My name is Angel Castro and I’m the postmaster in Statesboro, GA. When I’m not on the clock, you’ll find me serving as a volunteer firefighter.
I joined the local fire department in 2009 after a friend, who was already a firefighter, asked me to get involved.
You must have the heart for this kind of work: When everybody is running out of a house on fire, we’re running in.
If your spouse doesn’t support you, you can’t do this work. There are times when my wife has just finished cooking a meal and the radio goes off just as I’m about to sit down at the table. So now she has to eat by herself, and I come home to a cold meal. But she understands why I do this.
We had storms recently in Georgia, and the wind blew down all these trees. We went out in teams to assist with clearing the trees that fell across the roads and on power lines. Those are the times when your wife and family members want you to be home because they are concerned that something might happen.
If the power goes out, my family can come to the station and hang out because it has a generator. The other firefighters become part of your family.
Training is a big thing. Most of the fires we fight are in mobile homes. You have to know what to do if a floor or roof collapses.
I’ve been able to serve the community in other ways. I’m also a military veteran, and I assist a local post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. I might help build a wheelchair ramp for a vet or clean a stretch of road.
My wife says I want to help everybody but never do anything for myself. Helping other people makes me happy.
“Off the Clock,” a column on Postal Service employees and their after-hours pursuits, appears regularly in Link.