Retirement—Remembering the Past, Living for the Future
The dispatcher’s voice breaks the station’s silence. She announces this is the final alarm for Lt. Wilson and congratulates him on 26 years of dedication at the fire department. The dispatcher wishes him success and relaxation during his retirement. As Lt. Wilson shakes the hands of his company officers and members, thoughts begin to race through his head: "How did 26 years fly by? What am I going to do now? What does the future hold for me?"
Sound familiar? Maybe some readers have experienced these thoughts, or perhaps have heard them from friends who retired from the fire service. Either way, the inevitable will happen to us all. Retirement will creep up on us, and the one question we should each be asking today is, "Will I be ready for the day?"
This article isn’t about financial concerns surrounding the topic of retirement, though this is an important issue. No, this article considers the emotional aspects of retirement and how the lack of planning can affect you and your family.
I started collecting statistics on firefighter suicides in late 2010. It was in response to the many phone calls, emails and conversations from and with people I talked to who knew firefighters who had taken their lives. It was with this information I created Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance (FBHA) in 2011.
As of writing this article, I have received 216 reports of firefighters taking their own lives. Within that data, 64 of those were retired firefighters; I wonder how many have taken their lives that I don’t know about.
Tradition shows us that after all our years of service, we’re awarded some gift, maybe a party and a thank-you for all we’ve done. These are nice gestures at that time, but we need to prepare our firefighters at least a year before retiring to acclimate them into a lifestyle they abandoned long ago. Remember, this doesn’t affect just career firefighters but paid-on-call (POC) and volunteer firefighters as well. Their years of dedication to their community, leaving their families when paged out and constant training are well documented.
Firefighters are usually classified as type-A personalities. We’re action oriented, aggressive and love challenges. A high percentage of career firefighters have second jobs, and POC and volunteers hold down primary jobs as well as dedicating time to their departments.
Written by: Jeff Dill who is an assistant chief for Palatine Rural Fire Protection District in Inverness, Ill. He is the founder of Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance, a licensed counselor and a member of the IAFC’s Safety, Health & Survival Section.
