This Alarms For You Poem by Bob Williams

My father was fireman.
He drove a big red truck and when he'd go to work each day
he'd say, 'Mother wish me luck.'
Then Dad would not come home again
'till sometime the next day.
But the thing that bothered me the most
was the thing's some folks would say,
'A fireman's life is easy,
he eats and sleeps and plays,
and sometimes he wont fight a fire
for days and days.'
When I first heard these words
I was young to understand
but I knew when people had trouble
Dad was there to lend a hand.
then my father went to work one day
and kissed us all goodbye
but little did we realizes
that night we all would cry.
My father lost his life that night
when the floor gave way below
and I'd wondered why he'd risk his life
for someone he did not know.
But not I truly realize
the greatest gift a man can give
is to lay his life upon the line
so that someone else might live.