Last Shift for a While

At about 7:00 this morning Firefighter Aaron Herschman will walk out of Beltsville Station 31 and he doesn’t expect to return for at least a year. He is Sergeant Herschman with the Maryland Army National Guard and his unit is about to start a second tour of duty in Iraq.

This same unit, including Sergeant Herschman, returned from Iraq last May. This will be the unit’s third deployment since September 11th, 2001.

Aaron Herschman is one of about 6 career firefighters in Prince George’s County who have been deployed. The number of volunteer firefighters from the County wasn’t immediately available.

Herschman’s fellow firefighters from the 6th Battalion joined him for a pizza lunch at Station 31 on Wednesday. I am sure he enjoyed that, but I am surprised he didn’t get heartburn from answering all of the questions we reporters have at times like these. You can see our efforts here.

Even if our questions were silly ones, you wouldn’t have known it by the way Aaron Herschman answered them. Not that it was a surprise to his friends, but he was direct and thoughtful. He also showed a wonderful sense of humor, along with a great deal of passion for his fellow firefighters and soldiers. Probably not easy to do when you are about to leave your wife and twin, 11 year-old daughters for at least a year.

I have asked Firefighter Herschman to send us an email every once in a while that we can put on the blog.

Thanks to Mark Brady, the firefighters from the 6th Battalion and, of course, Aaron Herschman for allowing us to crash their little party.