I’ve been able to do some awesome things through my journalism career.

I’ve rode in a racing boat. I’ve met celebrities. I’ve been in press boxes during professional sports events. I’m a regular on radio and podcast waves. I’ve written for Yahoo!, 15 different newspapers, and six numerous magazines. I’ve taken behind the scenes tours of awesome events and buildings. I could go on and on, you get it.

Maybe it’s recency bias, but one of the coolest (OK, hottest) things I’ve ever done happened on Sunday, March 9 when the Sublette Fire Department allowed me to put on fire fighter gear and join cadets during their training program and enter the training trailer, which was ablaze a fire of temperatures 500-plus. I literally meant hottest.

Believe it or not, at one point in my life, not very long ago, I had grabbed an application to become a Mendota firefighter, but I never turned it in because training would affect my ability to work and pay bills.

With that said, this was an opportunity I wasn’t going to turn down or fight against when Assistant Chief Nick Dinges asked me if I wanted to be a cadet for 20 minutes.

I learned a few things.

First, the gear is heavy. Dinges said the boots, pants, jacket, gloves, protective head gear, the safety equipment, the oxygen tank, and other apparatuses weigh somewhere between 50-60 pounds. With the gear on, I maneuvered 300-plus pounds through the trailer.

After climbing the steps to enter the training trailer, cadets have to crawl through a hallway to get to the area where the fire has engulfed the structure. My knees didn’t touch the floor more than three times during the crawl, and I was already sweating. It was hard to see as your mask fogs up, it’s pitch black, and you don’t know which way to go, at least your first time through the training. In a real fire, I’m guessing firefighters are never, or very rarely, in locations they can navigate easily without visuals.

Never wearing an oxygen mask and breathing through a hose and tank and feeling this type of heat, it was hard to breathe at times. I pushed myself along because, if these high school students could do it, I could do it. I’m uber competitive.

Once I found my destination, on the side of the trailer behind Dinges, I got to watch the real cadets go to work as they approached the fire with a hose and began trying to secure the flames, the heat, and the structure.

It was an awesome experience to say the least. I watched in amusement as these kids communicated with each other and asked Dinges questions about proper procedure. 

I did realize why Sublette Fire Chief Kevin Schultz said being a fireman is a young man’s game. Crawling back toward the exit, my knees ached and popped through the hallway. After I took the gear off, my back yelled at me for a few seconds about the extra strain I put it through. I smiled and thought to myself, ‘It’s worth it. And if I did this on a regular basis, those pains wouldn’t exist.’

They went away quickly, but if I was 19 instead of 39, well, you know.

What will stick with me the most is the appreciation and gratitude I developed for what these cadets were doing and what firefighters all over the country do on an everyday basis. Only a fool would call anything they do as easy, but once you’ve had the experience, you can truly see how challenging and tough the job is. I give kudos to every individual who has ever volunteered or worked for a fire department.

I thank Dinges, Schultz, Assistant Chief Brian Dallam, Byron Fire Chief Andy Politsch (a 1996 Mendota High School graduate) for guiding me through, Lt. Brian O’Malley for helping me gear up because I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out without him.

Maybe it’s time to get back in shape and join a department…