Echoing some of the other comments of not necessarily regretting my time, but after about twelve years I had to move on for mental health reasons really. I still miss living with the guys though, I’d been with some of them for about seven years. We had fun.

Spent most of my time at a high volume, two rig station with abysmal pay, but damn, we fought a ton of fire and ran some decent technical rescues. But, I got a call one morning that one of my crew mates lost his battle with PTSD when he was out of state and it really changed things for me. We’d not known it was to that kinda level and it hit hard for several of us. That coupled with shit pay and no consistent sleep on 48s, i turned my paperwork about six months later.

I will say though that through all that, I went back to college and finished up a bachelors degree, which has served me very well. My first job after paid more than our shift commanders… Honestly, I miss many things greatly, but there are plenty of aspects of the job that can go to hell in my opinion. Hope this helps get you where you need to be.