by Bill Palmer, Class of 1964
Despite the fact that I married the daughter of a fire chief, I’d never considered serving as a first responder myself. Therefore, it was something of a surprise to have been recruited for such service at the age of sixty-six. Since 1969, when I began a student ministry in the North Shore city of Glen Cove while commuting to Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan, I’d served in a parish ministry. From Glen Cove, I went on to serve small churches in Maryland and Virginia. In the fall of 2012, I had just completed an eighteen-month interim ministry in Deltaville, Virginia, which involved the reconstruction of a church building that a tornado had badly damaged. Following the joyous rededication service, I pondered whether this might be an appropriate moment to announce my retirement.
That’s when two former chiefs of the West Point Volunteer Fire Department, the town in which my wife and I make our home, knocked on my door. This fire department, which serves the Town of West Point and the lower third of King William County, was organized in 1900. It had incorporated sworn chaplains into its leadership ranks as early as 1939. The recent departure of its then-serving chaplain left them seeking a replacement. I put the thoughts of retirement aside and accepted their call.
Even at the outset, I suspected that the role of a fire department chaplain would be more than ceremonial. Yes, they fitted me with a navy-blue uniform that had gold crosses on the lapels. But I was also issued more heavy-duty clothing, including boots and a heavy, safety-yellow coat. They also sent me to Hagerstown, Maryland, for a training program with the Federation of Fire Chaplains and to the Red Cross, where I qualified in Basic Life Support. In addition, there was book work to be done, which included tests mandated by the federal government.
The real test of my training did not come until the following August, when my pager and cell phone alerted me simultaneously at about eight o’clock in the evening. I was asked to go to a scene where a fourteen-month-old child had just been pulled out of the family swimming pool. When I arrived, the EMTs were already working on the child in the ambulance. I found the distraught parents, who asked me to accompany them to the hospital. Shortly after we arrived at the ER, the little girl was pronounced dead. The father collapsed in my arms. A nurse came to show the parents to a small, empty room where they would be questioned by the sheriff, who was on his way. The mother grasped my hand so tightly that her nails dug into my palms and would not let me go. I waited with them as they sobbed. When the sheriff and his deputy arrived, they were blessedly gentle in the way they asked their questions. A relative came to drive the parents home, and I stayed with the body of this beautiful child until the removal people came from the funeral home.
This, sadly, was not the only dead child or young person I would see over the next decade of my service as a fire department chaplain. Drownings, motor vehicle accidents, drug overdoses, and suicides take a tragic toll on the young, with consequences for the first responders who work desperately to save them. As a chaplain, it was my role to assist our firefighters, paramedics, and EMTs in dealing with scenes such as this one. I also discovered that I had to be personally responsible for my own emotional health. Fortunately, there is a heightened appreciation today for the stresses faced by our first responders. Help is available. None of us is so tough as not to need it from time to time.
If you know or love a first responder in crisis, text Responder Strong at BADGE 741741 or First Responder Support Network at (415) 721-9789.
And a P.S. I decided to retire in the wake of the pandemic, in February 2022. However, after one of our police officers took his life at the end of June 2024, I went back to work. This time, not as chaplain of the fire department but as chaplain of the West Point Police Department. The work is mostly the same; only the uniform is different.
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