258: Leaving the Fold (2004)
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
It really is the damnedest thing Chris will tell you that himself when he's in the army when he's flying around in helicopters taking enemy fire He was terrified You never thought he'd look back on it later miss anything about it. I at the time. No, I figured you know I'm not gonna miss this. Why am I gonna miss this somebody's constantly shooting at me trying to kill me trying to kill the guys That I'm working with you know, I'm You got to be out of your mind if you missed this, you know But then down the road you think well, you know, I really miss that excitement. I'm I miss that danger I miss the action Fred Salator came back from war. We've got a job selling insurance in Texas The adrenaline rush is so great and they're not many times you and I in our In our walk of life are in a situation where the decisions we make impact the lives And deaths of others and this is the thing I was really curious about is is when you came back Did your regular life seem kind of stupid? Yes, not so much dumb or stupid but boring and I mean it wasn't much to it You get up at at 530 and you're in the office by 730 and you go home about 630 and I mean, it's just It's it's anti-climactic I suppose and when you're 23 years old It's a little depressing initially When did you find something it was as intense as the military to replace the military? I haven't Fred's Army service in Vietnam ended in 1967 Chris Liffey at nom in 69 and it took Chris a while to figure out what to do with himself when he came home And I think about right after what he'd been through He went from job to job till he signed up with the Baltimore fire department And let me tell you when I got out of the fire Academy, and I was assigned to my first unit And I had my very first fire I was scared to death my adrenaline was just pumping big time and It was a cool feeling believe it or not. It was a cool feeling It was something that I had missed for a long long time and I know that sounds kind of strange but the things that I hated the most were the things that I missed the most It is a little strange, but I have to say it makes complete sense At some point or another all of us have been in some situation where all we could think about was we couldn't wait for it to end To get out of school to move away from our parents to leave the church or the job or the band or the city that we're in We can't wait And then later when we look back There is something about that place that we hated that we just cannot get out of our system These are just the most extreme possible example of that kind of thing literally they were in a situation where people were trying to kill them And when they look back they think you know that wasn't all bad Well, you're listening to this American life from Chicago public radio distributed by public radio international I'm in our glass today on our program. We bring you three stories of people leaving the fold And leaving parts of themselves behind when they do it Like one of our show I've got a secret. I've been hiding from you And that act my friend prepare to be shocked. We have the true story of Jerry Springer and his first career as a politician An idealistic politician who fought hard for what he thought was right and was popular to boot successful Act two God and hockey in that act a smackdown between the God of the Old Testament and the New York Rangers The souls of a young couple from New Jersey Act three
Transcription truncated.