By Beth Christian
Broschart
The Parsons Advocate
PARSONS – A familiar motto will soon be included on local fire apparatus. “In God We Trust” will be placed on all trucks and vehicles of the Parsons Volunteer Fire Department. Parsons Fire Chief Kevin White said the vote to place the motto on the trucks was unanimous among the members present at that meeting.
“We had a meeting last Monday evening and we adopted the fact that we are going to place ‘In God We Trust’ on all of our fire units,” White said.
White said the decision to place the motto on the trucks comes from the fire fighters beliefs.
“The fact is, we need to turn to somebody from time to time as individuals, and need this for our families,” White said. “We have always been a Christian group of young men and women and that is what we believe in. We believe in a God – maybe we all do not believe in the same God, but we believe in a God.”
White said being a fire fighter is a very dangerous job.
“We do a very dangerous job, and in our case, we do it for free,” White said. “We don’t all like to show our emotions, but we need to turn to somebody now and again. Our families need someone to turn to. That is why the motto ‘In God We Trust’ is what we are putting on our trucks. That is who we are turning to.”
White said when the fire fighters are out in the middle of the night on a fire call or on the side of the mountain at a car accident, subconsciously; they all turn to a higher power from time to time.
“That is what it is all about – In God We Trust,” White said. “’In God We Trust’ is not something new. It is the nation’s motto. We are not reinventing the wheel here; we are using something our nation adopted in 1956 because as American citizens, we have that right.”
“In God We Trust” is the official United States Motto, and was adopted in 1956 by a resolution of the 84th Congress and approved by the President Dwight Eisenhower.