Volunteers Corner: part-time officer, full-time responsibility

摘要

As a nation, we want our emergency services delivered with immediacy and aggressiveness. Firefighters in particular need to be young, fit, smart, fearless college graduates who are dedicated beyond reasonability, on-scene in moments, and imminently prepared to tackle any emergency with technical expertise and cool dispatch. In short, if you're an American firefighter, you are a model of professional standards. It follows, then, that if you are a fire officer, you set, implement, and follow those same professional standards to the letter. If you happen to be a part-time, paid on-call, volunteer, or brigade-level fire officer, we don't want to be able to distinguish you from your paid contemporaries. The title fire officer no longer is qualified with language alluding to the amount of time you commit to protecting your community.