Outside the station, inside the fireman

Boys will be boys, and we definitely loosened the adult strings when Friday hit. Our main concerns were girls, four wheelers, cars and fire. We generally had two or three girls each that liked to come out and ride with us. One night, we decided to go for a ride and bring a couple girls that we had only just met. Mine was a friend of a friend who was fairly new in town. We rode until almost midnight, talking, laughing, and not once looking at one another. I could tell she was cute, but it was too dark to be sure. After the ride, those of us that were firemen, went back to the station for a bit before going home. I had planned on staying in ms that night already. My friend and the girl that rode with me invited me to the Waffle House before I went home. This would be the first time I would see this girl in the light, so hell yeah I'll come! There was no denying, the moment I laid eyes on her, I was in love, but there was no way in the world she would be seen with me. Oh well, moving on! 

Much much much to my surprise, however, she contacted me on MySpace asking for another date. Hell yes!! It was like fate had handed me my winning hand. I was a proud man when I made her mine and even more ecstatic when she admitted she loved me. Things were finally falling into place it seemed. I had attempted to take some classes and boost my firefighting education, but that proved to be more difficult than it appeared since the storm had destroyed a lot of our learning materials in the county. I found myself being in Mississippi more often to be closer to the girl I was now in love with. It didn't help my bank account, but I was happy being closer to her. In the interest of bailing out my bank account from what was inevitably a pitfall, I decided to take on a night job delivering pizza. It was only a few hours a night and would make up the difference in fuel expenses driving back-and-forth to the warehouse. Since she was taking classes during the day and working part-time in the evening, it really helped me stay close to her while being able to afford the gas going back-and-forth. Shortly after I started, however, gas prices fail to an affordable rate. There was no need in keeping a part-time job to pay for gas when I could afford it again now. Not to mention, being one of the only hard workers in the building and having to stay till 11 o'clock at night to pick up everyone else's slack was getting old quick. 

It wasn't very long into our serious relationship, and being in love, that we began to roll through our first rough patch in our relationship. At the time, she had a hobby that I was not at all a big fan of. It seems like quite an insignificant thing to have such strong feelings over now, but at the time I was very passionate in my disagreement. It wasn't something that would have driven us apart, but for a few days, there was a lot of "figuring things out" being done. Once we had come to an agreement and the makeup was done, we moved on with our loving companionship. I was a happy man with her at my side. 

She was interested in me being a firefighter and found it quite admirable. She was an open water diver and was into that quite a bit. Our fire department just happened to have a dive rescue team so I suggested to her that she could do dive rescue with us and we would have something else to do together. She didn't think that was such a bad idea, so she quickly accepted. Her late stepfather was a firefighter in California and she had become interested in doing it herself as a tribute to his life. It wasn't so bad fighting fire alongside your girlfriend, it was actually something cool to do together. One of the rules of the fire department is if you want to keep something, don't bring it to the fire station. I would learn this lesson the hard way. After six months of being together, we decided that we wanted to try living together. We were eager to move forward to one day having our own family, although we were big on taking things one step at a time. We ultimately shared a two bedroom apartment with a mutual friend in a town between where we lived separately and where my warehouse was. It was a very nice, short drive to work every morning, but it was a little over an acceptable response time to the fire department area. I ultimately decided that it was worth being a little further away from the fire department to figure out how life would work between the two of us and to be closer to work. 

You've heard me say that a line of duty death in the fire service is never a good thing to hear about. You've heard me say that a firefighters "last call" is an emotional thing for firemen to hear. One thing that you pray, during your whole career, to never here is the fire tone sending you to one of your firefighters homes. You hope it's never one of yours that you get called to. It was a typical night at the fire station. I was on the computer, playing on MySpace, one of the captains was in the paid guy's office watching TV.  We shared a channel with the department to the south of us, so when the fire tone rang, we had to wait and see who's call it actually was. We had gotten a call at the station from one of the lieutenants, who was also an EMT with the ambulance company that serves us, that told us we should go check on the Fire Chief. He had heard the ambulance company get dispatched to the street the Fire Chief lived on for a heart attack. Not knowing exactly which address the he  lived at,  he called us to do a welfare check on the Chief. Then, all of a sudden, the tone rang out. The three of us cleared the inside of the building. Leaving the station, we were never sure that the doors had gone completely over the trucks when we tore out. We arrived there quicker than I believe we have arrived at any fire since I've been with the service, but were we too late? Everything humanly possible was done in an attempt to revive him, but our attempts were unsuccessful. That night, we lost a man that had taught a lot of us everything we knew. He was a good man, an honest man, a professional man, he was our Chief...and he was gone. 

 

I had never been to a firefighter's funeral before, and each one is not any more of a pleasurable experience. We were led by procession of fire trucks from over a dozen departments Coast wide. He was a very well-known man in the fire service. He passed on education, experience, and knowledge to dozens of firefighters that are still fighting today. This last call was especially uneasy for us to hear. I couldn't have been more thankful to have my girlfriend at my side and this time. Being a member of the department, she had come to know the Chief almost as much as the rest of us, so this had hit her as well. She was a rock though. She wanted to be a nurse, she wanted to help people in their time of need, and that's what she was going to school for. She found out quickly though, that nursing school was neither easy nor cheap. Nursing school was also slightly difficult to enroll in because of the popularity. To keep from losing her status with her financial aid people, I suggested an EMT class to keep up her hours, thus keeping her financial aid streaming. It would also give her field experience for the ER or other locations of nursing. She didn't think this idea was a bad one, so she enthusiastically enrolled. She probably would've made a good EMT if she would have studied and practiced more. We were moving towards our one year anniversary around the time the EMT class was almost complete. It was here that we hit another rough spot. I started noticing more and more men come into her life. Some of them I knew, some of them I wasn't too familiar with. 

This rough patch in our relationship would  last quite a bit of time from this. My mind was stuck on the thought that if her and I were going to have a marriage, kids, and a life, there could be no interference from outside men looking to sabotage this good thing that we had going. Looking back, I probably went about it the wrong way, but I was 21 and in uncharted territory. Firefighting, at this time, was pretty much at a standstill for me. Not that there weren't things going on, but my head was just not in the game enough for me to be risking my life, or anyone else's. I had even made a move from the warehouse that I was currently working back to the delivery service near my hometown that I had worked with before. This was an attempt to gain employment closer to where her and I both wanted to move. 

 It was always my plan that one year after being involved with someone, and six months of living together, I would be entertaining the idea of getting engaged. When the one year mark hit, her and I were still battling our two sides of outside members of the opposite sex getting in the way of our relationship. It almost led to me leaving one night. Somehow, we would power through the bad times, put a smile on our faces and act like everything was okay. We even decided to spend our one year anniversary on the four wheeler, taking a ride with the couple that took that night ride with us and got together at the exact same time. One of which had been a firefighter with me for quite sometime. The problems didn't go away, but we were able to dig deep and find some good in each day. 

We thought that maybe we needed a little vacation, a small getaway just the two of us. We decided to take a weekend trip to her home state of California for a family get together. It would be a good opportunity for me to finally meet her family and to get out of Mississippi for a couple of days. Even though it would not be a vacation for just the two of us, it was only the second vacation of our lives period. We needed it, too. My supervisors at my job that I had been with for a few months and strived to make myself an asset to were not pleased that I was going out of town on a Friday. When they threatened me with my job, I politely told them that maybe someone else was a better fit. Little did they know, I had already spoken with a woman about a security job that paid more than they did, offered a little bit more freedom, and offered much less animosity from anyone with an office. They had once again began to blame myself, and other drivers for the things that I believe they were doing behind closed doors in their offices. I was not about to put up with false accusations for the rest of my time there. I started the security job the day we got back from California. 

Just before this all had transpired, I had started evaluating the department that I was originally from. They were hurting for firefighters, even though some of them refused to admit it. Since that used to primarily be my home, I felt compelled to help. I decided to transfer back to my original department in order to boost participation. In the firefighting aspect, this proved to be a good choice, but in my personal life, it may have been a straining factor in my relationship. The new Fire Chief had seen my progress in the fire service and wanted to make me an officer, but because of the department policy, he couldn't. That didn't deter him from granting me with the responsibility that I asked for regarding department inventory. I finally felt like I had a purpose on the administrative side of the department, and I began to feel a little better about myself. 

 It was no secret that my girlfriend and I loved each other, and we both wanted the same thing, but the gap in between her mindset and mine was more difficult to close than, I believe, either one of us realized. Some of the city and county firemen were among some of the men I was noticing entering her life. I honestly felt betrayed. The harder I tried to keep these things from happening, the faster that ship sailed. As if the problems weren't bad enough, our lease was coming to an end on the apartment. Not a big deal, right? We were looking to have a place with just the two of us, and our roommate was looking to move in with a couple of her friends to cut down on rent. Everything to this point was agreed on. I had gone out and secured a place for the two of us closer to where we had originally moved from. I had made a verbal agreement with a friend of ours who was already renting the property that he would transfer his lease to us when he moved out. He was renting this property from family, so it was understood that it would not be an issue to transfer the lease. The day that we had everything packed and ready to move, I had called the uncle for some reason that I can't remember now, that is when he informed me that he had no knowledge of transferring the lease and had already promised the property to someone else on a six person waiting list. We were stuck. Not having a clue of what to do, and no family on her side that would allow us to stay, I called on my mother to allow us to stay for a couple of days while we figured out what our next move was. Finding a place to rent  already isn't the easiest task, try doing it when you need a place to live almost immediately.

Again, living in Alabama makes it hard to respond to calls in Mississippi. It also made working in the town that I was originally from even more difficult to work in because of the driving distance. Once again, I spoke with the owner and warehouse manager of the warehouse that I had become so fond of working at about three acquiring my job. Still, I never said that I didn't do dumb shit. I also reacquainted myself with the department just over the Mississippi state line that I had responded with previously. I was a welcomed asset to them.  At this point in our lives, there was no denying that we were on the path to being husband-and-wife and starting a family. We figured that maybe it was time for us to start looking at our own house to purchase. My mother agreed to let us stay with her in a spare room until we either found a place to rent or a house to buy. I seem to think that filing taxes is sometimes easier than two young people trying to buy their first home together. We were wading in water with blinders on. Places for rent in our part of town were hard to come by with the budget that we were trying to work off of. The more we tried to move back where we wanted, the harder it seemed for that to happen. We did start developing a deeper affection for Alabama in the winter. We really started developing an affection for Alabama period. We thought that may be somewhere near the Alabama state line was just the place that we were looking for. So we began to look. Realizing that I would not be able to respond to any fires in Mississippi, living in Alabama, I decided to join the local fire department in the community where we were living in Alabama. Even here, I was a welcomed asset. Things were a lot different in Alabama than it was in Mississippi, where I was used to, but I did the best I could. 

We would find properties that looked promising in Alabama, either for rent or for sale, but once we dug deeper into the details, we started finding things that gave us a bad taste in our mouths. We even started looking further north from where my warehouse was located, in an area all to itself with all the amenities that you would need in a small community without having to venture into town. It almost felt like home. Try as I might, each place I would find in this community for us to live would have just enough of something to turn her nose up at and stray away from. Little did I know, she had made up her mind that she wanted us to live in the area that we originally came from, and she was not entertaining any ideas other than that. Christmas came and went and was a very bright and successful one, in my opinion. That year was filled with lots of love, family, and new beginnings. The New Year's was also one of the most memorable ones of my life. We decided to spend it with her two younger siblings and a couple who were dear friends of ours.

 Our relationship seemed like it was turning around in our favor. It appeared that we couldn't be any happier. I decided, finally, that I was going to ask her to marry me. Now, how would I do it? I came up with a plan to throw her a birthday party for her 21st birthday. We would have as many family members present as we could since this was a major milestone in her life. I figured that it would be a good opportunity to share in the moment with as many loved ones as possible. Everything was slowly going as planned, until she got suspicious when I went to go pick up the ring. I thought I had lost my element of surprise, but was able to lie my way around and make her believe that I was helping my father do something. I gave him the ring to keep safe for me, because I knew if she had the opportunity and the drive, she would find it around the house where I would've hidden it. The night of her birthday, almost everyone that I had invited was present. I had tried to coax as many people to attend as possible without giving away my plan for the night. I quickly acquired the ring from my father as soon as he arrived to the house. I stooped beside her as she opened each gift that waited for her.  When it was all said and done, I looked around the room to make sure that no one had any last minute surprises that we didn't know about. When it was determined that the gifts were, in fact, all finished...I made my move. I put one knee on the ground, reached into my pocket, and pulled out the ring she had been dreaming of for months. This was the first time I had ever asked a woman to marry me in my life, and I was scared shitless.  As a fireman, there is always a certain degree of fear. Sometimes, you have to put that fear aside in order to do what is necessary. Don't mistake courage for the absence of fear, a fireman can feel fear. Just because we run into burning buildings to put water on them, or to save a life, doesn't mean that we aren't a little scared the entire time we're doing this. If we're lucky, we lived to tell the story, if we're not so lucky.... People live to tell stories about us. The job isn't just a job, it's a calling. We do what is necessary of us thinking that it is our duty, but what we are really doing is leaving behind a legacy for those following in our footsteps, or for those loved ones that we leave behind to remember us by. Either way, we always stand side-by-side to protect those in need.  

We are the thin red line. 

Band of brothers

My new department was definitely not something I was used to. We actually hung out at the station, put our gear next to the truck so when a call came out we would be ready to walk into whatever the problem was, we hung out together outside the station...we were a team. When you're a young fireman, one of the coolest things to bring around the fire station is a pretty girl you just happen to be talking to. You want her to see what you do with your spare time, and you want your buddies to see who's been keeping you up at night when calls haven't. Most of us have done this a time or two in our lifetime. Even if they're not the girl that you're talking to, just bringing girls around the station is a welcomed change of pace. It would give us something else to look at other than each other, and a slightly different means of entertainment. I know what you are thinking, and we were respectful and professional. Most evenings, after the paid firemen had left, and most nights were spent in the small common room in the back watching tv, talking about everything, and busting each others ass. Even this didn't entertain us fully, small prank wars would usually start off right about this time. They were virtually harmless and once all was finished, we made sure to clean up any evidence. We never really had to stay at the station, but we did just so we didn't have to go home or respond from our home, we could just respond in the firetruck. Most of our calls were fire alarms or medical. We got the occasional car fire, woods fire, or house fire but it always seemed to happen all at once. We provided mutual aid to the departments south of us and to the one north of us, the one that I came from, so there was generally always something to do. 

The state of Mississippi, a volunteer fireman can run red lights on the streets and highways, as long as he's going to a call of course. The first time I returned a red light on to respond to a call in the southern area before I was ever a member of that particular department, some lady in an SUV decided to jerk her car almost completely off the road. I didn't run lights in my truck after that for quite some time. It actually took me a year and a half to run lights after that. Once I got with my present department, I began to run lights a little bit more. Any volunteer fireman who's been doing this since the 90s can remember the old interior rotating lights. By the early 2000's, strobe technology was hot. However, it didn't take long for strobe technology to begin to fade away when LED became popular. One of My Christmas presents in 2005 was an LED dash light. I was high-tech now!! I took a class on emergency vehicle driving, which helped me respond to calls in my personal vehicle even better. It also gave me the opportunity to begin driver training in the fire trucks for when I turned 21. But at this point that was still quite a few months away. 

Things still hadn't gotten completely back to normal since the hurricane. A lot of businesses and restaurants closed by 10 PM. The only places that would really be open around where I live were the waffle house and Taco Bell. As a young fireman, and working at the scrapyard with my uncle and his friends, I ate waffle house WAY too much! That doesn't go to say that I gained quite a bit away from eating there, but that I developed a strong intolerance for their food for a long time. The first trips to Taco Bell before 2 AM were something similar to when a brand-new restaurant opens that has never seen your town before. I saw shorter lines at Kmart when I was a kid. What was worse is that the lobby was closed, this line was in the drive-through! How these people didn't cause a traffic accident is beyond me, except for the fact, that at 2 a.m,  no one was out on the road. That didn't stop us from going and sitting in line to get a late night meal when we just weren't ready to go to bed. 

It didn't take long for me at the car wash, doing windshield repairs, to realize that the money was never going to be as good as promised. It didn't take me long after that to realize that the money I was getting wasn't going to pave the way for something more. By Christmas 2005, I was unemployed. I had never been unemployed without first securing another job since I was a teenager. It wasn't that scary of a concept at the time, but it wasn't something that I did or planned to do on a regular basis. My unemployment didn't last long, I had heard from friends that a warehouse in the same town as the car wash and scrap yard needed help. It wasn't exactly the town that I wanted to be in, but it was a job. They were either really needing someone to fill the position, or I just dazzled them with my personality because I was hired almost on the spot. It was an industrial tool warehouse. They sold handtools and power tools to the fabricators and handymen around town and in the surrounding areas. My daily routine would be pulling orders, stocking the shelves, and delivering to those that could not make it to where we were located. My delivery route was primarily Mobile Alabama and surrounding areas. It was one of the easiest jobs I've ever had in my life, I can't stress this enough. 

This was January 2006, A winter not as cold as some that I have lived through, but it wasn't Miami Florida. I met a girl from out-of-town that happened to be tagging along with a friend who had some serious eyes for another guy in the fire department. She looked like she needed somebody to hang around with, so I moved in to try and be that person. It worked, And it only took a day for us to be VERY interested in each other. As a young fireman and sort of a hopeless romantic, you often think about pulling up to a house fire with your girlfriend, throwing your gear on, and giving her what may possibly be a last kiss before you run off into the flames. After spending half of the day roaming around with these two girls doing whatever came to our minds, we rested our trip that evening at fire station. That night, there had to have been a dozen members and guests just hanging around. All conversations ceased when the alert tone came over the radio and the dispatcher told us we had a house fire. It was assholes, elbows, and every body running around to get to either their vehicle, or the fire trucks. Since I couldn't take them on the firetruck, we just piled up in mine and lit out. Pulling up on scene, I got to give away that very kiss before marching up to the driveway with my friend, Mike. Him and I seemed to be a pair when it came to fighting fire. From that kiss on, I was hooked. Writing back to the station that night meant two things, That we had saved most of the house, but that she would be leaving in just a couple short hours. Some young men wait a lot of their life just to be able to wrap their arms around a girl. I got to do that very thing, and she would be leaving me shortly. I would talk to her the entire ride home and quite a few hours of the day and night the entire week we were apart. Each weekend, from then on, either she was here or I was up there. 

The beaches had open back up on the coast, which meant everyone that had been cooped up in their homes for weeks was out on it seeing what  progress had been made. I had friends in a local car club, and that seemed like a decent way to spend Friday nights that I was around. The rest were spent quite a bit farther north than where I lived, with the girl I was seeing at the time. All we really did with the car club was sit on the beach until the cops ran us off, then we would migrate to a nearby sonic that we had not yet pissed off and would stay until close. We were not philosophers by any stretch, but we did all have life lessons and words of wisdom to share among each other. If you paid attention, cared enough, and had an open mind, the things that were said out of heart could only boost your personality in the long run. 

There was a burn ban in effect for months after the hurricane, it seemed like forever. Did that stop fireman from lighting a fire in a cleared plot out in the woods? NOPE! When the car club wasn't happening, we would gather up all the firewood we could find, load up everyone's four wheelers, head out to a spot in the woods, light a fire and do what we did best. There was a certain spot we liked to go to behind the high school where not a whole lot of people would mess with us. Even the cops out there didn't mess with us too much, they all knew who we were and where we were from. I remember one night, pulling up to a bonfire that someone had already set, telling them that there was a burn ban in effect and that they would probably all go to jail, then taking over the bonfire ourselves and finishing out the night. I never said we didn't do dumb shit. The next morning, we were all woken up to quite a surprise. The very location we had been the night before with a bonfire, was now the location of a woods fire. Uhhhh, whoops! Turns out though, that it wasn't actually our fire that started this, it was a vehicle that had been left there by someone well after we had been gone. The vehicle had been set on fire which calls the woods to catch on fire after a burst of wind. I'm pretty sure that's the first time I had ever let a woman drive my truck without me in the passenger seat. Needless to say, I kept my eye on the back window of the firetruck the entire time. 

Driving back-and-forth between my home and the town that I worked in was a slight strain on my bank account. I had heard friends talking about needing help in their company that installed garage doors. The office was closer. The work didn't seem any easier, but it was a new skill to learn. So I did the respectable thing to do, put in like two weeks notice at the warehouse, and started work three weeks after that installing garage doors. Installing garage doors isn't rocket science, it's a fairly easy, repetitious process. I learned a lot in this trade. We screwed off a lot while we are on the job or driving back-and-forth, but we did our jobs well and we did them in a timely manner. We always remained professional for the customers though. Some of the hours weren't all that ideal. We would come in at roughly 6 o'clock in the morning and sometimes not get back to the shop until 6 o'clock that evening. It all just depended on how many doors we had to put up that day and where they were. I'm not sure if I was just missing the employment I had before at the warehouse, or if the guy they put me with when it was all said and done was an idiot, But I began to realize that may be the warehouse was where I belonged. So, I contacted the warehouse manager and the owner and they agreed that I was a good fit for them. I went back 2 weeks later. 

My decision to go back to the warehouse came with a decision to try living at my moms again. That decision came with the question of whether a long distance relationship was really what I needed. I ultimately decided that it wasn't and attempted to break the news to the girl I was seeing. I've come to learn that sometimes, want to girl is in love with you, they will do and say things in an attempt to keep you around. These actions and words could be good or bad, but rest assured, they may be on their way. I don't with quite a bit of that on both sides. One day would be arguing and fighting, the next day it would be promises and future. You can pretty much count on your phone blowing up as well. I did what I had to do to get past it and I moved on. I tried staying with my mother again, which proved to work a little better this time since the fire department was the only tie that I had in Mississippi. At this point, I was even considering living in Alabama permanently. I would go on calls when I was in the area, but while I was in Alabama, I would assist a small volunteer department on the Mississippi side of the state line. Because of their low volunteer base, they were pleased with my assistance. I would mainly visit home on the weekends, and run calls whenever possible. It was around this time that MySpace was quite popular. Everybody seemed to have one. I was a little behind the times, but I signed up and began to discover old friends from different periods of life. I wasn't really on the hunt for a new girlfriend, I just wanted someone to put my arm around. A lot of people around me seemed to be buying four wheelers, and I had wanted one for a long time. I marched right down to the Suzuki dealer and walked out with a brand-new four wheeler. It was only brand-new for two hours before I had it sunk, fender deep, in mud. It was on, from there on out. Weekends were usually spent on four wheelers on whatever trail we found around home, and places that other people with four wheelers had been going. It was even a welcomed invitation to a lot of girls! They love the four wheelers! I accomplished my objectives of finding a girl or some girls to put my arm around, That turned out to be a little more trouble than I bargained for.  We lived, we rode, we fought fire together. A band of brothers enjoying life as it was given to us. We knew that the days may not always be in our favor, we were just enjoying the good moments that we had. 

The calm before the storm

The spring and summer of 04 saw a good bit. One thing you can count on in southern summers, lots of heat. Heat can make for dangerous body conditions on a firefighter, so hydration and partnership is key. You've gotta watch the mans back that's with you just like he needs to watch yours. I was still working for my uncle during the day and running calls at night. For my small community, out calls were mainly woods fires and the occasional "possible" house fire. There were medical calls in there as well, but at the time, I wasn't medically certified. Gas prices were looking at an increase here too. Shocker, huh? Gas was looking to rise to $2 per gallon and up. Don't you wish we were back in 04?   By this time, my uncle had taken his sights off auto parts and placed it into metal recycling, leading to the purchase and remodeling of a scrap yard he was intending on opening. The only problem was, it was 3 towns over. That's a lot of driving. 

One of the first accidents I can remember responding to came in the early morning hours. The call came in as a woods fire, no surprise there. The scene was in a patch of woods in the more forested portion of our area, dead in between the two small communities we protected. Houses here were few and far apart. I was the second one to arrive on scene. The lieutenant and I hopped the fence and began to put out the fire. I can remember it just like it was last week. The Lt says to me "be careful in a minute, we won't have any light after we put this out." My first thought was, "then why don't we just leave it like it is now?" He wasn't lying, it got dark quick. When we cleared the fence back at the truck, I happen to notice the chief and one of the senior guys looking into a metal box. I then heard a code over the radio that I'll never forget in my life. It was the code for a fatality accident. We figure that the occupant was coming home after work on the night shift and began to fall asleep. They went off the road in a curve and became airborne, striking a tree which we believe caused the fire. 

House fires had picked up a little around this time, it seemed like there was at least one every two weeks. We were pretty good at saving most of them, despite our reputation. Some of them, however, were just too old to keep the fire from spreading too fast. All the renovations had been completed on the scrap yard, and I was due to start work there soon. Try as I might to acquire a job that paid better and would keep me close to town, I ended up having to go to the scrap yard to work. On the bright side, the pay was better, and I no longer had a truck note to worry about. My insurance was what was killing me due to a previous accident I was in when I was 17 or so. To cut down on drive time and gas, I elected to stay with my mom in Alabama. This didn't help me run calls since I was over 30 miles away from the area, but I did what I had to do. The days were usually spent getting dirty from head to toe, and the nights were usually spent alone with family because I had no one other than extended family in Alabama that I knew. I would visit my cousin and what few friends that her and I shared there, but ultimately after a few months, I ended up visiting home quite often. I would stay at my moms Sunday night, Monday night, and Tuesday night for work. Wednesday night I would go to church and then go home to sleep, I would work Thursday and go to the fire department meetings before going home and going to sleep for work. I would spend Friday night at the football game or at somebody's house, and all day Saturday and including the night with whoever wherever I felt like. Sunday, I would go back to my moms house only to be there for a few nights. I continued to gain new relationships from the firemen at the local fire departments around us, thus giving me somewhere else to be when I was home. I don't know whether it was the fact that we were young or whether we were in a time and place that we knew we could get away with a lot, but we sure did some dumb shit as firemen back in the day.  I probably did some equally dumb shit in my personal life at the time as well. 

It was at this time in my life when I learned the importance of joy riding. Joyriding may be fun to someone in a young age, it may be frowned upon by adults, but in reality is a very useful way to pass the time and a wonderful navigation tool when you're in a new place or you're discovering new places in your home town. I did both. I realized that I was not saving as much as I thought I would staying in Alabama if I continuously ran back-and-forth to Mississippi for the activities I wanted to be a part of, So I decided that I would come back home and stay. That decision proved to not be a bad one when I got the telephone call for an interview and drug screen for the receiving job I applied for at Walmart.  Finally, after a year and a half, I was going to get out of the dirt and mud and climb into a slightly cleaner job closer to home. I couldn't have picked a better time to start at Walmart. The Christmas holidays were approaching us and that usually meant more hours to get all of the product from the trucks to the floor. Christmas at Walmart is pretty much a revolving door when it comes to product on the shelves. I was rounding my second year in the department and things seemed to be going great. I had a good job, the pay wasn't bad, I had a few good friends, and I couldn't be more happier in the department. Life wasn't so bad. One late December evening, my friend (who had moved from my dept to a neighboring dept) and I was at work, doing what we normally did those nights. He usually carried his pager on him for notifications of calls that were going on. I had given mine to a friend that had came into the department shortly after I had received my radio, so I didn't need it. My friend called me aside at work and showed me the notification on his pager, one that I will never forget. 

Hearing of a firefighter down anywhere near your community will hit home in some way, shape, or form. It's worse when it's a member of one of the fire departments in your community, but it really hits home when it's two of yours and one of the southern depts guys. I've only ever heard stories, but they say that the three when in alone on a structure fire. When they realized that the visibility was extremely low and that there was no fire present that they could find, they elected to turn around and head back. That's when all hell broke loose. The fire was apparently in the attic and broke loose when an attic hatch fell to the floor, allowing the fire to reach for oxygen and burn the unburned gases in the smoke that was left inside the house. All they saw was fire. One made it out with what little strength he had left, but the other two were still inside fighting for their lives. All three sustained heavy burns. By the time we got there, the fire was out, all three had been transported to hospitals, and the debriefing meeting was being held outside by the fire chiefs. My friend had to go back to work, but I was cleared to stay home since I was already in overtime. Visiting a brother firefighter in the hospital isn't something you're fond of doing. It's one thing you hope you don't have to do. 

Sometime after that, the department held an election of officers. Election of officers, depending on each department, can result and new leadership anywhere from line officers such as lieutenants to the Fire Chief himself. I was nominated to be lieutenant this time around. I had the qualifications the department set out in their bylaws and I was one of the more active members out of our membership. Ever since I had been with the fire department, I wanted to make lieutenant, I wanted that red helmet. Ultimately, I was out voted to a firefighter who was substantially older than I, but had the same level of training and had been there only a few months less than me. This decision didn't please me, but it didn't make me do my job any less. Knowing what I know now, I was nowhere near ready for leadership and I'm glad the vote passed me by. 

The year 2005 would prove to be a very enlightening year, not only for me personally, but for the South as a whole, and my fire departments as well. In February, I decided to do something that I would regret for years,  I bought a brand-new truck. I never really realized how much pain and headache there is after you buy a new truck until I had one of my own. I'll never do it again. When you buy a new vehicle, especially a model that has not long been out, you inherit all the bugs and quirks that the manufacturer hasn't yet worked out. That's exactly what I ended up with. 

If you've never been late for work because you were stuck at a fire, you clearly have not been a firefighter very long. I was probably an hour and a half late for work because I refused to leave the paid firefighter by himself to fight a woods fire we were on. I know what you're going to say, "why not call for help??", Calling for help is exactly what we did, Our help just decided to leave us to go on another call in their area. I guess I don't have to say that the management was not too happy about me being late because I was on fire, but they got over it. 

Prom just happened to be around the corner, and I was duly informed by the girl I was talking to at the time that I would be taking her. Alright! Keep in mind that I dropped out of high school as a junior, and had never attended my junior prom because I didn't see the point in it, so this would actually be my first. I did the entire prom thing, rented a tux, bought a corsage, did a dinner date, and posed for the pictures. The only thing that was missing was the limo, and why rent a limo when I had just bought a brand-new truck. Prom, for me, wasn't all that exciting. We went, we took pictures, we hung out with friends, we watched senior walk out, and then decided to get out of Dodge. Where did we go after that? The fire station! Why? Because we were young, bored, and didn't really care as long as it was mildly entertaining. It was shortly after that that I started reevaluating my job and how it affected my life. Night shift was okay, you didn't really have to deal with people in the store after a certain hour, but sleeping all day the next day all the time did get a little tiresome. My friend that had worked at Walmart with me had got a job at a furniture store in town that was only open during the day and paid about the same. I decided that this was a good move to make and started working a few weeks after. It was then that I found out that the pay wasn't what I had been told and shortly after working there the hours started to slip off due to lack of business. The hours had slipped off far enough that I was lucky to be working one day a week. When you have a truck note, high enough insurance already, a cell phone bill, and fuel expenses.. you can't really afford not to be working steadily. After over a year of my father trying to convince me to come to work with him, I finally gave in out of desperation. I began my early-morning drives to Houma, Louisiana to go work on the tugboats in an attempt to bail my ass out of the impending debt I was about to be in. I even went on the boats taking a girls heart with me. 

It didn't take many trips on the boat for me to realize that this place was going to drive me crazy. There was nothing to occupy my mind, which kept traveling to a bad decision I had made in the past concerning a girl that I had broken the heart of. Sometimes, you're own head isn't a good place to be. Being home was a nice relief though! I could run calls and be around people, keeping my mind out of the past. However, as soon as I returned to the boat and got idle time with nothing to occupy my mind, the past would creep up on me. It didn't take long to realize that this place wasn't good for me. I was home bound. I ended up trying to go back to Walmart, which would have worked out okay had they not waited over a week to call. By then, I had already secured another job as a warehouse worker and delivery driver. It was probably the middle of August 2005 when I started this gig, and it was going well! 

In the south, we have to keep an eye on hurricane season. These storms can put some people out of work for days while others roll in the overtime because of the need for their profession. I went home from work on Friday, August 26th on a regular weekend. Hurricane Katrina was due to hit sometime after Monday as a category 1, something we were all very familiar with, no big deal. By Sunday, the storm had upgraded to a cat 5 and was headed straight for the coast. Hurricane Katrina made landfall August 29th, 2005. Where I was, it felt like any other hurricane, we barely lost any shingles on the houses. Little did I know, destruction and death were occurring all around me. The days after were spent cleaning up the yards from all the tree debris. The cell services were jammed with calls, so calling loved ones wasn't an option. The county radio system had gone down from tower failure, so there was no telling what was happening in the community. A few days after the storm had passed, I got word that search and rescue efforts were under way in the southern portion of the community near the water. Everyone with a four wheeler came down to help search. My buddy and I drove through our home and found nothing more than what appeared to be a ton of wind damage, but the further south we drove, the more we realized that the water had risen. We all paired up on four wheelers and rode off to search for survivors. As we made our way toward the waterfront properties, I was overwhelmed with a sight that still plays in my head when I respond to these areas. My hone of 19 years was littered with the remains of countless houses from places that only god would know. There were houses in the middle of streets, flooded cars in random places, piles of wood and bricks where houses once stood, houses that used to tower over the land had disappeared as though out of thin air leaving only the legs they stood on, feet of mud made up most of the streets making it difficult to drive a vehicle around off of the main arteries. The house that I had grown up in was, now also, a pile of brick and wood. Friends' houses were even gone, leaving behind a perfect slab of concrete. We never recovered any bodies or rescued anyone trapped, but there were reports of coffins in the neighborhood streets that had broken loose from their mausoleums and drifted away. As the dark set in, we received word that our community centers would be centers for distributing ice, food, and water to everyone in the community. For a week or two, we handed out food, water, and ice daily from morning to late afternoon. We stayed tired, barely getting any sleep from working during the day, running calls at night, and sleeping in shifts to keep from things being stolen. The radio system had finally been fixed, so we were able to communicate with our radios if we needed to. Brotherhood was at it's highest in a long time.

After days of waiting and waiting, contemplating whether I had a job anymore or if I would have a job at all in town...the, now working, TV had informed me that my company would be meeting in a few days. Curfews were still in effect at nightfall in each of the cities, but we were able to work around that. When we finally entered the building, we got our first site of every business owner's nightmare. Our products were scattered all over the floor, there was mud everywhere, not a glimpse of light to be found, and it appeared that some of our vehicles had sustained damage. We immediately formed a plan to begin cleanup of the warehouse and take an inventory of the product loss for insurance. Our customers would be doing the same thing and would need the services we offered soon, so the ladies who handled the clerical jobs began to put the word out that we were coming back soon. To keep from calculating an inventory, the insurance company had decided to cover a total loss of the contents of the building. We salvaged what could not have been spoiled by the water level or heat and either used it for ourselves, or kept on hand for a small inventory for when we began to venture out. These tasks spanned over a few days of non stop work, then we received our power back. The next task was to figure out which vehicles were able to be safely driven and which ones were a total loss, this proved to be easier than we thought and even worked out in our favor. Slowly, but surely, life began to get back on track. Everyone that could work in the cities was working, getting their business back out in the market. Traffic to and from work was a constant nightmare due to the closing of several bridges into the cities, making it virtually impossible to get a bite to eat from what few restaurants were open by this point. As the customers made room on their shelves for our products, they began to pour in the lobby and the phones ready to get back to work. It was very welcomed news to all of us. Nothing changed in the county, we were still handing out food and water to those that needed it, but the numbers became fewer and fewer as the weeks went on. Calls even became fewer as things seemed to be smoothing out. Over the course of the next couple months, my delivery route went further and further west. I thought I had seen a mass of destruction where I was from, I had not seen anything yet.

Hurricane Katrina made landfall at the mouth of the Mississippi river, which is the dividing landmark of Mississippi and Louisiana. New Orleans was hit the hardest by the storm, leaving flooding waters inside parts of the city and outlying areas for weeks. Countless residents were left homeless, many taking refuge in the Superdome. The hardest cities hit by the storm in Ms were the cities of Bay St. Louis and Waveland. My route continued to span west into Hancock county as the days went on. My first venture this far peaked my sight for destruction. As far as the eye could see there were cars scattered everywhere, houses in odd places on land, debris for miles, and boats had even washed up on land. Never in my life had I seen such a horrible sight. Government officials were scattered everywhere, ranging from the local level to federal workers. It seemed like everywhere I went south of the interstate, I was met with broken buildings and flood debris. Even north of the interstate took on water, leaving behind pieces of houses everywhere. I had heard of tornadoes touching down in these areas, but it was almost impossible to tell the difference in the damage. As time moved along, the coast slowly went back to normal. The casinos hadn't yet opened their doors again, neither had some of the other businesses south of the interstate, but things were slowly coming back.

Close to the end of October, I noticed some of the office ladies making some accusations among some of us in the warehouse, myself included. There were some that complained of missing product from our trucks and money from the bank bags. Time and time again I had to force recounts, which usually resulted in what was being accused found. This didn't stop the office from trying. The owner never seemed too pleased with me either when I refused to high tail it around my route just so I could get back to the office when they wanted to go home. The last straw was the night she asked me if I was stupid. EXCUSE ME?? I don't think so, Lady. Deuces! I had a friend and fire department contact that needed some help repairing windshields at a local car wash. The money, in his opinion, would out-do what I was making now. Shortly before this transition, I had decided to transfer to one of the departments that protected the southern end of our community. To me, this would be an opportunity to run calls in a different area and to be a part of a department run similar to one on a larger scale. Work was work, I was learning the trade, but it didn't turn out on the scale that I had been led to believe. Oh well, it was a job. Being the low man on the totem pole, I was appointed to float around each location until they figured out my permanent stay....which was in the exact same town the scrapyard was in. Great.

Every firefighter has heard it in their career, the last call. The last call is a farewell broadcast on the radio to a fallen firefighter, usually done with the fire tones for that department. It has been known to bring the most hardened firefighters to tears. I carried my radio to work with me that morning to hear how the procession would go. What I heard at the end was something I had heard firefighters talk about for quite some time, but never heard for myself. My heart went out to their family, for I did not know them, but I could only imagine the amount of pain that my brothers were going through in the department even further south than I had landed with my new department. I've heard this sound twice now since then, and where I'm not really one brought to tears easily, that doesn't mean that it's not felt inside. Nothing changed, though. We were still a brotherhood, even though we had our differences between the three departments. We still worked as a team and did our jobs...and we did them well.  

Pilot

It's been ten years. So much destruction these opened eyes have seen, so much hurt these hands have tended to, so many cries ring in these ears. Ten years these feet have pounded on the ground protecting life and property...and not earninig a dime. So much has changed in the last decade not only in my personal life, but in the world around me. Welcome to my world, this is the firefighter life.

Lets go back to 2003, a year that changed my life forever......


It was May, 2003, I was a Junior in high school. I made the "adult" decision that this would be the last year that I was in high school. I said my last farewells for the end of the school year, telling those I felt like informing that I wouldnt be back, I walked to my truck and left...embarking on this new journey leading to an uncharted territory. The plan was, I would work with my uncle, who bought and sold used auto parts for refurbishing. It was essentially a cake job, I was the manual labor. I would load the parts in the truck when we were out on buys, cutting down on the time at each stop and essentially making for either a shorter work day, or time in the days for more stops. When we took trips to deliver the parts to sell, the job was to ride along, help move the parts around in whatever we put them in for transport, and guard the truck while the driver slept. After all, this was a few thousand dollars of lifestyle. I went anywhere from Waco, Tx to Miami, Fl so I spent alot of weekends on the road. The pay sucked, no doubt about it, but I was working for family and my bills weren't all that much back then. Keep in mind, I was 17.

Being involved in the church youth group with people that I had grown up with for years, I had one friend that was a jr firefighter in the community that we live in. To understand where I'm from....Our larger community is just like any other growing community that you would find outside a city limit. We have a multitude of businesses, schools, restaurants, and so on. The community that I live in is one of three smaller community that lie within the large community we associate ourselves with. It was, back then, mostly woods around some of the original subdivisions and neighborhoods that were built long before I was born. I had known that he was with the community fire department for quite some time, but until this point in life, I had never really been interested in it. I had watched him respond to an accident in the northern community one afternoon and decided to follow him. Red emergency lights, adrenaline, rescue...I was hooked. I wanted to be one of those guys with red emergency lights in my truck, tearing down the streets, responding to accidents and putting house fires out!  After quite a few conversations and hours of deliberation, I finally decided to drive up to the station and apply. Walking up to the station on meeting night to turn in my application was one of the most terrifying times of my life. I had no idea who any of these people were and no clue on earth what I was doing, but I was set on trying it.

Jr firefighter life wasnt one that you would brag about too much, at least, not in my department. I cant tell you how many odd and end jobs I did around the station or for the senior firemen. I understand now that it was all about earning respect and trust. In our department, Jr firefighters couldnt do anything firefighting related, it was a liability. So I had to wait my turn, but I was turning 18 in a couple months, I'd be cut loose before long. Wrong!! They actually made me wait another month until January to turn me loose due to the time I had spent as a jr didnt pass the amount of time served by a regular probationary member, oh well. At this point though, they gave me a pager....I thought these things went out in the 90's!!! Now, if you're a firefighter reading this, I'm not talking about the pagers that are pretty much like a miniature radio, I'm talking about a legit 90's pager that only displayed numbers and words. It was like taking a trip back to my childhood. Really?? They allowed me to respond to calls like that though, so I didnt complain.

My very first call was a possible house fire on the very southern end of our area. As soon as that pager went off, I was like a kid opening presents on christmas day. It was on!!! The only problem was, I had no clue where the street was that the call was on...uhhhhhhh. Mapquest to the rescue! Keep in mind, this was 2003, we still had dial up internet (dsl was just becoming popular) so you know how slow that junk was. As soon as I had my location, I was gone! The fire chief had to approve all use of red emergency lights, thanks for busting my bubble dude! So here I am, tearing down one of our main arterys....with my flasher on, lame! It's at this point that I start noticing cars passing me by in the opposite direction that looked awefully familiar, was I too late? YUP! Awesome. As my time went on, one of the fire officers and senior firemen took me under their wing and began to teach me about the trade, something I have never forgot. Woods fires were common around here, and I got skilled on how to fight them quickly.

January 2004 I made full member and was signed up for class. Wait, what? Oh well, rock on! Because of the availability of the guy who kept up with the inventory, I had to wait unitl I was already in class to get all of my equipment, but once I had it, I was a FIREMAN!!
Any firefighter can tell you, the first time you hear a fire tone, not too many sounds will compare. The first night I had my radio, I had no clue what I was doing aside from talking on a cb (which is what country people used before cell phones). I must have sounded completely retarded talking on the radio for the call that came out that night, but it was nothing more than a bonfire...HANDLED!!

My first house fire was probably 3 or 4 weeks after I had started class. FF 1 used to be a 6 week class 2 nights a week and saturdays. Of course, being the rookie, they wouldn't let me in on the hose, but I did get to help out on overhaul and for me, that didnt bother me one bit! I found out the hard way that night that driving a stick shift was not easy wearing bunker gear. I know, I'm a tard.
By the end of February 2004, I was a certified firefighter in Mississippi. I felt like I had finally accomplished something. Early in my adventure, I saw quite a bit of fire. Some of it, I was even thrown into on my own because of the lack of participation when our star people were out of the area. I once responded to a large woods fire by myself and had no clue what to do next. I almost panicked. Thankfully, I knew I had the resources from neighboring departments that I could call on for help and I did just that. Let me paint a picture of my starting path...Our fire station was built in the 70s, only housed 2 trucks, built with cinder blocks, had chipped and faded paint on the eve and sign, was barely big enough to hold the trucks plus some of the tools and storage areas that had to be tucked away in the corner, and was barely big enough for everyone to sit when we had meeting nights. Our roster had probably 15 members on it with only 10, at most, being at the ready to go on a call. Our substation, much bigger, held 6 trucks, 5 of which were newer trucks that ran a whole lot better and were alot nicer looking.

The fire department was the coolest thing I had done in my life and I wanted to get friends in on it, so I recruited as many folks as I could. That didnt work that well since I didnt really have a whole lot of friends and most of them couldnt see doing something like that for free, but I was able to attract a few to the trade. I carried my radio to work with me, I ran every call that I could whether it was in my area or to the areas south of us that protected the smaller portion of our large community, and I developed relationships with the firemen from other departments, which seemed almost meaningless until further on in my "career". To me, these were guys that I knew and could speak to on fire scenes that would trust me enough to work with me on a fire. I was at the station every chance I got, even if I was just there to hang out and wait for a call. This was firefighter life.