I am VERY proud of my local volunteer firefighters!

[Terry Sumner]

I am so very proud of the VOLUNTEER members of our local Fire Departments! Yesterday, in below freezing temperatures, the VOLUNTEER members of the Jewett City, Griswold, and a couple of other nearby Departments, held a Boot Drive to raise money to help the families of the 4 dead teenagers in that horrendous crash on Tuesday. Apparently none had any kind of life insurance on their children to pay for funeral costs so any monies that could be raised was to go to them for that purpose. Well friends, these VOLUNTEERS, many of whom were on the accident scene and witnessed the human carnage and had a hard time handling it, stood out in the middle of Main St in Jewett City yesterday holding out a Fireman's Boot to raise money from passing motorists. The weather was clear but freezing cold and they did this from 8 AM to 8 PM. In the very first hour they had collected $5,000! I never saw main St. in our litle town so busy! People heard about the boot drive on the radio stations and on the Noon TV news and were coming from all over eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island just to drop money into the boots for those victim's families! By the time they ended the drive at 8 PM they had collected over $54,000 in cash!!!!! And this is not counting all the checks that people threw in nor what will come in the mail from other folks who could not get there yesterday. Simply amazing!!!

This is what I love about my small hometown! In the face of this tragic accident that claimed 4 young lives, the whole town and literally the whole of eastern Connecticut has come together to support the victim's families with the VOLUNTEER firefighters leading the way! This complete unselfishness characterizes the best of what our VOLUNTEERS do...provide community Service on a VOLUNTEER basis! I was in public service as a State Trooper for 22 years, so I know what it's like to put yourself out there in service. But I was paid for my work....these folks do it everyday, UNPAID, on a VOLUNTEER basis. My hat is off to all of them! Well done folks! And if any of you are volunteer firefighters, my hat is off to you too! My thanks to all volunteer firefighters for their service

[DRG]

Thank you for posting this and I could not agree more.

With all the bad news we hear about on the evening news and read about in our newspapers it is easy to become calloused and uncaring.

It does the heart and soul good to hear positive and heartfelt news.

[David G.]

Every Firefighter I've ever met is a hero. Period. What other kind of person volunteers to run toward a situation that everybody else is running away from?

I'm glad they were able to get such a good response. Thanks for posting the story.

Regards,

David G.

[Danno]

Thanks, Terry, for posting that. What occurred in your community is an extraordinary demonstration of people at their best ... the firefighters, their families and friends, and the generous contributors!

I retired from the fire service after 21-1/2 years as a volunteer firefighter, officer, and investigator. Later, I was fortunate to be a volunteer at the National Hall of Flame, helping care for the world's largest collection of firefighting apparatus and memorabilia, and memorials to fallen firefighters from around the world.

I am proud to say that trait of unselfish contribution to community (time, money, effort, care, and sometimes life) runs deep throughout the volunteer fire service, no matter where or who their constituents are. I've seen it time and again.

Many people think of the fire service as being well paid civil servants on a public payroll supported by a public funds budget. Many people don't realize that approx. 85% of the population of the USA is served and protected by volunteer fire departments such as yours, Terry. And many people also do not realize that many of those volunteer departments aren't as well funded and supported as the TV shows portray; that many of those volunteers who lay their personal lives and all-too-often their physical lives on the line for their communities do so at much their own personal expense ~~~ paying their own way through training, equipment purchases, etc. And yet they never fail to be there when it really counts.

Thanks for your observations and comments, Terry. Your local volunteer fire department consists of heros, no question. But I'll bet they don't hear it often enough, but they need to hear it. Your messages about this community tragedy and their performance in all aspects of it, have been well earned and well deserved. Thank you for speaking about it. Usually, that sort of tribute is all the dedicated emergency service volunteers need.

(Putting soapbox back in the rear corner of the room now. You all may stand down and resume normal activities.)

[Terry Sumner]

Well ours isn't very well funded as you said. In fact right now, I have the depts' 1977 Dodge 1 ton pickup in my garage. Volunteers from the volunteer dept have been in my garage a few nights a week for the past couple of months working on this rescue vehicle. We have removed the 8' regular bed and are replacing it with a used utility body they found for $250.00. It was kinda beat and needed a lot of work. The boys went around and got a lot of stuff donated...the thing was sandblasted by a local company for just the cost of the media...a local auto paint store donated some bondo and primer and paint and sanding supplies...and a bunch of other parts were donated by other folks. My son is painting the entire vehicle...cab and body. One of the boys is good at wiring and is rewiring all the lights. It wouldn't run well and the carb was trash so we found a new manifold and carb on evilbay and I'm getting the engine up to snuff. All this so the guys can have a decent vehicle as a first responder instead of sending the big trucks out (I think)

And these guys are doing it all themselves...barely a trickle of assistance finacially from the town. Sad.....

And btw, I'm not a fireman nor a member of the dept.

[crazyjim]

It's a wonderful thing to be a volunteer and not only a volunteer firefighter. Heck, you get to put in long hours with no pay. I shouldn't say that "no pay". The payment comes from people, individuals, who appreciate the work/services that volunteers perform.

Terry, you should be proud of your local volunteer firefighters - they are heroes!

[Peter Lombardo]

This, in my eyes, is a perfect demonstration of one of the most screwed up aspects of our society. Our police, fireman, both volunteer and professional, first responders of all kinds, all branches of the military and others in related fields, are the true American Heroes.

The media wants us to believe that actors, musicians and athletes are the only ones we should look up to. For the most part they are not worthy of this kind of admiration.

It is the neighbor down the street, the guy owns the shop on main street who is a fireman when the alarm is sounded is the one worthy of praise.

Think about those guys who stood in lower Manhattan on September 11th, looking up at those two burning buildings, knowing that they were running into the mouth of the Lion, yet they ran as fast as they could into the buildings as others were running away. It was their job and they do it professionally every day.

Just remember.....think about this....your wife is driving home late at night in a rain storm, the road is slippery and she loses control and drives into a ditch and bangs into a tree. At that moment in time, who do you want to be driving by a rock musician or a local patrolman?

We, as Americans, need to get back to the ideals that made this country great. We need to focus on our local heroes and the contributions they make to our lives every day. The story that Terry relayed to us here is one of compassion and self sacrifice. Helping others in their time of need one of the most noble gestures we can preform....those local volunteer fireman deserve our admiration and respect...they went above and beyond the call of duty....but for first responders and care givers, that is all in a days work.

[mikemodeler]

Peter- could not have said it better, thank you for expressing my thoughts and probably those of many others.

Terry- thank you for helping the local fire department, I am sure they will remember who it was that opened up their garage to help them with their truck rebuild.

My father-in-law is a retired firefighter who at age 68 is still active in every espect of firefighting. He serves on several boards and works tirelessly with several organizations in helping many people. One of his proudest accomplishments is the service he established helping first responders with assistance at the scene of fire and police emergencies. Like the volunteer firefighter, he is on call 24/7 and responds to an emergency as an unpaid volunteer, all in the name of providing a warm meal, a hot or cold drink, a warming bus or cooling bus (depending on the season)and if needed, a porta potty. I used to help him when I lived near him and still to this day help when we visit the area. I saw first hand how brave the folks are in many different situations, whether they be fire or police. No doubt many of them do a job that most of us would consider dangerous and for pay that any sane person would consider too little.

Off the soap box, back to regularly scheduled programming!