The sacrifices Raleigh firefighters make to serve their city

From the time he was 16, my husband knew he wanted to be a fireman. Kevin’s love of the profession started in his hometown of Benson, and after years of volunteering as a junior fireman, he knew that helping the public was what he wanted to do. Securing a job with the City of Raleigh Fire Department was his goal. Being a fireman for the city was at one point a respected and sought-after career. Being accepted into the academy and wearing the Raleigh Fire Department uniform was a dream for most, if not all, young people in the fire service at that time.

After high school graduation, Kevin took a seasonal job with City of Raleigh Parks and Recreation, just hoping that getting a foot in the door would aid in his aspiration. He worked for the city for three years, working his way from seasonal, to equipment operator, to tree crew. The year he turned 21, Kevin applied for the Fire Department academy and, out of the hundreds of applicants, was selected.

Two months before his physical agility test, he was in a terrible accident with the tree crew; his foot was caught in a rope and he was thrown 20 feet, his climbing boot the only thing keeping his calf and lower leg in place. Sitting in the hospital, he knew that he couldn’t let his dream slip away. Even after the doctors told him he wouldn’t be able to run, let alone pass the test, Kevin not only finished the agility test, but did so as one of the top finishers.

My husband is an extremely hard-working individual, but not only that, he loves what he does. He doesn’t work for the fire department – he is a fireman. In this “fire family” you will often hear it said that it takes a special breed or it is in their blood. As someone who lives this life, I can promise you that is true. These men and women do this because it is who they are, and it is what they love.

They are the ones heralded as heroes when they do their jobs well, yet scolded and scorned if things don’t go as planned. They run head-first into buildings that others are leaving in fear. They are the employees who spend their days, nights, weekends and holidays away from loved ones. They work at minimum 3,340 hours a year, not including any part-time work. They miss Christmases and birthdays, graduations and weddings, retirements and funerals all to be there for the city.

This year will make nine years that my husband has been with the Raleigh Fire Department, 12 with the city in total. Other than promotions, the occasional one-time bonus or last year’s COLA, his salary has been frozen for eight years. Eight years. In that time he has moved away from home, gotten married, built a house and had a son, Colton Reed, who is 6 months old. To make ends meet, Kevin works three regular part-time jobs, sometimes as many as five. That is on top of my 40-hour-per-week job with a neighboring county government. There are some weeks that my husband sees his son for four awake hours Monday through Saturday because he has to work until dark every day that he is off from the city.

As a whole, the firefighters love the City of Raleigh, the city they serve and protect. Sometime in recent years, the prestige and honor that this city once gave to its employees have turned into bitterness and anger. The firefighters feel like they are being used and neglected by the city, which has brought morale plummeting to an all-time low. Not only are younger firefighters and police officers looking for employment elsewhere, firefighters who are vested with the city are leaving for the same positions.

I wish the City of Raleigh would love its firefighters the way that they love the city.

This story was originally published June 22, 2016 at 4:22 PM with the headline "The sacrifices Raleigh firefighters make to serve their city."