TOLEDO, Ohio — Lieutenants Joe and Jennifer Linnenkugel completed their final shift at the Toledo Fire and Rescue Department on Tuesday.
Both have been members of the department for years and knew each other well before joining.
Jennifer had been a stay-at-home mom before her husband transferred to Toledo. Upon going through the training, she realized there were a number of women in his fire class.
"I didn't think that women should be firefighters, so when he decided to get on Toledo so we could come back - my family lived here - he had three women that were in his fire class," Jennifer said.
For some reason, that did not sit well with Jennifer.
"Obviously, I could tell she was thinking about it before, because when I would come home from the academy she was always asking questions about it," Joe said.
"Everyday he would come home and I'd say, 'How bad were they?' And he'd say, 'They're not bad! They're really good,'" Jennifer said.
Eventually, she changed her mind and thought that not only should women be firefighters, but she should be one as well.
While Jennifer's original intentions for joining the force are somewhat out of the ordinary, the seriousness of the job really hit her in the days following Sept. 11, 2001.
"It just made me stop and think for a moment. I thought, 'Oh my gosh, I could die doing this job.' That thought had never occurred to me before, and so the whole bottom line is that are you willing to put your life down on the line for someone, and I came to the conclusion that yes, I am absolutely willing," she said.
Both Joe and Jennifer appreciate the opportunities they've been given through the department and hope others realize the value of having both men and women on the force.
"There are many times while on the job, where people will ask me, 'Can you make the guys go? I feel more comfortable with you!' And so I think people actually appreciate having both men and women," Jennifer said.
"Just the different things we got to do, and experience at the same time. Very few people get to do that, especially as a husband and wife," Joe said.