We hiked and worked, and hiked and worked, and then hiked and worked some more. Temperatures ranged from 90 degrees to 12 degrees throughout the season. We spent a total of 66 days and nights camped out. I lost a total of 48 lbs of weight-almost 20% of my body weight. I am sure that if I added all of the miles up, we hiked over 300 miles over the course of the season.
We lost fellow inmate firefighters to failed drug test, theft, fighting, and even the "Texas Heimlich"-and no matter how hard any of it was, I loved it. It makes me so proud to be called a firefighter.
I have learned...
-How to fight a wildland fire.
-The camaraderie and brotherhood that exists amongst all firefighters.
-I can still do hard things-both physically and mentally.
-I love the mountains and outdoors even more than I did before.
-To depend on God more than ever.
-Sleeping under the stars far away from from any city is truly the greatest show on earth.
-Being away from the people you love makes you love them so much more.
-It takes about five days for a blister to become a callous.
-Even if you are too big for your tent and sleeping bag, pure physical exhaustion will ensure that you still get a good night's sleep.
-Working with 20 other dudes who haven't showered in two weeks smells like dead animals-or worse.
-You can feel the heat of a wildfire from more than a mile away.
-While performing the Heimlich on another person, it can be way messier than I was led to believe in my CPR class.
-With all due respect to my fellow inmates, I've learned that the original "birds and the bees" talk that my parents, Gary and Louise gave me was merely a Dr. Seuss rhyme compared to the advanced degree I have now received after countless road trip hours in the back of a fire buggy surrounded by self described Noble Laureates on the matter. I'll have Sallie give a starred review of my educational application capabilities as soon as I'm out. :) I'm sure you will all be on the edge of you seats for that.
-I've always loved music. Even more so now. Each night before going to my tent, I would turn on the radio in back of our buggy and listen to whatever station I could. We don't have access to music in prison-it may be one of the worst parts of prison.
-Being a firefighter has helped my kids be proud of their Dad despite being inmate #179321.
-After being outdoors for 16 days, you can taste the air as you come back inside of a building-and it's awful.
-There are a lot of good people in this world that have just made bad decisions.
-The difference between being in prison and not is not the huge gap that I once thought-in many cases it is a very, very thin line, blurry line. As an example, there are multiple guys on our SWIFT team who have no prior criminal histories who were driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs and got into an accident where someone was seriously injured or killed. One bad decision on one given night can have horrific outcomes.
-Really really good people will do really, really bad things when they need drugs-especially heroin or meth.
-I have more respect for ALL first responders-they are all amazing people who dedicate their lives to saving ours.
I learned how important it is to share a star in the night sky with Sal-I'd look at it every night and know that she could see it too, at the same time every night. There was tremendous peace in sharing that moment together.
I learned how important, vitally important the scriptures are. At the end of a long day on a fire, the familiarity of spiritual words kept me going.
As we were driving home from our last fire, we all had mixed feelings. We were so tired-ready for a little bit of a break. But we were also sad. Mainly because of the fact that we would no longer have the luxuries of enjoying the freedom that a fire brings to incarcerated men. For 15 or 16 days on a fire, we truly felt like normal members of society. I looked around at my unlikely friends-seven other felons that I'd now consider my friends.
As we rolled down the road with our windows down, we laughed, mostly at each other's expense and joked about some of the things we'd experienced. One of the guys was telling us a story about some of the dumber exploits he'd attempted while trying to get meth-which included a botched attempt at trying to rob a Subway with a water gun. As he told his story, it occurred to me that one of the greatest things about this group of guys was the lack of judgment (double Entendre for sure) that you would ever feel from them. You could tell them almost anything and their perception of you would not change. In fact, a respect for the honesty was evident. There is no pretense, no competitive jockeying-no hiding from our weaknesses. We're all felons, we all know it and so all that is left is knowing each other for who we really are. For lack of a better term-it's refreshing.
In the outside world, fortunately we are not all felons-BUT we all are sinners. None of us, not one, is perfect yet, for some reason we all pretend we are and feel pressure to be and portray a form of perfection. I know I have always felt it. I look back in my life and see times where I felt better about my imperfections when others imperfections were unearthed or displayed for everyone to see. I am ashamed to admit that yet, those I respect and admire in my life and throughout history, are those who are not perfect. They have endured their mistakes, imperfections, trials and not only survived them, but became better because of it.
Sometimes the places we should feel safe and the most comfortable with our struggles and imperfections are the very places where we are the most judged. I truly feel sorry for those people that try so hard to keep up the appearance that their life and family is perfect. It's almost a tell tale sign that they are truly struggling. It's so sad to me, everyone has tough times, in their relationships, work, kids..life. I hope that I'll never forget the biggest lesson that I've learned from a buggy full of felons-we all make mistakes, we all sin, we all fall well short of perfection. Simply said, we are all sinners. Let's see people as imperfect-including ourselves and love them for it.
Brandon Stephens, Weld County Jail, Wood Group, Sentenced, 5 Years, Prison, NFL, DRDC, Rifle Correctional Center, Colorado Department of Corrections, Jail, Judge Quammen, Steve Wrenn, Weld County, Executive, Oil, Gas, White Collar, Wood, BYU, Masters Degree, Colorado State University, SWIFT, Firefighter, Wildland, Sawyer, Fire, Inmate, Brandon Stokey, Miracles, Centennial Community Correctional Center, Delta Correctional Center, DRDC, Denver Diagnostic and Reception Center, Felony, Sallie Stephens, Greeley Tribune, Judge Thomas Quammen, DA Steve Wrenn, Weld County Court, Oil & Gas,. Halfway House, Centennial Community Correction Center, CCTC, Felon, 416 Fire, Silver Creek Fire, Spring Fire, Cabin Lake Fire
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