In 1987, Schaefer was deployed to Bitburg Air Base in Germany as part of the 36th Fighter Wing. In Germany, Schaefer was trained as a combat firefighter and he said he had to be able to act quickly, as the base was close to a wartime area.

Schaefer said the 25-meter firetruck he rode on had a Magirus-Deutz body on a Mercedes-Benz chassis, something he found unusual, and everything on the dashboard was in German.

Schaefer and the firefighting crew on the base would do airplane fire drills, such as those seen in this image. While this fire may look intimidating, Schaefer said this was about 800 gallons of jet fuel, whereas Air Force planes can hold anywhere from 4,000 to tens of thousands of gallons.

Schaefer and the firefighting crew on the base would do airplane fire drills, such as those seen in this image. While this fire may look intimidating, Schaefer said this was about 800 gallons of jet fuel, whereas Air Force planes can hold anywhere from 4,000 to tens of thousands of gallons.

Schaefer said the 25-meter firetruck he rode on had a Magirus-Deutz body on a Mercedes-Benz chassis, something he found unusual, and everything on the dashboard was in German.

Growing up in Lake Mills, Gil Schaefer wanted to be in the military and to be a fireman, so he chose to do both.

Schaefer has called Lake Mills home since he was 4 years old, and when he researched his options, he discovered the Air Force was the best fit for a firefighting hopeful like himself.

He started with firefighter and medical training at Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois.

In 1987, Schaefer was deployed to Bitburg Air Base in Germany as part of the 36th Fighter Wing. In Germany, Schaefer was trained as a combat firefighter and he said he had to be able to act quickly, as the base was close to a wartime area.

“I came out of there basically as an apprentice firefighter,” Schaefer said. “It was a little over six weeks of training, but it was very intense. We learned basic medical techniques, we got certified in crash firefighting, we got certified in structural firefighting and they touched on advanced rescue techniques.”

After completing his training, Schaefer was assigned to Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina in November 1983 as part of the 363rd Tactical Fighter Wing. He described his role at Shaw as being “just like a city fire department,” fighting fires on the base and also providing mutual aid with the civilian fire departments off-base.

“Around Air Force bases, there’s a lot of civilian housing complexes, so a lot of the time we’d be the first ones to go in there and the city would come in and we’d fight fires together,” Schaefer said.

In 1987, Schaefer was deployed to Bitburg Air Base in Germany as part of the 36th Fighter Wing. In Germany, Schaefer was trained as a combat firefighter and he said he had to be able to act quickly, as the base was close to a wartime area.

“If Germany was going to be attacked from the Fulda Gap, it was less than a 10-minute flight time from where they would have come through,” Schaefer said. “We had to be able to act and work all on our own, because sometimes you’d be the only crew available in that short timeframe.”

Schaefer and the firefighting crew on the base would do airplane fire drills, such as those seen in this image. While this fire may look intimidating, Schaefer said this was about 800 gallons of jet fuel, whereas Air Force planes can hold anywhere from 4,000 to tens of thousands of gallons.

Despite the higher-stress situations present in Germany, Schaefer said his deployment to Bitburg was a great opportunity for him to conduct temporary duty travel (TDY) in Europe. He said he even got to meet some of his grandfather’s family, who lived in Germany.

Schaefer said the 25-meter firetruck he rode on had a Magirus-Deutz body on a Mercedes-Benz chassis, something he found unusual, and everything on the dashboard was in German.

In 1989, Schaefer left Germany for Williams Air Force Base in Arizona, which he said was the busiest base he had been on because a lot of training was done there. With the 82nd Flying Training Wing, Schaefer got to watch student pilots conduct their first solo flights.

At least once, it got adventurous when someone apparently failed to put the brakes on properly.

“An airplane is just like a car, so when you park it you put the brake on and turn it off, but there’s other steps that you have to do to turn it off,” Schaefer said. “So one time, a new pilot stopped the plane on the runway, put the brakes on and jumped out. But the plane was moving down the runway with nobody in it. Luckily no one was hurt, but that’s the kind of stuff we would see.”

In Arizona, Schaefer said he also got the chance to exchange knowledge and training with the Phoenix Fire Department, which only made him more interested in becoming a civilian firefighter after completing his military duty.

He said he appreciated the opportunity to learn how to use different tools and skills that he wouldn’t have learned in a civilian fire department, but he ultimately decided to leave the military in 1992. Despite his departure from the Air Force, Schaefer said he still wanted to work with planes.

“When I got out, I tested for some city departments, but my heart still belonged to airplane firefighting,” Schaefer said. “I thought that airplanes were so cool and I love being around airplanes to this day even.”

He started his civilian firefighter career at Volk Field Air National Guard Base, a military airport located near Camp Douglas, Wisconsin. There, he worked as a combat readiness training firefighter.

After less than a year, Schaefer transferred to General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee to work with the crash crew. After five years with Milwaukee, Schaefer wanted to be closer to his home in Lake Mills, so he transferred to the Dane County Regional Airport.

He said working in Dane County was similar to his initial assignment in South Carolina, as he once again worked with F-16s and he would provide mutual aid to the City of Madison when necessary.

In 2004, Schaefer retired from firefighting and became a United States Postal Service employee that fall. However, Schaefer said he developed testicular cancer about a year after retiring from the fire service. He said that’s a common cancer for firefighters and suggested exposure in his early days as a firefighter might be responsible.

Schaefer and the firefighting crew on the base would do airplane fire drills, such as those seen in this image. While this fire may look intimidating, Schaefer said this was about 800 gallons of jet fuel, whereas Air Force planes can hold anywhere from 4,000 to tens of thousands of gallons.

“When I first started, we had no fire hoods or the nice insulated gloves like they have now,” Schaefer said. “The carcinogens that they wash off of fire clothes now, we never used to wash that off because that was a sign of a battle-proven fighter.”

Luckily, Schaefer said his cancer was caught early, and he has been cancer-free since 2005. Today, Schaefer remains with the USPS and he still does fire inspections with the Lake Mills Fire Department on his days off.

“It’s really nice to see the benefits of the fire inspections and the public education that we’ve done, because now we’re touching on the kids of parents we taught,” Schaefer said. “The incidental fire rate has gone down dramatically for LMFD, the fire calls have really changed dramatically for the city due to the public education and fire inspections we’ve done.”

Cory Gessler, a third-generation veteran of the U.S. armed forces, has been carrying on a tradition of service in McFarland.

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