Sitting in the dark Veteran’s Day is not just a day off

Veteran’s Day is right around the corner. You know it as a day-off; for some, it means much more.

As a disabled military veteran, I spent most of my adult life working under a different set of rules and values than the ones I find myself navigating through now that I am a civilian again.

I still hold to these values, because my experience has proven to me time and time again that I’m clearly doing something right.

These values do not represent politics, or a social fad.

They represent necessity–the key to all life.

See, vets come from a place where if you don’t do what is necessary, people die.

The problem is, they have come back to a country filled with people that look at them like they are insane when they mention things like self-reliance, self-discipline, attention to detail, sense of urgency, head on a swivel…

Is Pierce ready for an actual emergency?

We sure do depend on electricity around here.

Monday morning’s hour long power outage –caused by a blown transformer way down on Ventura Boulevard– struck the campus between classes and only lasted an hour.

During that hour, one thing became evident–we have some holes to plug in our emergency response capability.

Monday’s power failure wasn’t an emergency situation “according to the book” and Pierce College President Kathleen Burke-Kelly made the decision not to declare an official emergency after conferring with Plant Facilities Director Paul Nieman.

That may have been the right call.

After all, it wasn’t a “real” emergency; and it’s a good thing, too.

But then again, it could have been real, and we weren’t ready.

That constitutes an emergency.

No? Consider this:

When the power died, so did the phones.

All the phones.

In the Admissions and Records office, steel security gates kicked in to keep the sensitive information safe.

It separates that entire area from the rest of Student Services.

There’s nothing quite like panicked claustrophobia to really bring out the calmness in a crowd of recently trapped people.

Interoffice communications went down immediately, creating a virtual blindness throughout the campus.

Automatic emails that would have gone out to students, faculty and staff would never have gone out, so our mass communication capabilities practically fizzled out before they could even be activated.

The sheriff’s station had power, but with phones down across campus, who was going to call?

With no electricity, the precious few security cameras around campus also died.

One blown transformer brought this campus to its knees.

Luckily, our security officers were already on the ball implementing protocols of their own.

Then the lights came back on and most everyone forgot about it.

Fortunately, no one was hurt.

However, if this had been one of those proper, ground-pounding, shingle-shaking earthquakes we’re expecting at any time, there could have been casualties.

If a fire had engulfed the Mall, or if zombies had stumbled out of the Center for the Sciences(who knows what they’re up to in there?) we’d have been in real trouble.

There is an emergency plan on the books, but our campus deserves more than just a theoretical plan in a binder on a shelf.

This administration could coordinate some live training exercises that give all campus agencies the opportunity to practice for any emergency.

This training could greatly increase not only faculty response times in the event of a real-world scenario, but also increase student awareness about the programs in place to protect them.

Remember what a big event this year’s Great California’s Shakeout was on campus?

It was the statewide program on Oct. 18, designed to instruct folks on how to operate during a major earthquake.

No, you don’t remember.

Elementary students participated. middle and high school students did, too.

Whatever Pierce administration did to promote this event apparently didn’t blip on anyone’s radar.

The more prepared the campus is, the better.

With Monday’s non-emergency shedding light on a few things to fix, we could streamline our plan to address these issues and really be ready if the time comes.

The administration could use the next “non-emergency” situation to implement some changes, allowing staff and faculty the opportunity to train towards a real understanding of what it means to be ready.

Out here, we can’t even get people to look up from their phones long enough to cross the street safely.

But a veteran is looked at like jerk because they will roll down the window and say “Hey, idiot. Pay attention.”

You consider it an insult, but what it is really, is an appeal to common sense.

Believe it or not, there was a time when honesty and accuracy were more important that political correctness, but we’ve turned into a nation of pansies that are more in touch with their feelings than they are with their senses.

Translation: You’ve traded in the truth so the truth can’t be pointed back at you.

Because the truth hurts.

The standards are different, and we now live in a land where the lowest common denominator is suddenly the highest standard we can muster.

When veterans leave their families and homes to go and fight, they take stock of what they are leaving behind–what they’re fighting to preserve, to return home to.

Now, many veterans are back in this country, observing what their efforts have purchased.

For a veteran, it’s like being the only human left in a world filled with zombies.

It’s as if standards of excellence are being lowered across the board, and maybe some vets just don’t understand how that can be.

“You’re so mean. You have no patience. You should be nicer.”

To who? To you?

They have stood in the freezing rain to meet the bodies of their