"Volunteers in Troy are not imbeciles because they are volunteers. Just the opposite. I'm sure a lot of those volunteers are highly qualified engineers and other relevant trades in their regular jobs and offer a lot of transferable skills and training that a professional DFD firefighter wouldn't have when they volunteer."

Who said they were imbeciles? I never criticized the skills of the volunteers in Troy. But the fact of the matter is that most Troy firefighters have never dealt with the kinds of fires that Detroit firefighters deal with every day of the week and I'm sure the Troy volunteers would be the first to admit it. There's a world of difference of having the knowledge of how to fight those fires and actually fighting those fires. It's like saying that the local police in Clawson or Clarkston could easily step alongside the officers in the Detroit Police Department. Good luck finding many officers from the suburbs who would be willing to do that.