With a voice that sounds like a foghorn summoning volunteer firefighters to a fire, Fred Searby commands attention as he stands at the front of a Monmouth County Fire Academy classroom. Except your personal kind of stuff. We don't have any kind of head-shrinkers here.
Tonight is orientation night.
Searby explains the course, lays down the rules. The group rustles, shutting them off. The new recruits are sent mostly by fire departments in Monmouth County, which has 130. But some are from Ocean and Middlesex counties, because they back up fire departments from Monmouth County. Two women are in the class, the rest are males.