What firefighters and people in our military and cops do is separate from what the rest of us do; basically these people say, 'I'm going to protect all these strangers.'
I basically - I don't like tattoos, unless you're a firefighter who has a tattoo that has to do with that or a military guy. That's - those are people who should have tattoos.
One thing that's great about firefighters: If they don't have the equipment they desperately need, they don't have the help, they don't care. They'll do it on their own.
Once you have a firefighter in your family, your family and the families from his crew become one big extended family.
Firefighters are some of the most selfless public servants you will ever encounter.
My charity is in the business of helping firefighters in any way that we can. For instance, after 9/11 we were the second-fastest charity to raise and distribute money to the widows and surviving family members of the 343 firefighters who died that day.
My cousin Jerry Lucey and five other firefighters died in a warehouse fire in Worcester, Mass. - my hometown - right in the middle of our old neighborhood downtown when a homeless couple started a fire to keep warm and the entire building went up. My cousin died trying to save homeless people who had already left the building.
Having dealt with a lot of real firefighters, I know there are a lot of guys who, for lack of a better term, become addicted to the grief because it has kept them connected to these guys that they felt responsible for having lost.
Firefighters don't go on strike.
It would be great if firefighters across the country had the guarantee that they would be making enough money to support their family right from the get-go, but that's not the case.
