Not in my lifetime, after a 30-plus-year career in the fire service, did I ever think that I would have my brothers, my sisters and I being labeled as "public enemies." Last I knew, firefighters, police officers and teachers were considered dedicated public servants and taxpaying citizens, too.

Editor's note: The writer is a retired Portsmouth firefighter responding to events at a protest and counterprotest held Monday when House Speaker Bill O'Brien visited the city.

Not in my lifetime, after a 30-plus-year career in the fire service, did I ever think that I would have my brothers, my sisters and I being labeled as "public enemies." Last I knew, firefighters, police officers and teachers were considered dedicated public servants and taxpaying citizens, too.



For example, my wife (also a public servant) and I have raised three children in Portsmouth, sent them all through the public school system (K-12) and paid our taxes. We built a modest home and paid our taxes, sent our children to college and paid our taxes, saved and lost a few dollars (just like everyone else) and paid our taxes. We also thank God for our good health and all the things that we've had the opportunity to work so hard to acquire and achieve in our lives. But now, I am a "thug." And if someone is suggesting that I assaulted them, then I should have been arrested immediately.



The fire and police departments have been an integral part of Portsmouth's municipal services for well over 100 years, proudly making a difference in the lives of countless numbers of people when they've needed help most. But now they are being portrayed by some as "public enemies?" That is not only sad, it is counter-productive and damaging to employee morale.



I have spent more nights than I would care to admit awake and thinking about the faces and places of people who we could not save, try as we did, and you don't forget that. But we console ourselves by thanking God for those who we could save, or help in some small way. I have stood there in absolute horror watching a poor mom as she wailed and pleaded for my ambulance partner and I to put her daughter's shattered body parts back together so that she might come back to her from the dead, and oh how I wished we could. And it still hurts now. But now, I am an "out of town union thug."



Everyone has a right to express their opinions, and as Americans we should always be prepared to defend that right. I also have a right to express my personal opinion, and I meant what I said. Shame on all those misguided protesters who would stand there and brand our city's firefighters, police officers and teachers along with their unions as, "public enemies."



And we will not stand idly by as they attempt to poison people's minds with absolute nonsense and propaganda as they attempt to make hard-working public servants into scapegoats for our nation's economic problems. We are all in this together: public employees, and the unions that represent them, in a free and democratic society, working side by side with every other working-class American trying to find solutions and compromise for a brighter economic future for all Americans. What the far right is attempting to do is to strip away over 100 years of professional progress in municipal service, and we have no intention of letting that happen to the communities we serve.



To believe that enactment of Right to Work laws here in New Hampshire would be in the best interest of the working middle class people of our state, tells me that these people have been completely brainwashed and duped by right wing activists within the Republican Party and the greed-driven corporate interests of a banking and finance industry that has literally driven our nation's economy and its collective wealth off of a cliff. That is the truth, my friends and neighbors, and it is high time that you wake up and face the facts.



It is time for the working middle class of America to rise up and take our economy back from corporations who continue to ship American jobs overseas and a Republican right wing who will have us all begging for minimum wage jobs, unaffordable health care, an unattainable education for our children and the rest of the world continuing to take advantage of our great nation.