"First in. Last out."

This is Da Kid's last week of Rookie Recruit Class with Camden County Fire Rescue. The graduation ceremony is from 2 to 6 Sunday.

Four hours?

It's not a big class (13) until you consider it will bring the county's number of paid firefighters up to 65. Then suddenly it becomes huge and explains a bit more why this is not only a graduation but an event and will take a little longer. But four hours?

Then, too, Da Kid's is the first group (officially referred to as "Recruit Class I") to ever go through Camden's new firefighting training program. But still, four hours?

Well, it seems there's a little something Da Kid didn't tell me about the commencement ceremony but since he did mention it to Herself, she, of course, told me.

The "pomp and circumstance" portion will be followed by "a burn."

For normal people, that means somebody is going to set something on fire (somewhere outside, of course) and then show the attendees how they put it out.

I think.

Then again, it wasn't until during Da Kid's last graduation that I'd learned part THAT training included sitting, dressed bunkered out, IN a building so that he and the other trainees could watch a fire's progression while the structure burned down around them.

(Be still my churning stomach.)

Nah, they're not going to do that with folks like me there, right?

Right! The recruits have been issued all of their equipement bunker gear except for their helmets, which still haven't arrived from Germany.

The most advanced design, per Da Kid. He's been issued the kind of gear from top to bottom that our firefighters here take for granted because they're so used to always having the best.

It's a heck of a step up for this small, still mostly rural county. Still mostly rural, except for the county's biggest employer: the nuclear submarine base.

Da Kid will find out in the next few days which of the stations in the county he reports to starting next week. Whichever one he goes to, he knows it doesn't matter what "book learning" he has.

He'll be working with professional firefighters, both paid and volunteer, who've been doing it for years.

It's with them that his real training starts.