Rick Lasky's article "Pride and Owndership, the Love for the Job The Firefighter" seems cheesy and dramatic in a positive way, and that's a good thing. The way he describes the values of a fireman radiates pride in his industry, both in the work and the people he's worked with. They definitely feel like the words of someone who's been in love with his profession for a good while.
Most firemen I've had the pleasure of meeting have all been in, or plan to be in, the fire industry for life. Lasky talks about pride, honor, integrity, and more, but the trait I notice the most is loyalty, both to the people they work with and their sense of duty. I can't name five people outside the fire and military industries who I know would trade their weekly earnings for the opportunity to protect people. I believe his words on being a fireman taking a special kind of person to be true.
While reading this article, a scene from the film American Sniper comes to mind. At the beginning of the film, the protagonist's father makes a metaphor about the three different types of people in the world being wolves, sheep, and the sheep dog. In short, wolves try to prey on the sheep and the sheep dogs protect them while the sheep just go about their lives. Obviously fires aren't what he meant by wolves, but the men and women of the fire industry I can easily see as the sheep dogs, blessed with the gift of aggression towards protecting others.
To get to the point, I'm unsure where my career goals in the fire industry lie. They may lie in a different industry all together, being military. But these two industries seem to take a special kind of person to sacrifice parts of their life, possibly safety, and even income for the sake of their profession and the safety of people as a whole. Within either industry I will not become the worlds next millionaire, but I will be able to carry something money can never buy, a single word worth more than all the money in the world. Pride.
I really enjoyed reading your response. The parts specifically about really seeing loyalty in people that you have met in the fire service. I too have seen this and it appears to be with some of the better firefighters I've seen. It is easy to see where the loyal ones lie with each other and they tend to be the ones who have been around longer or went into this type of career field realizing what it entailed. It truly does take special people to fall into this line of work. The comparison of the fire service to the quote out of the movie American Sniper and the types of people that exist is extremely accurate to me as well.
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