For some of us, it seems like yesterday that we were just starting out on the fire department. For some it might have been just yesterday that we've started out on the fire department. Some of us started out as cadets or explorers, while others came on as probee firefighters. Everything was new, unfamiliar, and, at times, rather frightening.

I came on my department as a Cadet, and we were quite a team back then. I became a Cadet Lieutenant and my best friend became a Cadet Captain, and we weren't a force to be reconed with, the cadets as a whole. We trained together, worked together, even went down to Hocking College to a fire camp together. My captain and I helped set up trainings and the advisor overseed them. We would train with the hydrants, hoses, ladders, SCBAs, auto extrication, EMS backboarding, first aid, vital signs, just a bunch of stuff. We were still the center laughing stock of the department, and each time equipment broke, we were blamed for it.

Yeh. It all seemed so simple back then. Now we've crossed over that line of training but never actually applying, to train for it and do it like your life depended on it (and I mean that litterally). There is now a whole new wave of cadets that have taken our place. I like being part of a department with cadets, though, just because it gives us probees someone to pick on a little, and they're old enough and I'm young enough that I went to school with them and we became friends, so most of them don't get offended if I do pick on them.