I felt compelled to find this poem today as there was a post recently on our firewives forum about an article in a paper talking about a couple of MVA’s in a row and then what some people were posting in the comments after the article. Now I know that people will post things online just to start trouble, but it just pushed me to find this poem.

I don’t deal with anyone saying how lazy FF’s are, atleast not them being serious. I know everyone loves to make fun of hubby for his time off. But it’s in jest. Anyway, I thought this was a good one going through so many things they sometimes hit in a single day!

<h2>I Wish You Could Know</h2>

I wish you could know what it is like to search a burning bedroom for
trapped children at 3AM, flames rolling above your head, your palms and
knees burning as you crawl, the floor sagging under your weight as the
kitchen below you burns.

I wish you could comprehend a wife’s horror at 6 in the morning as I check
her husband of 40 years for a pulse and find none. I start CPR anyway,
hoping to bring him back, knowing intuitively it is too late. But wanting
his wife and family to know everything possible was done to try to save his life.

I wish you knew the unique smell of burning insulation, the taste of
soot-filled mucus, the feeling of intense heat through your turnout gear,
the sound of flames crackling, the eeriness of being able to see absolutely
nothing in dense smoke-sensations that I’ve become too familiar with.

I wish you could read my mind as I respond to a building fire “Is this A
false alarm or a working fire? How is the building constructed? What hazards
await me? Is anyone trapped?” Or to call, “What is wrong with the patient?
Is it minor or life-threatening? Is the caller really in distress or is he waiting for us with a 2×4 or a gun?”

I wish you could be in the emergency room as a doctor pronounces dead the
beautiful five-year old girl that I have been trying to save during the past
25 minutes. Who will never go on her first date or say the words, “I love you Mommy” again.

I wish you could know the frustration I feel in the cab of the engine, squad,
or my personal vehicle, the driver with his foot pressing down hard on the
pedal, my arm tugging again and again at the air horn chain, as you fail to
yield the right-of-way at an intersection or in traffic. When you need us
however, your first comment upon our arrival will be, “It took you forever to get here!”

I wish you could know my thoughts as I help extricate a girl of teenage years
from the remains of her automobile. “What if this was my daughter, sister, my
girlfriend or a friend? What were her parents reaction going to be when they
opened the door to find a police officer with hat in hand?”

I wish you could know how it feels to walk in the back door and greet my
parents and family, not having the heart to tell them that I nearly did not
come back from the last call.

I wish you could know how it feels dispatching officers, firefighters and
EMT’s out and when we call for them and our heart drops because no one answers
back or to here a bone chilling 911 call of a child or wife needing assistance.

I wish you could feel the hurt as people verbally, and sometimes physically,
abuse us or belittle what I do, or as they express their attitudes of, “It will never happen to me.

I wish you could realize the physical, emotional and mental drain or missed
meals, lost sleep and forgone social activities, in addition to all the
tragedy my eyes have seen.

I wish you could know the brotherhood and self-satisfaction of helping save
a life or preserving someone’s property, or being able to be there in time
of crisis, or creating order from total chaos.

I wish you could understand what it feels like to have a little boy tugging
at your arm and asking, “Is Mommy okay?” Not even being able to look in his
eyes without tears from your own and not knowing what to say. Or to have to
hold back a long time friend who watches his buddy having CPR done on him as
they take him away in the Medic Unit. You know all along he did not have his
seat belt on. A sensation that I have become too familiar with.

Unless you have lived with this kind of life, you will never truly understand
or appreciate who I am, we are, or what our job really means to us……

I wish you could though.

* author unknown *

Chasing flames and saving lives is a firefighters thrill;
And I’ll do this job, the best I can, with the Lords grace and will.
But even though I love the flames, the excitement, and the roar;
There’s someone waiting back home for me, that I love even more.

My best friend, my soul mate, she is the love of my life.
I am so very grateful that she is my wife.
She understands the job I do, but how she hates it so.
I hear her cries, and see her tears, each time I have to go.

As I race to the fire, to battle the beast, I wonder how she is;
And pray to God, to let me return, to feel her tender kiss.
I know she won’t sleep, with her heart filled with strife,
She knows why I must leave her, to go and risk my life.

She would only have to say the word and I would walk away;
And never fight another fire, or keep the beast at bay.
But I know that’s something she’ll never do, she loves the man I am.
She’s proud of me for the lives I save and for my helping hand.

Though someday soon, the Lord may say, this job will take my life;
And I must leave this happiness, of my family and my wife.
Deep down inside I truly doubt that she would change a thing,
As long as we’re together and wearing her fireman’s wedding ring.

–Author Unknown

I posted this poem because I like how it showed the other side and that they do know how we feel and how those of us true wive’s would never truly want them to walk away. If my husband walked away because he felt I couldn’t handle it anymore, I would feel like a failure. I would know that he quit something that he was called to do and that many people’s lives would be the worse for that decision.

I have never cried as he’s left and I never will. I may cry when he gets home and that is ok. Some days the relief of him getting home after a shift that I know was bad is a lot for a woman to bear. We’re hormonal and no matter what I do to fight that I never will be able to. lol

It’s 4am here on the west coast and just about the moment the US stood still. To be exact it was 5:36am here PST that the first hit happened. For some reason I stayed up and turned the news on after hubby went to work and I saw the second plane hit. I saw every single millisecond of it. I was in complete disbelief. Yes, total denial. That is how I deal with things. I work internally and then outward.

The odd thing is my kids were very young and I’m not a morning person. I always go back to bed, or if I stay up I read or get online. But on that day I turned on the morning news. WEIRD! Also, sad. Why did I have to turn it to the news that day and watch it happen? There are many days I wish I hadn’t, maybe I could disconnect more from it way over here on the west coast if I hadn’t watched it live.

Hubby was a volunteer at that time and working construction. He didn’t see it live and him being male I’m not sure it would hit him the same anyway. But him now being paid fire I feel today more than ever. If my husband was NYFD I would have lost him. There would have been nothing to keep him away from helping. That’s just how some of them role.

I know it’s been 8 years, but that has nothing to do with that chaplain rolling up to your door. 8 years is nothing compared to the lifetime you will have without them. I wish to commemorate my sisters today for what they gave up 8 years ago and for backing their men up prior to their passing. I sincerely hope that some peace has been found in the time that has passed.

I will always be thankful and think of those that gave their lives to get so many out of the towers and pentagon on this day.

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My father was a fireman.
He drove a big red truck
and when he’d go to work each day
he’d say “Mother wish me luck”.
Then Dad would not come home again
’til some time the next day.
But the thing that bothered me the most
was the thingÕs some folks would say,
“A fireman’s life is easy,
he eats and sleeps and plays,
and sometime’s he won’t fight a fire
for days and days and day’s”.
When I first heard these words
I was to young to understand
but I knew when people had trouble
Dad was there to lend a hand.
Then my father went to work one day
and he kissed us all goodbye
but little did we realize
that night we all would cry.
My father lost his life that night
when the floor gave way below
and I’d wondered why he’d risked his life
for someone he didn’t know.
But now I truly realize
the greatest gift a man can give
is to lay his life upon the line
so that someone else might live.
So as we go from day to day
and we pray to God above
say a prayer for your local Firemen.
He may save the one’s you love.

Carved in stone at the National Monument for
Fallen Firefighters Colorado Springs, Co.

This one hurts a lot as I vividly remember the bawling sobs of our Chief’s daughter from the front of the church at the end of the funeral service.  I also hope that my kids do not have to deal with too much of the usual ribbing about a fireman’s life.  Thankfully they understand and know what he does.  There are very few nights that hubby gets any sleep and they know it because he sleeps for hours on his day off.

This prayer is dedicated to all those who have gone before me and who will follow me in the line

When I am called to duty, God, wherever flames may rage,
Give me the strength to save some life whatever be its age.
Help me embrace a little child before it is too late, or save an
older person from the horror of that fate.
Enable me to be alert and hear the weakest shout, and quickly and efficiently
to put the fire out. I want to fill my calling and to give the best in me,
to guard my every neighbor and protect his property.
And if according to my fate I am to lose my life this day,
Please bless with your protecting hand my family this I pray.

What is a fireman?

He is the guy next door – a man’s man with the memory of a little boy. He has never gotten over the excitement of engines and sirens and danger.

He is a guy like you and me with wants and worries and unfulfilled dreams.

Yet he stands taller than most of us.

He is a fireman.

He puts it all on the line when the bell rings.

A fireman is at once the most fortunate and the least fortunate of men.

He is a man who saves lives because he has seen too much death.

He is a gentle man because he has seen the awesome power of violence out of control.

He is responsive to a child’s laughter because his arms have held too many small bodies that will never laugh again.

He is a man who appreciates the simple pleasures of life – hot coffee held in numb, unbending fingers – a warm bed for bone and muscle compelled beyond feeling – the camaraderie of brave men – the divine peace and selfless service of a job well done in the name of all men.

He doesn’t wear buttons or wave flags or shout obscenities.

When he marches, it is to honor a fallen comrade.

He doesn’t preach the brotherhood of man.

He lives it.

Author unknown

Firefighters love to eat, but away back then,
It was meat and potatoes and eggs from a hen,
And cheeses’ and sauces and tarts and pies,
And bacon and sausage and real French fries,
Or rare red meat, taken from a cow,
With two pork chops, cut from a sow,
Firefighters love to eat, but now they are more wise,
Gone ,the bacon and sausage and high calorie pies,
Now egg whites and yogurt or bran with some oats,
Salads and lean meat and milk from old goats,
Feta with less pasta, an apple with green tea,
Decaf, no cream, with honey from a bee.
All these new diets do make us cheer,
But firefighters all, still like their beer.

by D.M.Bowles February 17, 2009

Well this one I’d definitely love feedback on.  Um, our department still eats like the first part of the poem.  Hubby and I work a lot of the second part in, but it doesn’t last long.  lol  But beer, yes that is a staple.  I heard an oldtimer say it at our chief’s funeral.  They work hard and have to play harder.

The Creation of a firefighter

When the lord was creating fire fighters, he was into his sixth day of overtime when an angel appeared and said, “ you’re doing a lot of fiddling around on this one.”

And the lord said, “Have you read the specification of this person? Fire fighters have to be able to go for hours fighting fires or tending to a person that the usual every day person would never touch, while putting in the back of their mind the circumstances. They have to be able to move at a second’s notice and not think twice of what they are about to do, no matter what danger. They have to be in top physical condition at all times, running on half-eaten meals, and they must have six pairs of hands.”

The angel shook her head slowly and said, “six pairs of hands…no way.”

“It’s not the hands that are causing me problems,” said the lord, “it’s the three pairs of eyes a firefighter has to have.”

“That’s on the standard model?” said the angel.

The lord nodded. “One pair that sees through the fire and where they and their fellow fire-fighters should fight the fire next. Another pair here in the side of the head to see their fellow fire fighters and keep them safe. And another pair of eyes in the front so that they can look for the victims caught in the fire that need their help.”

“Lord” said the angel, touching his sleeve, “ rest and work on this tomorrow.”

“I can’t,” said the lord, “ I already have a model that can carry a 250 pound man down a flight of stairs and to safety from a burning building, and can feed a family on a civil service paycheck.”

The angel circled the model of the fire fighter very slowly, “can it think?”

“You bet,” said the lord. It can tell you the elements of a hundred fires; and can recite procedures in their sleep that are needed to care for a person until they reach the hospital. And all the while they have to keep their wits about themselves. This fire fighter also has phenomenal personal control. They can deal with a scene full of pain and hurt, coaxing a child’s mother into letting go of the child so that they can care for the child in need. And still they rarely get the recognition for a job well done from anybody, other than that from fellow fire fighters.”

Finally the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek of the fire fighter. “There’s a leak”, she pronounced. “Lord, it’s a tear.”

“What’s the tear for?” asked the angel.

“It’s a tear from bottled-up emotions for fallen comrades. A tear for commitment to that funny piece of cloth called the American flag. It’s a tear for all the pain and suffering they have encountered. And it’s a tear for their commitment to caring for and saving lives of their fellow man!”

“What a wonderful feature lord, you’re a genius” said the angel.

This one is definitely for all the wife’s of volunteers past, present and future. Believe me, I understand this one well At home I wake up much easier than he does and I used to tell him the call and wake him up. lol

BACK HOME AGAIN

The pager makes it’s beeping noise, The scanner comes to life.
You see excitement on his face As he goes off to fight.

No matter what you’re doing Or whatever the current plan,
All you can say is “Later Hon” As he gets those keys in hand.

You say a little prayer That God will keep him safe,
That with all the pride and bravery No one will make a mistake.

You know those men are Brothers And fiercely will protect
The lives of each other and others– They will truly give their best!

You and your “man’s best friend” Are both loyal and true.
You keep each other company Waiting for him to return to you.

And when that front door opens With “Honey I’m home” again,
You thank the Lord he’s back OK, Your brave and strong Fireman.

Why we stand tall

some things will change

while others always stay the same

the landscape is changing

the red devil never straying

we fight a battle with a war never won

a fire has gone out but there is always another one

we lose soldiers all too frequently

what are we fighting for some will never see

some say our job is dangerous

and some do it for free

I will tell you how i feel

and what it means to me

it means my elderly neighbour can sleep at night

knowing we are there in her time of fright

it means the community can not think about what we do

because they can not handle a baby turned blue

it means our children can play and know we are there

in their time of need we always care

but people may criticize what we do

if they only saw if they only knew

some people love us

some people hate

but when they need us

they all appreciate

they never gave us a dollar

and never said thanks

when we put out a fire

or put our life on the flanks

we know why we did it

some people will never know

wearing our hearts on our sleeve

we belong here and it shows

by Dave Decker