Why did you become a firefighter?
By: Candee
This story was written for my husband Dan, who is a paramedic and has always been a big fan of Emergency! When I started writing about the guys of Station 51 we talked about the guys backgrounds and he suggested I write about why they became firemen.
The September sun was warm, but a light breeze made the afternoon comfortable. Roy looked around at the contented faces of his co-workers and their families. They had had a wonderful Labor Day barbeque and now the happily full group was lounging under the shade trees in the DeSotos' back yard. Hank and Maggie Stanley sat side by side in lawn chairs holding hands. Their twins, Lora and Lisa who are older than the other kids, decided to spend the day with friends at the beach. Mike Stoker sat on a blanket spread out on the ground, his back supported by the trunk of a tree, his long legs stretched out in front of him. His left arm wrapped around his wife Hannah who sat snuggled next to him. Both casually glanced over every now and then to where their two sons, Mikey and Jimmy were playing with Chris and Jenny DeSoto. Roy relaxed on a lounge chair with his arms encircling his wife Joanne, who sat between his legs leaning back against his chest. The three bachelors; Johnny, Chet, and Marco took up positions amongst the group. Johnny sprawled on a blanket while Chet and Marco opted for chairs.
At some point Chris had come up and sat down on the ground next to his dad's chair. When there was a lull in the conversations, he reached up and tugged on his dad's sleeve.
"Hey dad, do think now would be an okay time to ask the guys for help with my school project?"
"School Project!" Chet grumbled incredulously. "Didn't they just start school a couple of weeks ago? Man, they sure don't ease kids back into school these days do they?"
"It's just a small written report to gauge where the kids are in their skills." Joanne explained. "Chris' teacher has asked them to write about their parent's job and why they chose to go into that line of work."
"So how can we be of help, Chris?" Hank asked as he leaned forward and picked up his bottle of beer that had been sitting next to him.
Chris looked up at his dad hoping he would do the rest of the talking for him. Roy smiled down at his son, reached over, and tussled his son's hair. "Sorry Chris, but this is your project, I'm not going to do it all for you."
The 8 year old swallowed and looked at his father's boss. Captains always made him nervous. "Well Captain Stanley, Sir, I know why my dad became a fireman. When he came back from the war in Vietnam he wanted to do something to help people. As a medic, he had seen a lot of people hurt over there. So he looked into becoming a fireman and then a rescue man. I thought it would be kind of neat though to write on why everyone on A-shift became firemen."
Hank took a long swig on his beer and smiled over at the young boy. "You know Chris that sounds like a splendid idea. I've been kind of interested in hearing those stories myself. What do you say gentlemen?"
"Sure Cap, why don't you start us off," Mike suggested.
"Okay then, where should I start?" Hank leaned back and pulled on his chin in a thoughtful manner. "I guess it all started the summer after I graduated high school. I was looking for something to do until Maggie graduated. She had just finished her sophomore year and I had promised her I would wait for her." He gave Maggie's hand a quick squeeze and winked at her. "One of my friends told me about the National Park Services' smoke jumper's program. I was young and looking for some excitement. I definitely found my share of excitement."
"Captain Stanley, Sir, what's a smoke jumper?" Chris asked looking a little puzzled.
"Well Chris, ya see, smoke jumpers are a group of guys who are dropped in the remote areas of a forest fire with just their suits and pick axes or shovels. We would work the fire, slowly taking it out one inch at a time, while the flames battled back. Some times the flames were so hot you thought you would never win the battle. But then a tanker would do a water drop on your spot and you'd advanced a couple more yards until all the fire was out." Hank explained.
"Wow!" Chris breathed out, eyes wide with awe.
"So Cap, what brought you to the humble job of firefighting with L.A County," Marco asked while leaning forward to accept the beer that was passed to him by Chet.
"Actually, Maggie's responsible for that. When she graduated, she received a full scholarship to Cal. State for a degree in Elementary Education. I finished up the season with the smoke jumpers and then followed her to L.A. One of the guys that I worked with wrote me a recommendation for the Fire Academy and the rest is history. I guess you can say that at some point while I was out there in the middle of nowhere, the fire became part of my blood." Hank looked over toward his quiet engineer, "Well Mike, I guess since you volunteered me to go first, then I'll volunteer you to go next. Why did you become a firefighter?"
Mike Stoker sat there for a moment, looked up to the sky, and smiled slightly. When he looked back to the group he shrugged his shoulders and simply stated "It seemed like the right thing to do at the time."
Hannah looked up at him, elbowed him in the ribs and shook her head. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the 'Master of Understatement'. That's my man, the strong silent type. I guess if the story is going to be told I'll have to be the one to do it." Hannah said patting Mike's leg.
"When I first met Mike he had no intention of becoming of Fireman. It was our senior year of high school. I was new to the area cause my dad had just transferred from Hawaii to California with the Navy. I quickly learned that the place to go to catch the choice waves was Huntington Beach. So one day there I was riding in on the top of this perfect wave when all of a sudden some 'lo lo' comes hot doggin across the top and drops me in the drink."
"Hannah," Chris interrupted with a confused look on his face, "I know some surfer talk from listening to the older kids at school, but what is a 'lo lo'?"
"Sorry Chris, 'lo lo' is Hawaiian slang for a crazy person." Hannah explained and continued with her story. "So any way here I am hoppin mad, when this guy drops out of his ride and paddles back to me. He pulls up beside me and real quiet like says 'Sorry, you okay?' Needless to say I was speechless, which if you ask anyone who knows me is a rare thing. I had been all set to go toe to toe with some arrogant hot shot and instead I get Mr. Sincerity. I ended up spending the rest of the day surfing with him. I told him about surfing in Hawaii and he told me that he was going to become a professional surfer like The Duke or Rabbit. And he could have been too. He was that good."
"I never knew you surfed Mike," Johnny said a little surprised.
"When ever I get a chance, which isn't as often as I would like sometimes." Mike smiled and looked a little wistful.
"Maybe I could go out with you next time and you could show me a few moves. I tried it a couple times when I first moved here but never really had anyone to show me the ropes," Johnny said while chewing on a piece of grass.
"So why did you go from something like surfing to firefighting, and don't say 'because it seemed like the right thing to do'," Chet piped in, curious to get to the heart of the story.
Mike looked at Hannah with a somewhat sad and distant look in his eye, "Go ahead and tell the rest of the story, they have a right to know."
Hannah squeezed Mike a little tighter and gently kissed his cheek before continuing on. "Well actually it was Mike's twin brother, Joey, that wanted to be a firefighter. I guess since he was a little boy, it was all he ever talked about. He even was on the list to enter the Fire Academy for the fall class after they graduated from High School."
"Mike, you never told us you had a twin brother. How come we've never heard about or met him before?" Marco, who was very big into family, was surprised about this revelation.
Mike squeezed Hannah's hand, took a shaky breath, and as a single tear made its way down his cheek, he finished the story. "The summer after we graduated, Joey's draft number came up and he was sent to Vietnam. We had gone down to the post office to register together. I actually pushed Joey in front of me and told him that since he was the older one by two minutes he had to go first. If I had gone first it would have been my draft number that was called. Six months later, an Army Chaplin and Capt. came to our door and informed us that Joey's unit had been ambushed by the North Vietnamese. They couldn't find him or two other guys. He was listed as MIA, missing in action, and is thought to be a prisoner of war. The following fall I entered the Fire Academy. I discovered why Joey loved the idea of becoming a firefighter and I couldn't imagine doing anything else."
Everyone had become silent. Roy looked around he saw that the tears in his eyes where echoed in the eyes of all the other adults sitting there. "Is that his POW bracelet you have on?" Roy asked pointing to the silver band around Mike's wrist. "I've seen you wear it at other times, but never really looked close enough to see the name."
"Yeah." Mike said, looking down at the bracelet, "I can't wear it at work, but I always try to remember to put it on during special times like Memorial Day, our birthday, the day we received the news, other holidays, things like that."
"Wow, I couldn't imagine what it would be like if something happened to one of my brothers or sisters and then not knowing if they were okay." Marco said, sadly shaking his head. "I guess that is one of the reasons I became a firefighter, to help make sure families are safe and can stay together. I'll never forget that night when I was just 5 years old. Papa, Mama and I had just moved up here from Mexico and were staying with mi tio y ma tia, my uncle and aunt. We didn't have a lot so we cherished what little we did have and each other. So you can understand the fear and the heart break we felt when an apartment at the far end of the row caught fire and threatened to take away what little we had." Marco looked around and saw the solemn nodding of heads. "Thankfully the firefighters showed up quickly and I watched in amazement as they fought through the night to stop the fire from advancing. Here were a group of men putting their life on the line to protect my family's home and they didn't even know us. When the dawn broke, three out of 6 of the apartments were saved, ours was one of them. I remember my father and mother shaking the hands of the firemen and saying that they wished there was someway they could repay them. I knew my mom and dad didn't have any money so I snuck back into the apartment and found my small box of toys and got out my best soccer ball. I ran back to one of the firemen and tried to give him the ball. He must have understood what I was trying to do because he handed the ball back to me, knelt down and said 'Why don't you keep that ball. Knowing that you are having fun playing with it is payment enough.' I looked up at my dad and told him right then and there that some day I was going to grow up and be a fireman and help save other kids toys."
"So you mean to tell me that you've known since you were 5 years old that you wanted to be a fireman? You never thought of doing anything else?" Chet said looking over at his shift mate.
"Well, my Mama said that for a little while when I was 7, after I saw the movie West Side Story, I wanted to become a professional dancer. But firefighting won out." Marco smiled a little sheepishly.
Before Chet could come back with some joke about dancing, Johnny jumped to Marco's rescue. "So Chet, don't tell me that you didn't have any boyhood dreams of riding around on the back of a big red fire truck?"
"Actually Gage, I'll have you know that as a kid, I rode on the back of more fire engines than any of you ever will," Chet replied with a little smirk.
"In your dreams Chet, in your dreams," Johnny shot back.
"What? You don't believe me? Well then feel free to call the Boston Fire Department." Chet said, looking a little indignant.
"Why would I call the Boston Fire Department?" Johnny asked puzzled.
"Because if you must know, at their annual fireman's picnic you can't spit two feet with out hitting someone that I'm related to. My Grandfathers were both firemen and my Dad was a Battalion Chief when he retired. At last count, my oldest sister Colleen, her husband is a Battalion Chief and so is my oldest brother Ayden. Colin who is between me and Ayden just passed his Captain's exam. Tim, who is a year younger than me is an Arson Inspector. My little sister, Kathleen, is a dispatcher and my youngest brother, Brandon, just passed his Engineer's exam. That's not mentioning all my uncles and cousins."
"Wow Chet, I'm impressed. Why didn't you ever tell us you had such a proud fire fighting lineage?" Hank asked.
"What and have you guys always comparing me to my brothers or my dad?" Chet leaned back and shook his head. "Believe me if I had wanted that, I would have stayed in Boston so that one of my many relatives could assign me latrine duty. Let's just say the rest of my family didn't appreciate my sense of 'easing the tension'. So when I graduated High School, I joined the Navy to see the world. All I saw were the docks at Alameda. After my hitch was up I decided to stay out here on the west coast where I didn't have to live up to anyone's expectations."
"So, if you didn't want to become a firefighter on the east coast, why become one on the west coast." Johnny asked.
"Geeze Gage, weren't you listening. I never said I didn't want to become a firefighter, I just said I didn't want to have to do it where I was related to more than half the department. I mean, when it's in your blood, it's in your blood. Why fight genetics?"
"Uncle Johnny, did you want to be a firefighter when you grew up?" Chris asked
No one was surprised when Chet did not come back with any snide remark about 'dreaming of riding around on the back of a big red fire truck'. This past summer the gathered adults learned that Johnny had anything but a normal childhood spent on frivolous dreams. They learned that he had spent most of his childhood and teens surviving the abusiveness of his stepfather. Johnny looked around at the gathered group and wondered not for the first time how much he should let them know about his life before he met them. Knowing that none of them had turned from him when the whole story about his life on the reservation came out, he decided that he would give them the rest of the story, lightly censored of course since Chris was present.
"Well you all know that I spent most of my last year on the reservation with my track coach Jack Kemp and his wife Carol. They helped me to graduate and then relocate here to L.A. to get a way from my stepfather." Johnny looked at Roy. Roy was the only one who knew that in truth the Kemps had helped Johnny graduate early and that he was only fifteen years old and not eighteen when he came to L.A. Johnny continued on, "When I got here, I stayed with Carol's brother Nick. Nick was someone who very much believed that everyone had the right to do what ever they wanted as long as it did not hurt anyone else."
Hank smiled remembering the long haired hippie that had given him the letter for Johnny two months ago. He definitely had to agree with Johnny on his description of Nick.
"Well, I spent the summer months just drifting around the city and experiencing life."
"Was that when you tried surfing?" Hannah asked, wondering if they had ever crossed paths.
"Yeah, I had swum a lot in the lakes up in Montana, but I had never seen anything like the ocean and waves. I remember spending days just sitting at the beach watching the waves come ashore. Well, I was never one to sit idle, so after a couple months I found a job as an Iron Worker working on putting the frame work up on the upper levels of some of the skyscrapers. I guess all those years climbing the mountains made me perfect for the job. A couple weeks after my birthday, sometime in early September, I was just coming into work when I noticed a lot of activity. Several guys were shouting and pointing up to someone walking the beams on the 25th floor. Some one told me that one of the guys from the morning shift decided to have a little smoke during his break, except what he was smoking wasn't tobacco if you know what I mean. He hadn't hooked his safety back up and the way he was dancing around, I knew he wasn't going to last long up there. Some one yelled that they had called the fire department but the nearest Station wouldn't be there for approximately 10 minutes. I grabbed a rope and a belt and started climbing. By the time I reached the 25th floor I noticed the Engine and Rescue Squad had pulled up and the two rescue men were preparing to make their climb. By the time they reached me I had the guy secured with a belt ready to be lowered down. I remember one of the guys turned to the other and said 'Well Jim, I guess this kid's got everything taken care of up here. Maybe we should just go on back to the station.' The guy named Jim looked over at his partner and commented that even though I had managed to get the victim secured he didn't think I would be able to get him down since the guy had to out weigh me by at least 100 lbs. I had to agree with them on that point so the two of them hooked us up and lowered us down. After they got the guy bundled up and sent off to the hospital in an ambulance, one of the rescue men came up to me and said that I had done a really good job climbing up there and getting the guy secured. He told me that his name was Jim Page and that if I ever wanted to become a rescue man he would recommend me."
Roy looked at his partner in amazement, knowing that when all this took place Johnny was just barely sixteen years old. Roy shook his head and focused on the story that Johnny had continued telling.
"Well, I figured that it wouldn't hurt to check it out, so that January I applied to and was accepted to the Fire Academy (omitting the part about the 'help' he had with his age). By the end of the year I had completed my Rescue training and was assigned to station 110. A year and a half later, my Battalion Chief told me about this new 'paramedic' program and suggested I look into it. And you all know the rest of the story. By my next birthday, I had completed the paramedic program and then spent the last two years with the best partner in the department doing what I love the most, helping others." Johnny raised his bottle of beer and one by one the men of Station 51's A-Shift raised their bottles. "To helping others," they coursed.
Roy turned to his son, placed a hand under his chin and turned his head so that they were looking each other in the eyes. "That, Chris, says it all. We chose to do what we do, so that we may help others." Chris smiled up at his dad with pride shining in his young eyes.
The End.