It worked out pretty good - better than nothing.  I left the YMCA in late fall 2001.  Then as fate would have it, I picked up some actual paid shifts with the Emergency Medical Service for 2002 and 2003 - they needed people to watch weekend shifts and they were willing to pay more than a stipend. Like so many small-town ambulance services they lacked people that actually lived in town nowadays. And, if they do live in town they most likely commuted to Madison or Monroe during the day for work.  Weekends were sparse as well.  The whole dynamic of the volunteer fire/ambulance rubric had evolved way beyond the days that the shop keeper rushed out to answer the fire bell. 

    They now would actually pay a little hourly wage for the time one sat at the building and took a six-hour shift - at least for a couple years.  So many small services have money problems.  However, my service found some cash to bolster up their roster for a couple years at least until the money ran out.  The give and take was that in order to qualify we had to stay on site; or, at the very least hover around the village.

    One of my colleagues was a young college student soon-to-be medical student. I was an older college student still wondering what I would be when I grew up.  That was the type of volunteer the services attracted now.  If you please, we had extra career motives along with the traditional altruistic ones.  I loved the social-psychology dynamics of the rural ambulance / fire service culture. My colleague if I may be so bold, used the experience to enhance her knowledge of the medical world at-large.  Regardless, we frequently teamed up to take shifts together.

    I spent hours on site waiting for ambulance calls. On that small rural service they were often few and far between. They seemed to come in bunches. In the mean time, I studied my college work ad nausea.  It was a good place to do it - I was trapped.  It was a newer building standing alone from the fire building.  It had a large conference room, a small office, a handy kitchen, and a lounge.  Eventually they added three sleeping rooms. 

    There was limited activities in the village....a few bars with eats, a couple cheap eateries. a pizza joint, a bunch of tourist shops and restaurants, a sad little video store, and an old bowling alley. Once in a while I would watch a movie on one of the televisions at the building.  Sometimes we played cards.  But, mostly I studied.  

    In the course of 10 years on the service, I went from a humble Madison tech school student plunking computer keyboards, to studying pre-law at the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater, and finally to a graduate journalist student also at the university.  

    Much of my college success I must attribute to those long hours in that quiet ambulance building, studying and reading.  Suddenly, I looked up one day and I was getting paid a humble part-time hourly wage, and in grad school.  Like will happen in life, change came, the money ran out for the little paid gig.  I finished my graduate work to the best of my ability. Heide and I moved to Janesville and because of distance, I left the EMS. My young colleague is now a doctor out East somewhere, and I,....well I still work crappy jobs to get by.

    At least college taught me the difference between a rectal colon, a punctuation colon, and a semi-colon. So the one thing I seem to be able to do now is write books.  Maybe some day somebody will read one of them.  

   Note: This blog "Jobs of Bob" Category does not list the jobs chronologically - I write about the experiences as they pop up in my memory and I often revisit an older job.  Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Jobs of Bob Page  for an ordered chronology.

                        Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
    (each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan)

    Army Sergeant Daniel James Thompson, 24, of Madison, Wisconsin, died on Tuesday, February, 24, 2009, in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He was killed in combat by an improvised explosive device which detonated near his vehicle. He was a member of the Individual Ready Reserve, when assigned to the 715th Military Police Company out of Melbourne, Florida. He was one of four soldiers killed in the incident.
    The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quoted an Associated Press report that family members noted that Thompson loved cars, and playing hockey. He also had a motorcycle. Thompson joined the Wisconsin National Guard while still at Portage High School. He graduated from Portage in 2003. Daniel went on to earn a degree in criminal justice and law enforcement from Madison Area Technical College in 2006 where he was on the Dean's list three of four semesters. He then worked for a security company in Madison. He had hoped to pursue a career as a police officer. He also entertained the option to explore his love of photography and art after finishing his military service. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel went on to mention Daniel played on a Portage area hockey team while in high school; he also enjoyed swimming and playing football. He was remembered as a good natured guy. At the time of his death Thompson was engaged to be married to a nursing student he met in college. Before leaving for Afghanistan, Daniel gave his Boston Terrier named Diggie to his fiancée. Thompson was due to come home in August of 2009 and finish his military obligation in December of 2009. 
    The Website afghanistan.pigstye.net noted the other three soldiers killed in the incident were from Maryland, Oklahoma, and Illinois. The site went on to explain Thompson belonged to the Wisconsin National Guard until 2007, when he was placed on inactive status until he was called back for duty in Afghanistan with the Florida military unit. Sergeant Thompson was the first person with roots in Portage, Wisconsin, to be killed in either Iraq or Afghanistan. 
    The Website wiscnews.com noted that Daniel was born on August 20, 1984. Some of his training at Madison Area Technical College took place at the Portage Campus. He went on to work for Brinks Armored Truck in Madison. Daniel originally was with the 32nd Military Police Company, Wisconsin Army National Guard, based in Madison, until his honorable discharge in 2007. He then was in the Individual Ready Reserves (inactive reserves) at the time of his duty call-up and subsequently assigned to the Florida unit.
    At the time of his death Sergeant Daniel Thompson was survived by his parents Lisa and Bob Thompson; his fiancée Maria Steinke; his aunt Vicky (Keith) Wruck; his uncle Mark (Jean) Erd; his aunt Dee (Paul) Voigt; his uncle Mike (Kara) Thompson; and, grandparents Richard (Cathie) Thompson. He was preceded in death by his grandparents Russell Erd and Marian "Windy" Erd. Sergeant Daniel Thompson was the 12th Wisconsin service person to be killed in Afghanistan since October of 2001. 

         As of this blog entry's posting date:

   0 American and Coalition casualties in Libyan "Operation Odyssey Dawn" since March 2011

    100,456 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
    
    9,903 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    4,451 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    1544 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    318 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    872 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    32,066 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    11,032 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    107 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    30 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    148 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    4 journalists (regional agencies and independents) have been killed in Libya since March of 2011.

Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org;  Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf; and, icasualties.org.

 

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