Firemen

What is a Fireman????

He's the guy next door, a mans man with the memory of a little boy,

He's never gotten over the excitement of the engines and sirens and danger,

He's the guy like you and me, with warts and worries and unfilled dreams.

Yet he stands taller than most of us, He's the Fireman.

He puts his life on the line when the siren blows.

A fireman at once the most fortunate and the least fortunate of men.

He's a man who saves lives, because he's seen too much death.

He's a gentleman because he has seen awesome power of violence out of control.

He's responsive to a child's laughter, because his arms held too many small bodies that will never laugh again.

He's a simple man who enjoys the simple pleasure's in life, hot coffee held in numb, unbending fingers, a warm bed for bone and muscle compelled beyond feeling

The camaraderie of brave men and the divine peace and selfless service, a job well done.

He doesn't wear buttons or wave flags or shout obscenities, when he marches its to honor a fallen comrade.

He doesn't preach the brotherhood of man, he Lives It.

Heres another poem I had published earlier, but needed a few more words to add to the prior peom.

I WISH YOU COULD.......

I wish you could see the sadness in that poor gentleman's eye's as his livelihood and business burn to the ground or that family returning home, only to find their belongings and home, damaged or destroyed.

I wish you could see what it is like to search a burning bedroom for missing children, flames rolling violently above, your palms and knees burning as you crawl, the floor sagging immensely as the room below you is being devoured by flame.

I wish you could see a wife's horror at 4 a.m. as I check her husband of fifty years for a pulse and find none. I start CPR anyway, hoping against hope to bring him around, knowing in my heart that it is too late. But wanting his wife and family to know that everything possible was tried.

I wish you could see and smell burning insulation, the taste of soot-filled mucus, the feeling of intense heat radiating through your turnout gear, the sound of flames crackling, and the feeling of being able to see absolutely nothing through the dense, dark smoke - the sensation I have become all too familiar with.

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