COVID-19: Together, We Will Defeat the Enemy
Category: Public Safety
Gordon Graham here with Today’s Tip from Lexipol. And as you’ve probably figured out, I’m quarantined here in California because of the coronavirus. And that’s what I want to talk about today—some thoughts on this pandemic we currently face.
We’ve got the best hospitals, the best doctors, the best military, the best first responders—we’ve got the best of everything in this country, and working together, we can defeat this enemy just like we did 80 years ago.
You know, I’ve had a couple of weeks off now and a lot of people calling me, emails, all those other things:
Hey Gordon, what do you think? Is this a ‘black swan’ or a ‘grey rhino’?”
How is it going to end up?
How many people are going to die?
How many people are going to get infected?
How’s it going to impact the economy?
How’s it going to impact local business?
My response is, I don’t know! Do you want the bad news? I know people who should know, and they don’t know—the smart people, the economic people, the medical people—and they don’t know. I don’t know how it’s going to end up, but I know this: I was born after World War II, five years after it was ended I was born. I never experienced any of the war, but I had a mom and a dad and a grandma who told me about their experiences in World War II, about the rationing, about the war bonds, about all those things going on. Back then, we were a nation at war.
Hey, you want to see a good movie? Ford vs. Ferrari. There’s a lot of big actors in there. The story is, there’s no way that Henry Ford can build a car that’s going to beat Ferrari. Ferrari’s the king; no one can touch him. And Henry Ford looks out the window of the building he’s sitting in and he says to his staff, “You see that building over there? In 1942 we were building cars. In one week, we started building airplanes. We built 86,000 airplanes. And we defeated the enemy then, and we will defeat the enemy again.”
That’s where we are today, folks. Working together, we can do wonderful things. What’s Ford doing today? They stopped making cars and they’re making ventilators. What’re some of the vodka companies doing? They’re making hand sanitizer. What are Americans doing? You know, chiefs of police are telling me, “I’ve got retirees coming in and asking, what can I do? What can I do to free up people to be able to go out in the street?” How about the people who are volunteering to get injected with the virus so we can find a cure?
You know, remarkable things happen when Americans come together. We’ve got the best hospitals, the best doctors, the best military, the best first responders—we’ve got the best of everything in this country, and working together, we can defeat this enemy just like we did 80 years ago. We defeated the Nazis and all their buddies—we can take on this virus and win.
With all this in mind, on the behalf of all the good people at Lexipol, I want to thank all you first responders, dispatchers, firefighters, EMS people, paramedics, cops, deputies, troopers—all you people out there on the tip of the spear. Thanks for all your great work. Good luck, good health, goodbye. God bless you, and God bless America.
And that is Todays’ Tip from Lexipol. Gordon Graham, signing off.
