"We get paid shit, we’ll always get paid shit because the politicians got us by the balls because we’ll never go on strike. Yeah, this country respected us after 9/11, they put the spotlight on us but now, because this country has ADD, we’re back to being glorified garbage men. Garbage men with booze and drug problems, but garbage men nonetheless. You know what I should do? I should let you come down to the burn unit and show you what we’re always this close away from. Let you ride the rig with us for a couple days so you can see the shit, you can see the little kids with lips so charred that when you give them mouth to mouth their lips stick to yours, or the dead babies, you know? Who died in their sleep because the fire spread so quick, and their backsides are melted to the mattress underneath them…Listen. That’s one side of the coin. The other side..there isn’t a job on the whole goddamn planet I would rather do than this one. Because every day, you do feel like you made a difference, like you gave something back. I came down here, truthfully, to talk you out of this but, I can’t do it. This fire thing is in our blood, it’s in our families’ bones. My Dad was a firefighter, his Dad was a firefighter…Kid, if you really make the move, I think you’re going to enjoy being a firefighter. There’s nothing like it."
Tommy Gavin, Rescue Me
