"I have a couple members, armed service retired, retired from the guard."

Firefighters and their supporters said it started last year when Fire District Chairman Fred Gralinski likened the flags on the trucks to what you see from terrorists.

"They look like a bunch of yahoos," Gralinski said at a board meeting. "Like in the paper, like ISIS is Syria going to take over a city. I don't think they need that big flag on the back of the truck. That's not America to me. Those are a bunch of terrorists. So, I'm going to ask you to take the flag off the truck."

Gralinski now said through a district spokesman he used a poor choice of words and apologizes for an perceived disrespect of the flag.

But he also said they're not telling firefighters to take the flags or decals off the trucks.

A fire truck that was no longer in service has been donated by the Orland Fire Protection District to the school in memory of Daniel Capuano, 42, who was living in the Chicago’s Mount Greenwood neighborhood at the time of his death. Capuano died when he fell from the second floor fighting the warehouse fire on Dec. 15, 2015.

In honor of Capuano, the Orland Fire Protection District presented the fire truck — a 1999 Pierce — to the Moraine Valley Community College Fire Science Academy for student training on May 19 before the regular Moraine Valley Board meeting. The truck was named in memory of Capuano.

Capuano was a 15-year veteran of the Chicago Fire Department, where he was assigned to Tower Ladder 34 in the city’s Southeast Side. Capuano also was as a part-time Evergreen Park firefighter for the last 16 years.

The Orland Fire Protection District recently retired the fire truck from its fleet and worked with Cook County Board Commissioner Sean Morrison (R-17th) to explore possible reuse opportunities that led to the arrangement with MVCC. The MVCC Fire Science Academy is designed for students who wish to become eligible for initial fire department hiring lists.

The truck will be used to further the MVCC Fire Science Academy’s ability to provide the very best training to prepare students entering the fire department field.

“As a son of a retired Chicago firefighter this story touched me. I never knew Danny Capuano personally, but like the tens of thousands of other people, I have heard through the media’s covering the tragedy of his death, I became informed, not of just the tragic circumstance surrounding his death, but of most importance, the magnificent life in which he lived and the love and dedication that he held for his family and his fellow brothers and sisters of the Chicago Fire Department,” said Morrison.

The city’s new $1.7 million fire barge rumbled to life Thursday, inhaled Mississippi River water, and spewed it roughly 500 feet through two water cannons in what was probably a rare display of its waterpower in front of Tom Lee Park.

Memphis Fire Services Director Gina Sweat said the barge will be used if a riverboat or Valero’s riverside oil refinery catches fire or there’s a major river rescue, but likely won’t see much other action.

“It’s more for a catastrophic event,” she said over the roar of the water cannons.

The city retrofitted the 120-foot-long barge using a $1.7 million Department of Homeland Security grant, and will use it in the Port of Memphis and on the Mississippi River, Battalion Fire Chief Colin Burress said.

“It’s for anything that falls within our area,” he said.

It takes the barge about two and a half hours to be pulled by a tug boat from McKellar Lake to Beale Street Landing, so it won’t be able to quickly respond to smaller fires on the river. The last time the city had a barge catch fire was in 2004, said Deputy Chief Keith Staples.

But once the fire barge is on the scene, its two main cannons can each shoot 6,000 gallons of river water per minute, and its two portable cannons can shoot 1,500 gallons per minute. The water can also be injected with a concentrated liquid foam to fight oil fires.

The barge, which is equipped with a two-ton crane and a small boat, can also serve as a larger rescue vehicle if a riverboat gets in trouble and needs to immediately unload passengers, Burress said. It has six bunk beds and a bathroom.