What's in a Hug?

Today, the Team had the honor of accompanying the Charleston 9 families and many of you to the memorial service at the South Carolina State Firefighters’ Association’s Annual Fire-Rescue Conference in Myrtle Beach. One gesture that I saw over and over again today was firefighters greeting one another with a hug. As I thought back over the years, I don’t believe that I have ever noticed that at all or certainly not as much. We have all experienced much grief and heartache this past year and I believe we have developed an ability to be more open with our feelings, concern and respect for each other because of it. There seemed to be no boundary to this show of emotion as firefighters from all over South Carolina and many other states came together this week in Myrtle Beach to train, to share ideas, to learn, and most importantly, to support each other. It was a great gathering and Charleston was well represented by our CFD 9 families, our honor guard, our escorts, our instructors, our officers, firefighters and the CFD Wives' Club members and their families. I know that the Charleston 9 would have been proud of them all, we sure were.