Recognize the extraordinary nature of the firefighting profession—while there’s still time
When the tones go off, we respond. Our focus is on the job at hand. Everything else fades away and our experience and training takes over. It matters not the nature of the response; we are focused on doing what we must to mitigate whatever is presented to us.
As years progress, even the most ambitious and eager firefighters respond in a more automatic manner than people new to the business. We know what to expect on most calls and also know that we are equipped and ready to handle the unexpected when that happens; and the unexpected is bound to happen. The middle years of a firefighter’s career are far too often spent in a haze of predictability. Once we have proven ourselves and earned the confidence of our officers and fellow firefighters we learn to take it all in stride and seldom get excited. The jobs get done, the apparatus gets put back together, and our gear is cleaned up and made ready for the next one. And there is always a next one.
Then, one day, there isn’t.
Our careers speed past us, and most of us fail to recognize the magnitude of what we do while we are doing it. Life-changing events—in other people’s lives—are a daily occurrence, and we barely blink. So normal is the abnormal to us we simply move on without stopping to appreciate the moment in time in which what we did was exceptional. Make no mistake; the things firefighters do while responding to emergencies are far from normal. Through repetition and repeated exposure to crisis we handle things, and get on with it, usually forgetting what we did.
- Who You Were, or Who You Are?
- When is a Firefighter No Longer?
- Recognizing Your Firefighters on Retirement
- Fire Service Retirees: An Often-Forgotten Community
There will come a time in most firefighters’ lives when the chance of responding to a crisis is not only no longer an everyday occurrence, it simply never happens. Life is not a series of emergencies—some big, some small, some memorable, most forgettable. Life, even for the most adventurous among us, is 90% boring routine. As it progresses toward its conclusion, our life’s boring routine reaches 100%. And then it is over.
Had I not spent the middle years of my life in the thick of things I might not be able to handle the painfully slow pace of things as I age. If I never knew how it felt to be in the soup fairly regularly, the forced monotony of retired life might just kill me. We are fond of telling ourselves and others who understand the life that we have the greatest job in the world. Funny thing is, when the greatest job in the world is said and done and we find ourselves on the sidelines, an amazing truth becomes clear: because of the job we did, we have the greatest retirement in the world. Taking it easy is priceless to those who lived hard. And few live harder than firefighters.
I think it is in our blood to see excitement in any form we can find it. Simply knowing that at any moment our tranquility could be shattered gives us the juice we need to stay vibrant, engaged, and interested in the world around us. Take that away and depression sees an opportunity to sneak in. I have felt it, and it is debilitating. When nothing happens, nothing happens.
Mission Deprivation: The Stress of Not Experiencing the Stress
As the days of my retirement turned into weeks, then months I realized just how much I needed the stimulation that other people’s emergencies provided. Left on my own, I had no idea how to create the much-needed adrenaline infusions I had grown so accustomed to. When the months of inactivity became years, the need for mayhem subsided considerably, and I was able to take life a moment at a time. Excitement cannot be planned, or scheduled. If anybody understands that, it is a retired firefighter. We fritter away the makings of a dull day, waiting for something, anything, to put us back in the game.
Well, the game is over. The good news is: we won. We are done. We have the opportunity to take in life on life’s terms, and when something great happens, it does so in its own way, on its own time, and if we are wise enough to recognize it, we can bask in the moment that good fortune has provided us. It makes no sense waiting for something great to happen. Something already did.
Michael Morse is a former captain with the Providence (RI) Fire Department (PFD), an author, and a popular columnist. He served on PFD’s Engine Co. 2., Engine Co. 9, and Ladder Co. 4 for 10 years prior to becoming an EMT-C on Rescue Co 1 and Captain of Rescue Co. 5.
