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Comment by jonah | Hacker News Reader

> I wish there were more opportunities to gain those kinds of experiences and the camaraderie without having to do things you are morally opposed to.

I recently joined my local Search and Rescue team. The opportunity popped up at just the right time for me and combines many things that I'm interested in while being of service to my community. The application process was fairly rigorous (under 10% acceptance rate) we then went through intensive training in a wide range of skills before being able to respond to calls. The team has a lot of cool toys, trains to high levels to maintain their certifications, has types of access to areas of the county that the public doesn't, is on call 24/7, and directly deals with the life and safety of individuals and the community at large.

Depending on where you live, your local team might be something for you to look in to.

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Many, many communities still rely, at least in part, on volunteer firefighters. I know a number of former military guys that love it--provides that the risk/rush and camaraderie you're looking for. And it ain't a cakewalk.

https://www.volunteerfd.org/become-a-volunteer-firefighter/

Thats a good point, I was thinking about that and first responder. Where I grew up most people are actually served by volunteer fire departments (extremely rural, only the towns have full fire departments and they are low population). Any time there was any kind of fire or medical emergency volunteer firefighters and first responders were always there super fast even if regular emergency services were ~30 minutes away.

My dad was actually a EMS/Paramedic for 20+ years and I think he feels similar about that to his military service. The long periods of boredom (low population rural area) followed by intense life and death situations mimics deployment/combat experience and if you have psychological issues related to wartime experience it can exacerbate it. At the same time, saving lives and helping people are extremely fond memories but when I was growing up I think the job was harder on him than he remembers these days.

As another SAR guy, I'll second this. It's challenging, and not just physically. The cool toys and technical training you mentioned require a degree of analysis and problem solving, as well as getting into the nitty gritty details that many programmers love. There is also a lot of need of technical software types, as GIS becomes ever more prevalent and if you like the challenge of maintaining a network in an office building, try taking it to eleven by doing it in the out of doors.

I've been thinking more about this lately with the hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes etc that have been happening. I've been taking CPR/First Aid courses on my own just because I want to but I've been feeling like its not quite scratching the itch since its mostly preventative skills (ie, I hope I don't need it but if I do I have it).

I'll look into it for my area, may I ask if you are doing this professionally or are you part of a volunteer S&R team?

First Aid/CPR are definitely good skills to have! On the medical side, EMT might be the next level certification for you to get. (Here it's one semester at a community college with night/weekend options also available.)

The team I'm on, like most SAR teams, is all volunteer. Except for specialized teams like the one in Yosemite, professional SAR teams are generally under military, Coast Guard, or fire departments.

The big national accreditation organizations are NASAR and MRA.

http://www.nasar.org/ http://mra.org/

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