Courage
...ains a heroic and noble profession. The images of fire professionals we see on television and in film are often romanticized versions of day-to-day life on the job. What is the life of a firefighter really like? Annual starting salaries for firefighters in major cities fall in the range of $28,000 to $46,000. For a firefighter no two days are alike, and the work is as varied as it is unpredictable. Firefighting is a physically demanding and dangerous occupation. Meeting such hazards requires certain kinds of personal and social qualities. When I think of honor and valor I think of the courageous firefighters who sacrifice their lives everyday to save the lives of strangers. Furthermore, some of the world’s greatest courage is represented through its countries soldiers. These soldiers go into battle everyday with bullets blasted at their tired bodies, not knowing if they are going to stay alive another day, hour or even minute. To be relentlessly under the fire, to be in the face of your worst enemy and still push foreword merely because it is the right thing to do for your country, that is what I call courage. For soldiers, courage is natural instinct. President George Bush praised the "fierce courage" of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan on Memorial Day that followed another weekend of fighting in Iraq and the deaths of four United States servicemen. However, you don’t have to be a soldier or firefighter to be courageous. Courage is not only revealed through the firefighters or soldiers in our community but through everyday citizens as well. We usually tend to think of courage in larger-than-life terms. We think of people who have faced insurmountable odds or who have ignored consequences to themselves as they stood up for others. We tend to think of extraordinary people when we think of courage, such as Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, or Nelson Mandela. Have you ever thought of a friend, parent or even a grandparent could have courage too? Following the attacks of September 11, three years ago, we witnessed and honored the courage of not only professional rescue personnel, but of ordinary citizens, who, faced with unthinkable circumstances, demonstrated the best of humanity in their thoughtfulness and actions. Sometimes courage ...