I had a chat with a friend of mine the other day. Folks that know me, either know him or have heard of him. Such is the high esteem in which I hold him.
He is a veteran of Desert Storm. His uniform contains some serious fruit salad.
A decade or so after that conflict, he entered the healthcare field as a paramedic. There are lots of stories to tell there.
But the comment that made us pause was the moment self realization that he had begun to care about people...again.
The irony here is that while he wore our nation's uniform, he was charged with being a living implement of mayhem, destruction, and death among our enemies. Yet during that time, he possessed a significant sense of caring and compassion for other humans.
Years later, that sense of compassion was severely undermined by his near decade long experience as a paramedic. When most people would have assumed that he would have cared the most for others, he found that sense of compassion slipping away.
Spend a little time reading The Most Interesting Ambulance Crew In The World on Facebook. Paramedics and EMTs spend waayyy too much time servicing people that could either drive to a hospital, wait to see their doctor in the morning (and yes they have doctor's), or just need a little better sense of perspective.
My friend tells stories....lots of stories...that are just as bad and many that are worse. The one that comes first to mind is the run to a home where a teenage girl was undergoing a severe emotional crisis...because of a bad haircut. And her parents called EMS.
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