Editor's Note: Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at the D.C. Armory. Interment will be held at the Fort Lincoln Cemetery on Bladensburg Road in Brentwood,
Md.WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- A D.C. firefighter who collapsed and later died in the line of duty had posted a message in 2011 directed at the DC Council.
Lieutenant Kevin McRae's Facebook post is dated December 2, 2011. It's unclear what prompted McRae to write the post, in which he explains what it meant to him to be a firefighter.
"Dear DC City Council: I do not get paid to sleep……..I get paid to be here late at night when someone you know gets hit by a drunk driver and needs to be cut out of their car and taken to the hospital for emergency surgery…..I get paid to be here on Christmas (and every other holiday) when you neighbor's house catches on fire and they need us to be there within minutes……..I get paid to be here duri............ng a blizzard, when nobody else can get to work, and respond to hundreds of emergency calls……..I get paid to be here during a hurricane to cut trees that have fallen down and blocked access to your street so that you can get home to your family………I get paid to be here when it's 100 degrees outside to help a tourist having a heart attack who needs immediate emergency medical care…………I get paid to be here in the event that we have another terrorist attack to protect the President of the United States and the men and women of the United States Senate………I do more with less, eat cold meals, miss important events with my family, and put the lives of people I have never met above mine. I love my job and only ask that you become familiar with exactly what I do before you make decisions that will affect my way of life"
McRae died May 6 while battling an apartment fire in Northwest, D.C.
Republished with permission of WUSA.
