Way back when I went to an open house at the local volunteer fire department and picked myself up an application. After a medical exam and three letters of recomendation later, I got a phone call telling me I was accepted for membership.
I went down, got all my fancy equipment (coat, pants, boots, hood, helmet, gloves, and pager) and was basically told…nothing. OK, I was given a tour of the facilities, and some basic info (work nights monday at 7, meetings twice a month on thursdays.) But they jsut told me if I wanted to show up for a call, then just show up. Even though I don’t know anything yet. 
A full 2/3 (if not more) of our calls (over 1000 per year) are EMS calls. It would be very useless for me to show up to those, since I would just be in the way (well, probably just told to go back to work since odds are 3 competent people will show up.) But for non-EMS calls, in theory I could help, get equipment, direct traffic, that kind of thing.
Hopefully I can start my traning soon. I plan to get my firefighting training first, if I even decide to get EMS at all. And, if I’m real lucky, I can get training to drive the trucks. 
