If you have ever been at an event attended by major U.S. political dignitaries such as the president, vice president or senators, you likely have heard a very specific piece of music. “Ruffles and Flourishes” is a series of musical notes that are done in a repetitive fashion to announce the arrival of somebody very important.

Ruffles are played on drums. Flourishes are played on bugles. For example, when the president appears he gets four ruffles and four flourishes before “Hail to the Chief” is played. Everybody else gets less than the four when they are announced.

Similarly, the fire service has adopted bagpipes as its ceremonial entrance musical instrument. It is our form of ruffles and flourishes. But this is not exclusive to the fire service. Law enforcement also uses the bagpipes, and many military organizations employ bagpipes as the opening sounds of an event in which important people are joined together to talk about important matters.

Bagpipes have been adopted by, but don't really belong to, the fire service. The concept of a pipe band, in many cases, is more based on its relationship with acts of courage and symbolic of the modern-day military.

I am not a piper, but I know quite a few individuals who are. Over the years, some of them have shared with me information about the creation of their pipe bands, and I find this very interesting. One of the bands actually made me an honorary member, and I am proud to wear the scarf that was given to me on that occasion.

Bagpipes rapidly are becoming part of the tradition in the fire service. Yet very few members of the fire service really know much about them other than what they see when the colors are presented to a rousing song like “Scotland the Brave.” And how many times have we bowed our heads at a funeral to a bagpipe playing of “Amazing Grace?”

In addition, I have received numerous phone calls from individuals asking me why bagpipes are used in the fire service in the first place. How we began to adopt them is an interesting story.

Bagpipes have been around for thousands of years. Musical instruments that consisted of bag of animal skin have been documented as far back as the beginning of the Roman Empire. It was, by the way, the Roman Empire that provided us many of the original traditions of the fire service. Semper vigilans.

According to one English archeologist, there is evidence that the Romans brought bagpipes with them when they occupied the British Isle nearly 2,000 years ago. Could there be a genetic acceptance of us firefighters that goes back millennia?

The reality is that bagpipes were played a long time before Scotland adopted them. Supposedly, the Scots borrowed them from the Irish.

I recently attended the graduation of a recruit academy. The event included a promotional badge-pinning ceremony. It was in my hometown of Elk Grove, Calif., which is protected by the Cosumnes Fire District. Having been a training officer in the early part of my career, I attend almost every recruit graduation that occurs in my near proximity. I do this as a constant reminder of the importance of that step in the beginning of a fire-service career. That event seemed to capture the best of our past and provided a projection of our potential future. It started with pomp and circumstance.

The badge-pinning ceremony, the swearing-in, the oath of office and the symbology of our traditional aspects of the fire service were mingled with the pomp and circumstance of the bagpipe band, and then appropriately linked to the needs of this community in the present and for the future.

In essence, this graduation ceremony celebrated every aspect from the ancient past to the immediate future.

There were a couple traditions that the officers and staff at Cosumnes Fire Department did during this occasion that were new to me. For example, they gave each firefighter his or her personal ax.

When the recruit is given the ax, it is crude and unpolished, as if it was taken off the rack yesterday. During the five months that the recruits go through the academy, each is expected to take that ax and turn it into an object of beauty. They have received an ax handle that is essentially wood and varnish with a metal head that is pitted and scared and they are expected to turn it into something attractive enough to hang on a wall.

Taking the ax from a rough product to a finished one was particularly symbolic. In an era of electronics, EMS and the pursuit of excellence, the firefighter's ax is still symbolic of the nature of this profession. It is a simple tool that is called on for extraordinary purposes.

Much of the ceremony that evening was standard for recruit academies. It included an invocation, flag salute, video of the training program they went through, the giving and receiving of awards, and the badge-pinning ceremony.

The degree of pomp and circumstance displayed by this department, however, does not exist in all firefighting agencies. In some fire departments, when the recruits receive their initial orientation, the only welcoming they get is being dropped off in front of the firehouse. Many fire departments do not understand that the sense of self-image and the acceptance of the moral aspects of this job begin with the establishment of traditions at the outset of a person's career.

But the firehouse is where our culture starts, evolves and sometimes trips us up.

This department had another great idea. They had taken a fire bell from an older piece of apparatus and mounted it on top of the drill tower. If individuals or the entire team did something they were not supposed to do during the academy, they ran the stairs to the top and rang the bell. Every time that bell sounded was a reminder of why it is important to take responsibility for your own actions. The idea was to avoid having to run up and ring that bell. In the recruit academy, ringing that bell brought attention to failure.

That symbology was replaced at the end of the recruit academy. The academy commander required each recruit firefighter who walked off the stage to ring the bell one last time as an indication of his or her rights of passage.

Periodically, I hear from my contemporaries about their dismay, frustration and even anger about the current generation of firefighters. There is a form of denigration from one generation to another; somehow the new kids just don't seem to get it and they do not believe in the traditions of the fire service.

After watching that graduation ceremony, I find it hard to believe that anyone could have walked off that stage feeling indifferent, ambivalent or disappointed in the choices they had made in life up until that point. That includes the recruit firefighters as well as those accepting promotions. Bagpipes, a bell and fire axes polished to a chrome-like finish, these are symbols of a profession with a healthy dose of respect.

So what happens between that event and a couple of years later? I don't believe that fire chiefs and retired firefighters are disappointed with the upcoming generation because of their failure to follow in our footsteps. I believe that it is because our footsteps and the firehouse are drastically different than those that are celebrating at those graduation ceremonies. And we don't often share the same perspectives on the way things are supposed to be.

Few people are negative at a graduation or promotion ceremony. Granted, there might be some sitting in the audience with their arms folded across their chests grousing that something didn't go right. But overall, attendees are happy to be there. It is just too bad we can't carry that sense of enjoyment back into the firehouse and sustain it.

I maintain a collection of stories about cultural anomalies. A cultural anomaly is something that happens in a fire department that projects a totally negative image to the external world. You know what kind of thing I am talking about: firefighters who are drunk on duty, firefighters who are using or stealing drugs while on duty, physical violence between firefighters, and racial or gender discrimination in the firehouse that results in a blemish on the department. There's dishonesty, theft and a list as long as my arm regarding the things that human beings can do to bring shame and disgrace to their organization.

I have never seen one of those events brought up at a recruit graduation, nor have I ever seen them mentioned at a badge-pinning ceremony. They always happen somewhere in between.

I also have gone to many retirements. I have stood alongside those whose careers I have watched from the day they entered as probies to the day they retired as five-trumpet chiefs. There is a long gap between those events. I have heard cultural anomalies be fodder for roasts at retirement with humor and hostility. But interestingly enough, a fire person's career is getting shorter as various benefits have been brought forth to sustain the fire service. Within a few years, a 20-year fire service career is going to be someone who has a lot of longevity.

What has that got to do with ruffles and flourishes? As I examined the circumstances of that recruit academy and related it to retirements, I felt that there needed to be a stronger nexus between the traditions of both to make sure that there is nothing but a positive consequence of individual's choice to become a firefighter. Those plaques and awards that we receive upon retirement need to be reflected in tiny acts that have been polished to perfection. We all start off as rough tools and hopefully end up as a polished implement.

Those departments that take the time to develop the tradition of recruit academy graduations, spend the time to hold badge-pinning ceremonies in which people celebrate a renewal or reacceptance of their role in the fire department, and those that place a very positive aspect on retirement are helping to preserve the culture of our business.

Preserving and protecting perpetuates an organization's strongest values. Improving and innovating new traditions sustains that culture in the future. We should do both with pride, and our organizations will be better because of it.

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With more than 40 years in the fire service, Ronny J. Coleman has served as fire chief in Fullerton and San Clemente, Calif., and was the fire marshal of the State of California from 1992 to 1999. He is a certified fire chief and a master instructor in the California Fire Service Training and Education System. A Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers, he has an associate's degree in fire science, a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in vocational education.