September 11

September 11 is a day that means a little more to firefighters (and to be fair, other emergency personnel as well) than I think it does to the general public. Here in Morongo Valley our local elementary school put together a ceremony to honor those that died in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and to honor their "local heroes." They invited members of the San Bernardino Sheriffs Department, the California Highway Patrol, Marines from 29 Palms military base and firefighters from the Morongo Valley Fire Department to a ceremony. the honored those lost with a moment of silence and had the Marines lower the American Flag to half staff while playing taps. They then honored us by having a child (one child per person being honored) give us each a medal and a certificate while our names and titles were read off. We often get people thanking us for what we do when we are out in public. It's not often thought that we get stood in front of a crowd and called heroes. This experience was more than a little humbling for me. Some of us ended up getting our picture in the local newspaper. Yes, I bought ice cream for that.