Between Heaven and Earth. Gene Jessup

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      I graduated from Wenatchee High School in north central Washington State in the spring of 1955. I was hoping to get a summer job with the US Forest Service before attending college in the fall at Wenatchee Junior College and playing football for their new coach Don Coryell.

      My stepfather worked for Whiteman Fuel in Wenatchee owned by Jack Whiteman and his father. My stepdad had mentioned to Jack that I wanted a Forest Service summer job, and Jack had said he had a friend who worked at the USFS Wenatchee office, and he would give him a call. Jack later gave my stepdad a name that I was to contact at the USFS local office. A couple of days later, I met with the gentleman in his office. He introduced himself and said, “Hello, Gene. Jack has told me about you, and you look like the kind of young fellow that would do well in the Forest Service.” I replied that I would really appreciate the opportunity.

      He then asked me my age, and I said, “I’m seventeen.”

      He shook his head and said, “That’s a shame. You have to be at least eighteen.”

      When my stepdad mentioned to Jack that I was too young for the job, Jack said he would make another call to his friend. I got a call later that day from Jack telling me to go back to the USFS office and try again.

      I returned the next day to the same office in the Forest Service building. Before long, the same gentleman came in and introduced himself again and said, “Well, hello, young man. What can we do for you today?” I told him that I would really appreciate a job with the Forest Service.

      He smiled and said, “Well, you look like the kind of young man that would do well in the Forest Service, and what’s your name?”

      I told him my name again. “And how old are you, Gene?”

      I replied, “I’m eighteen, sir.”

      He said, “You just made the age cut. Here, fill out this application.”

      And that’s how I became a firefighter for the Ellensburg Ranger District Fire-Suppression Crew based at the Liberty Guard Station, where they fought fire for the flag, God, and country. The guard station was located about thirty miles from Ellensburg, Washington, on Blewett Pass.

      I know it sounds rather trite compared to today’s USFS firefighting policies, but our purpose during this period of time was to put out fires and save as much forest as we could as quickly as we could. Sounds like a rather strange mission statement by today’s USFS standards.

      The Liberty Guard Station living facilities for our suppression crew in 1955 was rather quaint by today’s standards. We had a bunkhouse, an outhouse, a large equipment storage building and a small cook house. Our bathhouse was a small stream that flowed behind our bunkhouse. We had to supply our own soap, although we did have toilet paper in the outhouse once in a while.

      When our suppression crew was without a fire to fight, we would keep busy learning how to sharpen a Pulaski or hoe with a circular sharpening wheel, which we turned by hand; or we would paint and repaint Forest Service buildings around the district. We did everything except feed the mules and load alfalfa bales on the wagon. Although a couple of years later at the Intercity Smokejumper Base, we did feed mules and buck bails!

      On occasions, the suppression crew would patrol roadside firebreaks, which the Washington Department of Transportation would create as a fire barrier next to highways to protect travelers. One such firebreak patrol was on a stretch of highway between Wenatchee and Entiat. The temperature was several degrees above one hundred, and a couple of our crew spent time in the shade of our USFS crew transport truck with red faces and wet towels over their heads. We were even too tired to wave at the high school girls driving past on their way to Lake Chelan to sunbath and rub cocoa butter on each other.

      I’m sure that if today someone saw potential sunstroke victims convalescing under a truck on a hot day, a USFS and Washington State board of inquiry would be called and someone of lower rank would be executed.

      1955 Liberty Fire-Suppression Crew