DIANE MAKAR MURPHY After 50 years, these volunteers still answer the call

Raymond and Wilbur Kurtz, Earl Slagle and Paul Bowman have been Green Township volunteer firefighters for almost 200 years among them, and they're still going strong.
The Kurtz brothers and Slagle started in the early 1950s. Before the end of the decade, Bowman was on board, available, like the others, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to respond to barn and house fires, car accidents, grass fires, flooded basements and more ... all without pay.
In those early days, they were called to action by the fire station whistle or a phone call from a wife in the communication chain, alerting, "Fire in Greenford!"
They rushed from their farms to the station, grabbed any coat on the back of the truck and hung on. At the big bump on Lisbon Road, their feet flew up, and they hung on tighter.
At least once, the brakes didn't catch, and they went sailing past the fire.
Now, they've got beepers, a Jeep, an ambulance, a 3000-gallon tanker, a 1,200-gallon rescue truck, a firefighting truck, a 2,100-gallon tanker and a four-wheel drive hydrant truck of their own design. The times sure have changed.
"The first fire I went to was on Easter Sunday night," Ray recalled. "I had on my good Sunday shoes." He was 25, and the country was building up Civil Defense because of the Korean War. Ray volunteered and was trained as a firefighter.
First experiences
Earl Slagle's first fire brought considerably more discomfort than fighting it in Easter shoes.
"I'll never forget it," he said. "It was a house. There used to be several houses that were being built, and before they were completed, people moved in and lived in the basements. Well, the house was on fire, and we had the kids out of the basement, then one little kid ran back in ..." Slagle paused and sighed. "The boy was killed in the fire. I almost quit then."
Bowman's first call was a semi-truck fire. The driver burned to death.
"I saw two people burn in that first year," he said. "I was like Earl; I almost left."
But he didn't. "It's interesting work," he said by way of explanation. "It's good people."
"In the first year, one of the first things I remember, was a fellow in a loaded dump truck," Wilbur said. "I heard the whistles from the station and was heading there. On the way, I passed the burning dump truck, so I stopped. I had a little fire extinguisher, which did nothing, and the driver was screaming, and there was nothing I could do. And you have to take the body out of the truck afterward." He paused and looked down.
His brother concurred. "I had to pull a guy out of a vehicle, and he was so charred, my hands went into his flesh to his bone ... We had no gloves; my hands smelled for a week."
Counseling
Not only did they not have gloves, they had no formal counseling.
"The first time they had counseling available was in the last few years, when a truck tipped onto a child," Bowman said. "The EMT's hands were shaking; it was the first time I'd seen that."
For most of their volunteer years, the only counseling these firefighters had was from one another and from their wives. (Each of the men has celebrated a golden anniversary.)
The same thing that has kept them on the force -- the idea of neighbors needing help -- is what often makes it so tough to do the job. Victims are sometimes "the girl who lives down the street."
Still, in all, some calls, as Bowman said with a laugh, are just from "some drunk in a ditch who wishes we'd just leave him alone."
According to Ray, the 40 volunteer firefighters and EMTs get 130 to 150 calls a year; 24 calls came in 24 hours during the recent flooding. And despite responding to thousands of calls in their careers, none of the four has ever been seriously injured.
"The good Lord's been with us," Wilbur said.
"Most of the calls," Ray explained, "are boring. Some of the younger volunteers quit because so often the calls aren't anything."
These guys, however, have seen enough "real" calls to think boring calls are the better ones.
If you'd like to meet these real-life heroes, drop by the Green Township Fire Station open house, at 12210 Lisbon Road, Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. They have a lot more stories to tell.
murphy@vindy.com