By Brian Gibbs
I am absolutely heartbroken and completely devastated to have lost my dream job of an Education Park Ranger with the National Park Service this Valentine’s Day.
Without any type of formal notice my position was ripped out from under my feet at 4 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 14th. Before I could fully print off my government records, I was locked out of my email and unable to access my personal and professional records.
Please know and share this truth widely:
I am a father, a loving husband, and dedicated civil servant.
I am an oath of office to defend and protect the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic.
I am a work evaluation that reads “exceeds expectations.”
I am the “fat on the bone.”
I am being trimmed as a consequence of the popular vote.
I am the United States flag raiser and folder.
I am my son’s “Junior Ranger” idol.
I am of the place where I first told my spouse I loved her.
I am a college kid’s dream job.
I am the smiling face that greets you at the front door.
I am your family vacation planner.
I am a voice for 19 American Indian cultures.
I am the protector of 2,500 year-old American Indian burial and ceremonial mounds.
I am the defender of your public lands and waters.
I am the motivation to make it up the hill.
I am a generational cycle breaker.
I am the toilet scrubber and soap dispenser.
I am the open trail hiked by people from all walks of life.
I am the highlight of your child’s school day.
I am the band aid for a skinned knee.
I am the lesson that showed your children that we live in a world of gifts — not commodities, that gratitude and reciprocity are the doorway to true abundance, not power, money, or fear.
I am the one who taught your kid the thrush’s song and the hawk’s cry.
I am the wildflower that brought your student joy.
I am the one who told your child that they belong on this planet. That their unique gifts and existence matters.
I am an invocation for peace.
I am gone from the office.
I am the resistance.
But mostly I’m just tired.
I am tired from weeks of being bullied and censored by billionaires.
I am tired of waking up every morning at 2 a.m. wondering how I am going to provide for my family if I lose my job.
I am tired of wiping away my wife’s tears and reassuring her that things will be okay for our growing family.
Things are not okay. I am not okay.
This is the second time in under five years a dream job I worked has been eliminated. Now I may need to uproot my FAMILY again.
Stay present, don’t avert your gaze.
Until our paths cross down the trail,
Fare thee well,
Ranger Brian
This was originally posted by Brian Gibbs on Feb. 14, 2025.
Brian Gibbs served as an Education Park Ranger at Effigy Mounds National Monument in Harpers Ferry, Iowa, and as a naturalist with Fayette County Conservation in Fayette, Iowa. He previously served as a writer with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and as an environmental program manager at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. Brian began his career with the National Park Service as a ranger at Glacier National Park in 2015.
Brian’s freelance work has been featured in a number of publications, including the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Des Moines Register, Iowa Outdoors magazine, and most recently on the cover of the State of Iowa Travel Map. There’s more at Brian’s Timberdoodle Photography website.
Musk and the Republicans will privatize our National Forests, plunder our nation’s resources to no good end but their own, reduce our National Parks to corporate amusement parks and hunting preserves for the wealthy, destroy habitat, and decimate species. This is their plan. They will cheer as crowds run roughshod over parks and habitat this summer, with no one to police our nation’s most special, treasured places. Their indifference to our nation’s conservation legacy is pathological. As conservationists, we’ve seen this calamity coming for 10 years. Now it has arrived at our doorstep.
Brian himself is a gift and a treasure to our nation. What is occurring to Brian and so many other talented, dedicated National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, and thousands of other committed conservation professionals around the nation who choose this mission and love their country is a national disgrace. — Tommy