Having served as a volunteer in North Carolina, I can appreciate but not fully validate your feelings towards firefighters. Firefighting is a young man’s job, just as was infantry for me as well. Even a 61 year old police officer is not going to be up to every law enforcement task the beat if forced to deal with all situations. Fighting fires is one one of them most strendous and dangerous professions on earth.
Yeah, I've heard that, but it doesn't wash here. The unionized firefighters here have nothing more than three stories with which to deal, and who spend their time “promoting” even more “safety items” so they can sit around the “house eating and sleeping.” Now here, when you build a single-family home, it has to have fire sprinklers. And when it comes time to “inspect properties” in the area for weed abatement, instead of sending out someone in a pickup truck, the union rules specify that the “inspections” be done by the FF’s so they use a pumper truck to make their tour. Firefighters here are simply disgraceful PE Union goons who are paid handsomely for doing very little. Here they "shop for the house" at the most expensive market in town. A place that I can't afford to patronize. And then we have the situation down in Los Angeles where the Lifeguards at the Beach are FF’s so they get to retire at 50 after spending their worthless lives ogling women on the beach. It's just nuts!