Training, Training and More Training

At 0800 on Thursday morning I was in by uniform at work awaiting the morning lineup. At about 0815 I was informed that I should get changed into my shorts and MVFD t-shirt and that I would be wearing that all day. At about 0900 the training began. We started out with bunker drills (getting dressed for a fire in full turnout gear with your SCBA). We did bunker drills for a while then we switched to hoses. In full turnouts and SCBA I had to pulled the 4" hose and attach it to a fire hydrant. We did this for a couple of hours with the 4" and 2 1/2" hose lines. I then was instructed to pull 200' of 1 3/4" line to various positions around the station. I did this over and over again. Then we drove over to the church and did a reverse hose pull. Under normal conditions the engine will stop at the hydrant and someone will jump off and grab the hose that will connect the engine to the hydrant. A reverse hose pull is where the engine is at the fire and needs to drop off everything the firefighter may need to fight the fire for the next 15 minutes. We did this training until dinner. At dinner we had steak and potatoes. It tasted great. As soon as we were done the company officer called for another drill. This time I did evolutions of all the different typed of hose pulls that I had done earlier in the day. I got pushed to my limits and then started to dry heave. I really didn't want to taste the steak again. At that point they called the drilling off and told me to relax. Later on in the shift the engineer talked with me about how hard they were pushing me. I guess he was worried that I might not understand why they were doing it. I assured him that I completely understood and would continue to give 100% without complaint.