They Are Heroes in My Book

Zuppiger, Garret - Age: 27

These were real people: sons, siblings, cousins, husbands, fathers and friends. In a community of 40,000, we were all connected in some way.

As I attempt to grasp the reality of this tragedy affecting the town that was my home from the time I was 5 years old until I was 21 (I still visit my family there), my Facebook feed has been filled with memoirs of the fallen by people who knew them.

Jesse Steed was the good friend of a friend of mine.

Andrew Ashcraft was the husband of the sister of a boy I went to middle and high school with.

Scott Norris was the son of my sixth-grade Sunday School teacher.

Then there are those who hailed from Southern California, my new home: Chris MacKenzie and Billy Warneke, both in their 20s, were natives of Hemet. Kevin Woyjeck was the son of Los Angeles City Fire Capt. Joe Woyjeck.

They all leave behind loved ones.

I am sure more will come out about the characters of each of the firefighters in the days to come.

But they all go down as heroes in my book.

On my last visit home in January, we took pictures of the quaint town of Yarnell as we drove back to Murrieta. It is incomprehensible to think some of those buildings may be gone as well from the fire that claimed these young lives.

As I see the governor of Arizona speaking from the gymnasium in which I attended high school pep rallies...at a time like this, let us please thank our first responders—and their loved ones—everywhere for their sacrifices and for putting themselves in the path of danger on a daily basis.

There is more I could write, but I will leave it at that for now.

As my brother said this afternoon, "They died valiantly."