You must be a special kind of person to willingly choose to be a firefighter. It is not a very glamorous job for most of them unless they might have been chosen to grace the pages of one of the hunky or luscious body calendars that have become so popular. This kind of thing might be the only real glory they ever get because the majority of the time they are in the station waiting patiently for the next call to come in that could possibly take their life.

As with the spouses of police officers, it must be bad for the spouses of firefighters as well. Sending your loved one to work each day and not being so sure at all that they will be coming back home when their shift is over. The majority of firefighters are just normal men and women who work this job because they care about saving others from what are often life threatening situations. They are responsible from rescuing everything from little babies, elderly people, and even pets from trees. Not every job they are called to puts them in real danger, but the thing is that they never know which call will be one that does.

The most recent event that caused most of us to really recognize and more fully understand and appreciate the jobs that firefighters do was the 9/11 tragedy. We unfortunately got to see first hand what these men and women are really made of and it is of stuff that a lot of us just do not possess. They selflessly put there lives on the line for hour after hour rescuing everyone they could. Some of them went back into the burning twin towers several times to help as many people get out as they possibly could and in the process over 340 of them lost their lives in the line of that duty.

Many of the firefighters that did survive that dreadful day are now living with health problems that are a direct result of the rescue attempts they made and being exposed to the smoke and toxins that surrounded the devastated area. Many of these firefighters that survived that day have since died because of the health related issues, so it seems that 9/11 is still wreaking havoc on lives even now.

For every time that someone picks up the phone and calls 911 to ask for help because of a fire, just know and remember that to save you and your family, a firefighter some where will be risking his life and his families future to protect yours.