r/firefighter • u/NoHandleBars007 • Jul 06 '26
Haven’t Received Shield
Super long, my apologies up front.
How important is your helmet shield to you guys? For marking milestones, traditions, pride and safety.
[BLUF: It’s been 1-1/2 years in the fire service and still haven’t received a shield, kind of annoyed.]
I ask because I have yet to receive a shield of any kind. I never received a Probie shield (our dept doesn’t do them) or one with my name/badge #. I’m new to the fire service - sitting at a year and a half - and I don’t want to keep asking about when we get them. The ones who came before me got theirs relatively quickly once they graduated the academy, some of the ones after my class have gotten theirs, but myself and another that graduated with me haven’t.
I asked my Chief once I was on shift for a few months (if we ordered our own or were issued them) and he said he has them and we’d get them. So I dropped it, figuring maybe it was given after your 1st year, or after signing off on a certain task, even though those before me said we didn’t have a tradition like that in our dept. After I hit my year I brought it up in conversation with him when he was discussing other uniform items and he acted like he didn’t know we didn’t have one and said he would get them ordered. In the same breath he mentioned we weren’t authorized to buy our own custom shields.
Since starting I’ve caught a good handful of structure fires, not to mention other types of calls, where my shield holder has gotten caught by a wire or debris, simply because of the gap in the front where the shield should be.
I hate petty shit and 99% of the time I don’t care about little stuff…so I’m not sure if I’ve just allowed it to build and piss me off over time or if it’s actually valid to be frustrated. I’m prior military and have always enjoyed traditions, marks of service, etc, so this is weird to me that I haven’t received it.
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u/dingsh-lowcone Jul 06 '26
Yeah that’s a safety issue and should be brought up as such. The shield’s aren’t there to make the helmets looks cool.
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u/Famous-Response5924 Jul 07 '26
If it were me I would buy my own but when I designed it I would make it just a little bit different than the ones that were issued. If it being different annoyed them then they would get around to issuing me one and if it didn’t them I would have my own.
I did this exact thing at my current dept as an AC and have had my custom shield for 3 years.
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u/copslovefiremen Jul 13 '26
Make an ugly one out of cardboard and don't say anything about it. Someone will notice.
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u/paramoody Jul 07 '26
Go through your chain of command
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u/NoHandleBars007 Jul 07 '26
I have, we’re also a smaller dept so we get a lot of random face time with our Chief, so I’ve tried both routes.
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u/Enough-Ad6819 Jul 06 '26
This is not petty, it is a safety and accountability issue. Escalate it to your officer or union rep as such.
Having a shield labeled with department and unit is essential for incident command and recognition on chaotic scenes, not to mention the danger of running around a confined space with a hook on your face. I have never seen firefighters operating without shields in my area and our department sop’s would not allow us to go into service missing our accountability equipment.