National Fallen Firefighters Memorial

Leo Fire Company had the privilege of participating in the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service held at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, MD Sunday, October 5, 2008.  This memorial honors the life of all the firefighters killed in the line of duty for the prior year.  This consisted of 101 volunteer or paid firefighters from across the nation who died in 2007.  It was an honor to be a part of this service, one of which I believe all firefighters should partake in at some point in their lives.  We arrived dressed in our uniforms, which are navy blue.  We all lined the sidewalks throughout the campus on both sides, which they call the “sea of blue”.  The families of the 101 firefighters are then escorted down the sidewalk to their seats.  As a firefighter standing in the sea of blue, you are to look straight ahead and not move.  How difficult to do, when you see loved ones, wives, parents, children walking down the sidewalk knowing that their loved one should be standing next to me, not being honored at a memorial.  I pray that I never have to be a family member escorted down the sea of blue, or that our children never has to receive a flag in honor of our lives, as I saw many children do.

We all need to be safe in our daily lives.  Sometimes accidents do just happen, and there seems to be no reason or possible way to change what does happen.  This duty we serve, we sometimes take for granted how dangerous it can really be.  The pagers go off, we run out the door, leaving supper, family and pets behind, not really thinking we may never return.  We do this to help strangers, neighbors or friends.  The key to our duty however, is training and safety, same as all jobs in your daily lives.  You can never learn too much as each fire, accident or alarm is different.  Does having all the training classes you can take mean that you are the best?  No, but it does mean you have the knowledge to safely perform your job, you just have to put that knowledge to use.  If I don’t have the training does it make me unsafe?  No, but it could put my crew and others at risk on an incident, or myself at risk in which others must them risk their lives to safe. 

If I were to die in the line of duty, I don’t want to be remembered because I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, or didn’t have my protective clothing on, but rather that even with all my training and knowledge, fate just isn’t in our hands.  I don’t want our children to be angry because their parents death could have been prevented.  Remember to think of the family and friends you may leave behind, and how they will remember you.
Written By Julie Yahnke, President, FFII/EMT-B/Officer II

Click here to view more pictures from the event

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