I get the sentiment- it’s viewed that way by everyone- regardless of the part of the business they are in. In reality most of the parts are need to function. Sure you have some total [censored] departments. But sales can’t sell something if there is nothing made to sell, etc.

Most of the 30 years it seemed like it was just a thing we did and got paid for having a good time and helping a few people out. As I have gotten older I have come to understand how blessed I was to do things most people would not ever consider doing and doing them with a a bunch of bad as*es.

30 years as a fireman and 18 of it was in 3 of the busiest firehouses in the nation. It was fun being a fireman and I realized it was a young man's game and got out with some of my health.

Nothing like spending 1/3 of your life with great people in a frat house setting, lol. The fire service has changed so much over the years, but mostly the people that are drawn to serve are still fundamentally the same. You can leave $1M in cash and firemen will never touch a penny of it, but one will run up on your old lady quick,

We always joke about that. You can leave $100 bill on the kitchen table and it wil go untouched for weeks unrmtil someone tracks down who it belongs to. You leave a candy bar on the same table and it's gone in minutes and the offender will lie till the very end knowing damn well they ate it....



You are for sure it's changing. I hope I'm long gone from it all when this new wave of "hitting it hard from the yard" and no search BS hits Texas. We all knew the job was dangerous when we took it but the nonsense of not being willing to save people is dumb. It's hard to stomach the lack of aggressive tactics that seem to be more common in other places.

Aspects of my career were fun. This is me exiting a twin otter on my way to a fire in Utah. This is my rookie year, I had no idea what i was doing, haha. Great friendships made, I miss it.



Now I’m bored. Doing a “real” jobs as we used to call them. Where I can actually make money.

The first 20 years of my career we fought fire very aggressively and from the inside out 90% of the time. I worked in stations for the majority of my career that averaged 50+ first in working fires per shift per year. We were very good at what we did and we knew it. The trust we had in each other is not understood unless you have done something similar in an environment that depending on one another will save your butt. That is all I really miss and the shenanigans around the station.

I was blessed that my bat chief and the ones we answered with were still old school. One of them was in his 80's when he retired and he chiefed the first and last fires of my career. So I never got the whole lot of the yard bird social media firefighting, where those in command seem to have the first priority of trying to figure a way to go defensive on every fire. Fires go out so much easier from the inside if possible. It's funny how the beta attitude of the world shapes the tactics and strategies of fire fighting.

My favorite question to ask rookies the last 10 years or so was if they had ever been in a fist fight and 75% of them said no. A lot of the world is much softer than it was in the past. Some of that is good for society, but it is not good for the fire service.

Most of the 30 years it seemed like it was just a thing we did and got paid for having a good time and helping a few people out. As I have gotten older I have come to understand how blessed I was to do things most people would not ever consider doing and doing them with a a bunch of bad as*es.

30 years as a fireman and 18 of it was in 3 of the busiest firehouses in the nation. It was fun being a fireman and I realized it was a young man's game and got out with some of my health.

Nothing like spending 1/3 of your life with great people in a frat house setting, lol. The fire service has changed so much over the years, but mostly the people that are drawn to serve are still fundamentally the same. You can leave $1M in cash and firemen will never touch a penny of it, but one will run up on your old lady quick,

that looks like matt muncrief on the bottom right on the next to last picture lol

Aspects of my career were fun. This is me exiting a twin otter on my way to a fire in Utah. This is my rookie year, I had no idea what i was doing, haha. Great friendships made, I miss it.



Now I’m bored. Doing a “real” jobs as we used to call them. Where I can actually make money.