Oregon firefighter/EMT wins state medal from VFW

OREGON – Firefighter/EMT Greg Hunter received his official state medal as the Illinois VFW’s EMT of the Year from his wife Lyn during a special March 3 ceremony at Oregon Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8739, the local organization that started the nomination process.

Hunter, 65, was presented the award at the Post by Senior VFW Vice Cmdr. Lee Ossmann, Assistant VFW Quartermaster Robert Coulter and Oregon Fire Chief Michael Knoup.

“Greg won the award at the local level and then went on to compete and won the state award for EMT of the year from the VFW,” Knoup said.

“I’m just a little bitty cog in all this,” Hunter said after he humbly received his certificate from Ossmann and his wife pinned the medal on his dress uniform. “These folks here are wonderful people. So it’s nice for my wife to get to meet you – some of you guys … who keep me alive when I’m out there. Thank you.”

Hunter is the first nominee from the Oregon VFW Post to win the state award.

“We nominate them at the local level, and if they win the local level, then it goes to state, and Greg won the state level. It’s pretty amazing,” Knoup said.

“That’s pretty prestigious. Obviously, you impressed someone,” one onlooker said.

“It’s easy to shine with these guys,” Hunter said.

“His resumé is so long they got tired of reading it,” one of his friends quipped as others chuckled.

Hunter was an Illinois Department of Natural Resources conservation police officer for 26 years and joined the department as a volunteer after he retired.

“I was promoted to park ranger in 1981,” he said. “I was a firefighter/EMT for seven years while I was a park ranger before I was hired by the conservation police.”

Hunter comes from a rich history of military service.

“My whole family is military. I am proud of that,” he said. “I wanted to be a park ranger really bad, and there wasn’t a war going on at the time. And so my family more or less said that type of work was acceptable to them. It is still serving the public, just in a little different way.”

Hunter’s father served in the Air Force.

“My dad was in the Air Force, and he was very, very proud of his service,” Hunter said. “He always raised me to be a servant – to take care of things. He thought I would be in the military someday, but when I didn’t do that, and this was the route I took, he’s always been very proud of that.”

He also had an uncle who was an EMT/firefighter.

“He really encouraged me to do this,” Hunter said. “God gave me a gift to help people. I’ve always been good at helping other people. I am glad I can still do it.”

Hunter first learned that he had been nominated for the award during a training session at the Oregon station.

“There was a letter sent from the VFW to the chief apparently, and that’s the first time I heard of it, which was three weeks ago at our training night when he announced it. I had no idea,” Hunter said.

He plans to continue working as a firefighter.

“I just turned 65,” Hunter said. “[Firefighting] is a young person’s job. Thankfully, I am in pretty good shape and I work with some wonderful people here. I don’t have an end date.”

Hunter said Lyn and their two children, Breanne and Shelby, have always been supportive of his work.

“They support me 100 percent,” he said. “They worry just like everybody worries, but I have been in this business long enough that they are kind of used to it now.”

Knoup called Lyn to ask her some details for his background bio before the award was announced.

Hunter was out of town taking part in a high-risk training for the fire department, and Lyn was teaching when Knoup called.

“The chief called Lyn when she was at the school working to ask some questions, and she thought something happened to me,” Hunter recalled.

“I pretty much gave her a heart attack,” Knoup said laughing. “She had a whole class in front of her, and I didn’t think about it being a school day and she was working. And she asked, ‘Is he OK?’”

“I had the whole class in front of me. I asked if I could call him back,” Lyn said laughing.

“So, I apologize,” Knoup said.

Knoup also thanked Lyn for her support of her husband’s service with the fire department.

“I really appreciate her understanding, because her understanding allowing him to come help as much as he does is huge,” Knoup said.

(Information for this article was made possible by an audio recording provided by Matt Alford.)