People never seem to surprise me

Tweet

My husband and I are volunteer firefighters and absolutely love helping the people in our community. The other night we get paged out to a structure fire. We grab our turnouts and out the door we go. Now it's a race against the clock. Engines and tankers pack the road and hose line is stretched in every direction. This particular house fire was one of the hardest ones we've had to fight so far. After the fire finally settles down to a smother, we start rolling up hose line and decide to stop at the store for a cold Gatorade before going back to the station. As we're standing in line an older man standing behind us asks us what department we run with. We tell him and explain to him where it's located. He then proceeds to tell us we have no right to be a volunteer department because we don't have the proper training or equipment to handle the role. He says we are nothing more than a waste of time and we shouldn't run around impersonating real, paid firefighters. Well by that point I had enough of his mouth. I told him we train just as much, if not more, than any paid department does. We put our bodies and our minds through endless hours of strategies and courses so we can be as prepared as possible for any situation. I'm not knocking a paid department by any means at all. Some make it a career while others make it their life. A volunteer doesn't have to be there putting his own life on the line for a complete stranger and zero compensation. They choose to be there.