If you were to study the life expectancy of police and fire 30 year employees it might help ease your pain and envy. The cold reality is that very few make it 30 years to get the brass ring and of those who do make it very few pull those checks for very long.
The “safety” employees have sweeter pensions, no argument there, but the average survivability is something like 7 years. Missed holidays, divorces, odd hours, life and death decisions that don’t always go the right way, guilt, pain and being demonized for either bad decisions or undue rewards, take their toll on the body and mind. There is only a certain amount of death, destruction and pain that a human can encounter before it takes it manifests itself physically.
In this woman’s case, do you think that pioneering an dangerous industry as a woman was an easy task, do you think she is without physical and emotional scar tissue.
I know everyone thinks what they do is hard and it probably is, but if it was a bet in a casino and you could choose a number of people with a variety of vocations, which do you think would live the longest in retirement? I would keep my money away from betting on the guns and hoses.
The average non police life expectency for males in the us is in the high 70’s, police life expectancy is between 53 and 66 depending on the study (various studies for different departments, some including less traditonal “cops” like park rangers, federal agents, marshals, etc. but the best scenario is 66), I imagine fire is similar. For the boys and girls who strap it on and head into the actual fires or fights, they will live only into their fifties, so do you really envy them now?
I don’t always care about a lot of people, but the cops, fireman and soldiers can have my tax money.
