Tobias Breuer video – (with transcript)

The purpose of the Honour Guard is actually a privilege, it’s duty, an honour. I think it’s very important to represent the Calgary Fire Department for different occasions like weddings, funerals, and to honour the past and represent the future.

Why did you join the Honour Guard?

I joined the Honour Guard because I’m from a very old country, I’m from Europe. Switzerland to be precise, and I was a volunteer firefighter there. We had a very rough call, it was a shooting of 13 people, that was my first call. We went to the funeral, because it was politicians that got killed, and back in the day we didn’t have an Honour Guard with the volunteer department. Since I joined the Calgary Fire Department in 2009, it was very important for me to join the Honour Guard so I could help other people to cope with the bad things, but also to represent the Fire Department on very special occasions like weddings, retirement parties, and so on, and to give families in need a hand to cope with their loss, of maybe some family member.

Can you tell me how participation in the Fire Guard, the Honour Guard, has affected you?

In a very positive way. The Honour Guard are put together from very special people. Everybody has their own ideas, and parts, to bring in to the Honour Guard. All together, as soon as we put on that Honour Guard uniform, you’re not an individual anymore, you’re representing the department and you support other departments, other firefighters in their worst time of their life, where they lose somebody that is very close to them. And so, I think the bunch of people, if I can call it that way, that build the Honour Guard are very special. Very special to me, very special to the department, and so on. With my travellings and so, we were able to support a lot of people, and give them a hand, again, in a very rough and bad time. It is very special to me to be part of the Honour Guard because I moved from a very old country. My country has a very big history with the Honour Guard, or Guards in general, because the Swiss Guards protect the Pope. You know what, it is a long history of Guardsmen in Switzerland, and so I’m very pleased and very glad, to be part of the Fire Department in Calgary, and to be a Guardsmen on the Fire Department.

Can you tell us about a specific event or ceremony that holds special meaning for you?

Yes, what I mentioned earlier. We went, back in Switzerland, as a volunteer fireman, we went to a funeral of 13 politicians that got killed in a shooting. It was a very special moment. But, since I got on the Calgary Fire Department, the first funeral I went to was in Waco, Texas. And Waco, Texas, a small, volunteer Fire Department, and they lost 12 firefighters in a fire. It was a very special moment because it was my first official event as a Calgary Fire Department Honour Guard, and it showed me the trust that the Honour Guard had in me to go and represent the Calgary Fire Department.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I think the Calgary Fire Department, and any part of the Fire Department, are very, very special in their own ways, because it’s a great bunch of people that take the time out of their free time to represent the Fire Department. If it is for a wedding, a ceremony, a medal ceremony, a medal presentation, a retirement, we all are here for the same reason. Again, as soon as you put that uniform on, you are not an individual, you are representing the Department. I’m just very glad to be with the City of Calgary, I’m very glad to be a Calgary Fire Department member, and to be an Honour Guard member. I feel really, really happy, and I think everybody should know this is the best thing to do.

Now one for the outtakes, tell us your nickname.

My name is Cheese, they call me that way because I moved from Switzerland to Calgary to become a Calgary Fire Department member. Put one and one together, Swiss Cheese and Switzerland, and you have a nickname right there. I like it. 1400 members just know me by that name sometimes, because there’s different shifts, there’s different people. As soon as I walk into a fire hall in the North, I’m a South guy, in the North they might just know me by the name of Cheese.