Ok, Rimrod needs a cold shower I think...
My basic premis about training is that no matter what kind of training you get, good, bad, or indifferent, it's ALWAYS training. I may be new to the gun side of training, but I'm certainly not new to training that will save your life. I've been training for many years about fireground operations and I've had everything from the best to the worst when it comes to training. The LAST thing you want is BAD training when you're talking about walking into a room where you can't see at all, have the lives of innocent people you are trying to save, the always looming risk of collapase, with tempatures reaching into 4 digit degrees. Pretty much one of the LAST places you'd want to have horrible training on what to do and when to do it. One mistake there could mean the lives of yourself, your crew, and the people you are paid to save.
ALL TRAINING IS GOOD TRAINING. It either teaches you something you haven't thought of before or it shows you something that you should never even think of doing. I look at all the training, good and bad, and use it to make myself a better firefighter and make my brothers better firefighters, That all comes from getting the best training and the worst training. It all teaches you something. I have been helping to train 5 new "probies" all this week on the fireground. We need to see how they were trained so that we can help "fix" things that could kill them or us in the next fire we come across. We have to depend on them when the SHTF and we need them to know what to do and what not to do.
We can all sit here and bicker about how training is good or just a waste of time, but when it comes down to having lead thrown through the air, hopefully some of that "training", good or bad, steers you in the proper direction. I've had my butt in the **** and I've felt the weight of close to 1,000 degrees trying to get inside my bunker gear and I can honestly say that every piece of training I have ever had, good AND bad, has helped bring myself and my crew back out safely.
So I say get as much trainging as you can and put everything in the best perspective that you can based on your exeperiences and goals. Hope you NEVER have to put that training to use against someone else, but be prepared to do so if need be. Never stop training.