Picture That I took of the sun on 8-12-02. At the Sour Biscuit Fire.

I wish you could.

An Original poem by Robert C. Aten

(Gathered from personal experiences)

I wish you could know what it is to search a burning bedroom for trapped children, flames rolling above your head, your palms and knees burning as you crawl, the floor sagging under your weight as the kitchen beneath you burns.

I wish you could comprehend a wife's horror at 3 A.M. as I check her husband of forty years for a pulse and find none. I start CPR anyway, hoping against hope to bring him back, knowing intuitively it is too late. But wanting his wife and family to know everything possible was done.

I wish you could understand how it feels to go to school in the morning after having spent most of the night, hot and soaking wet at a multiple alarm fire.

I wish you could be in the emergency room as the doctor pronounces dead the beautiful little five-year old girl that we have been trying to save during the past twenty-five minutes, who will never go on her first date or say the words, "I love you Mommy!", again.

I wish you could read my thoughts as I help extricate a girl of teenage years from the mangled remains of her automobile, `What if this were my sister, my girlfriend, or a friend? What are her parents' reactions going to be as they open the door to find a police officer, HAT IN HAND?

I wish you could realize the physical, emotional, and mental drain of missed meals, lost sleep and foregone social activities, in addition to all the tragedy my eyes have viewed.

I wish you could know how it feels to walk in the back door and greet my father, not having the heart to tell him that I nearly did not come home from this last call.

I wish you could feel the joy of knowing that through your actions a life was saved, and the future that was regained.

Unless you have lived this kind of life, you will never truly understand or appreciate who I am, or what my work really means to me.

I WISH YOU COULD!