again, but I am a huge fan of “constant and rigorous daily training” in all public safety agencies and how this can best be achieved will be a future topic in this column. But for now I will summarize these thoughts with this. Every day must be a training day and the training must focus on those tasks in every job that are high risk, low frequency in nature.
Ms. Ripley goes on to talk about airplane tragedies (a topic always near and dear to my heart and I am preparing this piece on a plane right now having addressed a group of firefighters in Stillwater, Oklahoma and what a nice group they were) and how those people who pay attention to the flight attendant briefing prior to takeoff and “visualize” what they would do in the event of a forced evacuation of the plane fare better – in fact much better – than do those who ignore the exercise because “they fly all the time”. I am no one special, but I hang on every word the flight attendants say and drill and re-drill in my mind “what would I do if….”. I have not had to use these “memory markers” and I hope it stays that way.
And along the same lines, I spend a lot of time in hotels and I always familiarize myself with the stairs and alternate exit strategies “just in case”. I picked up this habit from another contributor to this site, Chief Paul Stein (Ret.) when we were doing some work together in the 80’s. He would drive me nuts with locating the stairs “just in case” and then an alternate route “just in case”. When he explained to me his experiences in high-rise fire activities – he had a convert for life. For me it is no longer “check in, go to your room and go to bed”.
Ripley’s book continues with a study of the brains (and the internal workings of the brain) in Special Forces Soldiers and how they get so good at what they do. And again, without giving away to much regarding this great book, I learned that the “brains” of Special Forces Soldiers are different than the brains of most people. She learned (and I am butchering her great writing) that the “amygdala” (a part of the brain that does a lot of important work) in the Special Forces Soldiers is different in size than the rest of the population. So she took this knowledge and started to examine Army personnel who wanted to be Special Forces Soldiers and as part of this examination she (probably not personally) measured the size of their “amygdala”.
And from that she was able to predict (with a high degree of accuracy) which of the candidates would in fact pass the intensive process required for admission to this special group of soldiers. And if you follow this thread to the next level, would it be beneficial to the Army to start measuring these “metrics” and saving a lot of money by weeding out those who have “identifiers” that suggest that person would not be successful in the process.
The issue of predicting success based on genetic makeup and measuring parts of the brain is being discussed a lot in the professional journals right now in 2008. And while I could make a ton of jokes here – I believe that this technique is in our future. At this point in my life I don’t have enough validated data to know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but my gut is telling me I don’t like this approach – and my gut is also telling me that it will be part of our future.
With this in mind, let’s fast forward to 2038. The application process for the fire service (or any other job) will have many of the same queries that you will see on today’s pre-employment questionnaire. Additionally, there are “hyperlink” sections that link the applicant’s medical history to their application. Perhaps this is our future.
“I am sorry Candidate X, but your genetic markers indicate a pre-disposition to (pick a serious illness) which makes you an undesirable candidate for the position you applied for.”
“I am sorry Candidate Y, but the measurement of your amygdala shows an inability to successfully perform this job, and we do not want to spend the time testing and training someone who will ultimately fail.”
Your imagination is as good as mine and you can build the various permutations in your head as to how this type of information can be misused and abused – and in fact Hollywood has already touched on these issues in a couple of feature films. And to be fair in this analysis, there will be some benefits to individuals and society if these “tools” are ever used – but in balance the whole thing smells bad to me. But I will continue to read about the progress in this field of study and perhaps I will change my mind.
But all of this is in the future and at best that is uncertain. What we do know right now from all of the research is that our brain is a wonderful tool, particularly when it is exercised regularly, properly nourished and well rested. So in order to maximize the performance of this powerful tool – please assure that you are taking the exercise, rest and nourishment issues seriously.
My Dad lived for ninety-two years and his strategy regarding “exercising” the brain was through constant reading – and he was constantly reading right up to the end of his life. I can recall taking him to Mare Island (in San Francisco Bay) to renew his Chief Officer license (he was a Chief Engineer in the Merchant Marine during WWII) well into his eighties. Regarding nourishment, his thinking was “anything in moderation” and small quantities several times throughout the day. And my Dad was also a big fan of a good nights sleep – and the value of the afternoon nap. And for those of you interested in this, play a bit on google about the value of a twenty-six minute (I kid you not – twenty-six minute) nap.
So there you have it. All the fancy research on the brain over the last several decades can be summarized by the thoughts of a WWII Veteran. For those of you reading this piece that are retired and in the last third of your life – my guess is you have already figured all of the above out. Keep active (physically and mentally), eat well and get regular sleep.
And for those of you who are still working – get these habits in place today and maximize the number of retirement checks you will be able to collect. The mere fact that you are a member of the Los Angeles Firemen’s Credit Union tells me you have thought about your financial future. Now concentrate on maximizing the length of your retirement period. You certainly deserve the best based on all you have done for our great Country.
Anyhow, it is time for my cross-country nap. I had a good dinner at the airport. I am in the middle of an excellent book and am thinking about the program I will deliver tomorrow to another group of great people. And fortunately I can sleep well on planes. I will be back in a month with another series of thoughts for you to ponder. Until then, please stay safe.
Gordon Graham
