One Of Those Guys

When I was a kid my father and I used to go to watch firefighters, police or National Guard units do their specialized training. We'd sit on the sidelines and watch as SWAT officers practiced their movements, as divers surfaced from some underwater adventure. When sirens screamed into our neighborhood, he'd take me to watch as firefighters put out the flames in someone's house, or in one incident I'll always remember, rescue a dog who had skewered his paw on a fence.
I'd always sit back in awe and think of how much fun it must be to climb a hundred some odd foot ladder and then rappel down on a thin piece of rope. I always wanted to be "one of those guys."
Last week I took a special rope rescue course in Franklin, my girlfriend's hometown. Instructors from the Mass Firefighting Academy showed us how to tie advanced knots and rig up anchor systems so that we could abseil down to the rescue. We took thin pieces of nylon webbing and rope, each rated for up to 9,000 lbs, and twisted them into contraptions meant to hold our weight. All of this was well and good on the ground, when our lives are not at risk.
The following day we were up on the roof of a three story office building. The instructors had rigged up a series of lines for us to rappel down in order to get us acquainted with the basics of rope rescue. This particular course was the gateway course to the MFA's technical rescue school, a program of study that teaches everything from ice and water rescue to confined space and trench rescue. As such, we needed to get comfortable with heights-- fast. So after a brief lesson, the instructor, a rescue tech for the Urban Search and Rescue team, showed us how to thread our A plates for rappeling and told us to walk off over the side of the building, backwards.
That first backward step will be with me forever, a mix of fear, exhilaration and "what the fuck am I doing?" Learning to trust a 10mm thick rope was not easy, but it was an amazing experience. Wind whips gently at your face three stories up, looking down produces a cold feeling in the stomach. And then you realize, I have to turn around and walk off that ledge .
After pushing myself over the edge three times, we call it a day. I've grown pretty comfortable with the technique and realize that I can do it one handed which will certainly help in a rescue situation.
The third and final day we practice climbing back up the rope using a trio of devices known as ascenders. The principle is quite simple, you basically just shimmy and muscle your way up the rope with brute strength. After reaching the required height, a belayer lowers you back to terra firma and you go back up to the roof for a self rescue and then a victim rescue drill. The self rescue is meant to take the stress off of your A plate, the rappeling device. This would be needed if the line became fouled or comprimised in anyway. You tie off to the rope with a 6mm chord known as a prusiks and pull yourself out of the way to take your weight off of the device, allowing you to manipulate the line.
Finally we come to the rescue, a victim sits on a ladder two stories down and the objective is for the student to rappel down and "pick" him off with a strap and then lower safely to the ground.
When my turn to rescue a classmate rolls around, I check my gear and look down to figgure out where I'm going. My victim is a firefighter from Hopedale in a bright yellow helmet. But then something else catches my eye. A father and his young son are standing on the opposite side of the safety tape we used to cordon off our training area. The father looks up, a hand over his eyes against the glaring sun and the boy points, I can tell by his head movements that he's talking. Smiling, I prepare to finish my assignment and wonder if the boy is telling his dad "I wanna be one of those guys."

Graduation

I went to college to study English Education, I was originally going to teach high school English. When I got out of high school I really didn't have a dirrection, I just took English as a major because I got pretty decent grades. I never really had a passion for it. So the thought of teaching stuff that I really don't care about to kids who don't want to learn didn't really blow my skirt up.
I had a vague idea that I wanted to do something that really mattered, something that I could be proud of and also something that I would enjoy. Nothing against teaching, in fact I think its one of the most noble professions, its just not for me.
I graduated from the fire academy on a rainy night in March. We took over the auditorium of a junior high school way out in the sticks of western Mass in a little town called Sterling. My parents, my little brother and my girlfriend made a two hour drive to listen to the fire marshal talk about how the fire service has changed since he became a firefighter nearly forty years ago. They watched a slideshow of us in class, saw the flames arching over our heads and watched us struggle to tie knots with our bulky gloves on. Then, they watched as my fellow students and I were presented our certificates. Mostly the chiefs of our departments presented, a few guys' fathers or relatives gave them their papers.
I was going to write about the pomp and ceromony of my fire academy graduation and tell you that the whole ceremony made it worth while to have spent well over two hundred hours, spaced out over countless weekends and Thursdary nights, (and don't get me wrong, being able to show my family and the woman I love that it was all worth it, and including them in my role as a firefighter really was spectacular) but today I came to a rather interesting conclusion.
I'm still in college, I have six weeks left and I graduate. I was sitting in class today watching a film version of a Samuel Beckett play, a strange piece that followed several clay encased talking heads who would randomly yell for no reason what so ever. It wasn't doing anything for me, actually I was getting very mad that I was wasting my time watching it when I could be out doing something, but then I looked over at my professor. The man's eyes were lit up, he was basking in this movie that I could draw nothing from, loving every minute that left me baffled. I realized then that I am on the right path.
Had I become a teacher, generations of students would be screwed. Like I said earlier, I never had a passion for English, I majored in it because I was moderately good at it and I was going to be a teacher because I would get summers off. But when I looked at my professor today, I was scared that I almost went into that field. He has such a burning passion for the subject that he emerses himself in it daily, he does it because he loves it. And I didn't have that. I'm glad that he is a teacher, his love for the subject makes him perfect for the role. But me.....no way in hell.
When I shook hands with the fire marshall he told me how I was going to be doing a very brave and noble duty, all I could think was "God I love this profession." I have this inside of me, I need to do this because its the only time in my working life that I have ever not only enjoyed my work but have actually been good at it.
My father owns a landscaping buisness and I've been working with him since I've been old enough to push a lawn mower and I love that job, its great, its outside, I get to work with my hands and I can see that what I'm doing has impact. Once you cut a lawn or clean out a yard, you can tell that you were there and it looks great. My father is a real pro, he pours himself into it and his work is fantastic. He loves the work and he's good at it. Sometimes I sheer a chunk of turf when I turn the mower too quick, or I chew up a sapling with weedwacker. My father has a knack for that work, I'm good at it but I'm not like him.
When I get on a rig for a call, I know what I'm doing. Everything is automatic. I can eat on the way to calls, cupcakes, sticky Asian food, whatever because I know what I'm doing. I'm not bragging and I don't know everything but I know that this is what I'm supposed to do. I know this because when I took a 24 hour class on how to read signs on trailers to discern the chemicals they contain, I was riveted. I know this because when someone explained the pressures and rating systems for the pumping equipment at my station, I was enthralled. I also know because when I watched what my professor dubbed "The greatest modern play ever penned," I left class for ten minutes to go for a walk, lest I fall asleep.
The moment I graduated from the fire academy was one of the proudest and most emotional moments of my life. It meant the world to me that my loved ones were there to share it with me. Conversly, my coming college graduation could not mean less. I have loved my time in college, the friends I've made, the social ties and the great times I've had but academically its been simply rewriting the same paper and reading Cliff's Notes. I worked my ass of in the fire academy, studying and drilling to make sure I knew what I was doing; for college, I showed up. I haven't read an assigned reading book for school since the second semester of my freshman year, yet for the fire academy and EMT I read both books twice.
I graduated from the school that matters for my carreer path. All I have to do is sit through a four hour ceromony, listen to the Bulgarian ambassidor (that's my school's comencement speaker, should be a blast) and receive a piece of paper that will sit in the top drawer of my dresser.
But in the end, it was worth it. I met the girl of my dreams, found out what I really want to do with my life and grew one hell of a mustache.