No one every sung, “Fuck the firemen!”
Shower thought inspired by this Short.
And while we’re at it, my ex-FIL fought two tours in Iraq, won a Bronze Medal for successfully delivering a monster generator for civilian use. No issues.
Came home and ordered his men to cut houses in half with chainsaws, push them off the road, to clear a path through the Mississippi back roads, in order to relieve civilians after Katrina. They scooped corpses out of trees. Gave out Walmart bikes to little blacks girls so they could feel some semblance of “It’s OK”. I saw the fucking pictures.
Lived Hurricane Ivan. It ain’t what you see on the news. Ever seen transformers exploding across the city, like blue lightning, one after another? Ever seen the Milky Way because there is no power? Ever heard that train sound for 10-hours, non-stop, terrified there’s a tornado across the street you cannot see? Ever went to bed in the summer and woke up with no leaves on the trees? Ever wept in the street for your new city? Katrina was worse.
PTSD saw him leave his wife of 32-years, abandon his only child, my ex-wife.
Sorry if my prose is a mess, I’m crying, again.
Fuck these masked animals rolling all over our country. The 2nd Amendment is your right, whether you like it or not. Take that as you fucking like.
As a former firefighter from a rural area, they’re just as bad as the cops. Most of them ARE police or sheriff’s deputies as a second job, and several are “proud boys” who happily stood on the courthouse lawn with their masks on to protest anything Biden did.
They’re not heroes, they’re cops that like to play with fire.
This is what people don’t seem to realize about MOST things in the world: the demographics of X, located in the area of Y, are going to mirror the demographics of Y 95% of the time. Cops (and a few other places, like jails or colleges [though the colleges trend the opposite way]) stand out because they self select for assholes because the assholes are already inside, holding the levers of power. If an organization isn’t purposely selecting for a trait like that, then the spread of that trait within the organization won’t shift from the general trait’s prevalence outside the organization.
Some are, for sure, but not all.
I know it’s corny, but thank you for your service. You know we still need your help to keep the fire service a welcoming place for new volunteers. Maybe you could sign back up at your new local in a more limited capacity? The more of us there are the better for everyone.