07/24/2023
We are volunteer firefighters. You see us in our personally owned vehicle that we have outfitted with emergency lights and siren, paid for out of our own pocket, and you say "oh, they just wants to be a show off and feel special" and you refuse to yield to us, flipping us off as we speed past you. But what you don't know is that we are headed to do CPR on someone's unresponsive loved one, often as the family watches and prays for their loved ones survival. You don't see us trying to catch a family member in an attempt to keep them from completely collapsing after being told their loved one didn't make it. You get annoyed with us for speeding down city streets when headed to the station. But you don't know that we are headed to try to save the home a family grew up in, to attempt to save their belongings and leave them with more than what they have on their backs. You don't see us gearing up and going inside a burning building, risking our life in an attempt to locate the unaccounted for family member or pet of people we never met before. You don't see us trying to comfort the person who just lost everything they own to a fire. You don't see us crawling inside a mangled car that was hit by a drunk driver, holding the hand of a bloody, frightened teenager and trying to calm them, telling them it'll be ok, as my fellow firefighters cut the wrecked and twisted steel away to free this scared kid from the car. You think we are volunteer firefighters because it's fun, or because we think it's neat to "play" with fire trucks. But you don't see us getting pulled away from dinner with our family at a moments notice. You don't see us having to leave holiday dinner with our families because someone needs help. You don't see us fighting fire all afternoon and going straight to work at my full time job with no shower and unfed. You don't see us trying to sleep so we can go to work but getting woke up to try to save someone's life or property, and going to work right after with little or no sleep. You don't see the sacrifices we make to be there for others. We don't do all these things because it's fun, because we want glory, because we want to be a big shot. We do all this because we love our community and want to keep it safe. We do this because we are a volunteer firefighter!
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