Past and present firefighters answer call for reunion

Fifty firefighters and several fire trucks converged Sept. 28 at The Summit.

There wasn’t any smoke or fire, there wasn’t even an injury. These firefighters gathered inside The Summit for the Redstone Fire and Emergency Services Banquet and Reunion.

The first reunion started out as a couple retired firefighters having breakfast.

“Our breakfast started out with two people, then five, then it just kept growing,” Terry Hamm said as he directed all the firefighters into place for a group photo in front of a Redstone fire truck.

The focus of the event has changed a little in the last four years, according to Deputy Fire Chief Robert Simmons.

“The first three years we focused entirely on the retirees,” Simmons said. “So, each year we recognize the folks who have retired in the previous year. This year, we’re trying to transition it to recognize all the new firefighters that have come aboard at Redstone Arsenal Fire and Emergency Services.

“This year we’re expecting right around 50 firefighters. We all talk about the big red truck and things are fine.”

This year, the fourth year for the reunion at The Summit at Redstone, retirees drove from all over the country to attend, even Toni Mialki, Redstone’s first woman firefighter who drove over 600 miles from Pittsburgh to see her friends and former co-workers on Redstone Arsenal.

“I was the first woman firefighter at Redstone Arsenal in 1990,” Mialki said. “I went through Huntsville’s Academy. They didn’t have a position. They created a trainee position for me.”

When Mialki was working on Redstone Arsenal, she had many roles before becoming a Redstone firefighter.

“I joined the Army from ‘76 to ’80,” she said. “In the Army, I was a finance specialist, I got out in ‘85. Then I worked civil service, started out as a clerk typist, a security clerk, a management assistant, and a military pay clerk.”

Then, one day Mialki decided she wanted to be a firefighter.

“I walked into fire chief (Bill) Cross’ office and said, ‘You don’t have a woman firefighter. I’d like to be the first.’ He said, I think you’d be a good one,” Mialki recalled.

Mialki was a Redstone firefighter from 1990-98. When she was in the firehouse in the early 1990s, it wasn’t really designed for a woman.

“I slept right in the same room and listened to them fart and snore all night,” Mialki said laughing. “I used to get up before ‘wake up’ at 7 to use the bathroom at Station One because there was only the one shower. And I didn’t want to tie it up for all the guys. I accommodated them and they accommodated me.”

“I moved to Pennsylvania five years ago. It’s my hometown,” Mialki said. “I drove 656 miles for this.”

“It’s great seeing everyone,” she said. “They all remember me. I was the first.”

Garrison Commander Col. Erin Eike and Command Sgt. Maj. Dylan Lemasters attended the event, with Eike posing with the firefighters for a group photo in front of a big red fire truck. Capt. Mark Linley was also honored as the 2024 retiree.