tommy kinard's age: Or, let Buck bounce on that age gap, kids
So. Let's talk about Tommy Kinard's age. Because every time I see him listed as 40 in a current, modern day fic, I lose my mind a little.
Now, obviously , you can do whatever you what in a fic, and I know WHY people do this - some word of god + LFJ's age, with a side helping of That Other Shipper Fandom Doesn't Get to Call Tommy Old if He's Less Than Ten Years Older Than Buck.
However.
Buck is a grown man who canonically dated and changed his life for a woman who was 42 when he was 26 and does not need to be protected from getting his back blown out and his heart claimed by a hot older man.
So, "Tommy Was Born NO Early than 1980 and Is At least 46 in 2026: A Minor Thesis By Me."
First, we know a couple of things about his age from canon:
We know from "Chimney Begins" that Tommy was not a probie in 2005 when Chim joined. So he'd been there at least a year before that. For the sake of making him as young as possible, we will say that he has ONLY been there a year. We also knew that he "learned to fly" in the army.
So, that means:
He had to have joined the LAFD ~2004.
Had to have completed the necessary requirements for army pilots prior to that. For Army pilots joining prior to October 1, 2020, there was a 6 year service requirement after completing flight school.
To be a pilot, Tommy also had to be either a Commissioned Officer OR a Warrant Officer. Assuming he was not an officer, that means he had to complete all of the following before he could becoming a pilot: Army Basic Training, Warrant Officer Candidate School (WOCS), and Army helicopter flight school.
To make Tommy AS YOUNG AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE IN THIS TIMELINE: We'll also assume he joined the army at 17 with parental permission, which you can do because the USA is stupid and because his father seems like the sort - and also because we are going to make Tommy as YOUNG as he can possibly be in 2026 to prove my point:
Age 17: Graduates High school, Enlists in Army and does Basic Combat Training ~ 2.5 months
Age 17: Warrant Officer Candidate School ~1.5 months
Ages: 17–18 Army helicopter flight school (IERW) ~12 months (Can be up to 18 months, but we are making this the shortest timeline possible)
Ages 18–24: Aviation service obligation 6 years
Age 24: Leaves Army (Here, we give Tommy a LOT of assumptive grace. Getting into the LAFD Academy is hard, but we'll assume his officers wrote nice things or whatever and he got in right away.)
Age 24 :LAFD Academy: 22 weeks
AGe 24: Starts Probie Year
Age 25: "Chimney Begins" - has been with LAFD for at least a year.
SO, if he's 25 in 2005, that would make him born in 1980. In 2026, that that makes him no younger than 46. If he's born in 1980, that means he is 11 years older than Buck's 1991 birth year, which is fun and sexy if you aren't boring (and they are not.)
Notes:
Now, in truth, in a realistic timeline, Tommy would be older still.
He'd spent closer to 18 months in flight school and he probably had to take some time to apply/wait/join the LAFD academy, and maybe his parents weren't dicks and made him wait to 18 before he signed his life away to the military and/or maybe he gradated at the age of 18.
There's also issues with waiting for admission to WOCs and flight school.
And we have no IDEA how long he was in the LAFD before Chim came along
Honestly, 48 is more realistic and he could easily be celebrating his 50th birthday OR BEYOND. IF YOU AREN'T A COWARD.
BUT~ if you want him as young as possible, 46 is the bottom floor of what can be going on here in 2026. He can definitely be older, but he can't be younger and have the timeline make any sense.
In conclusion:
Sources:
(Just sources; don't join the military, kids.)
Army Aviation Special and Incentive Pay Policies to Promote Performance, Manage Talent, and Sustain Retention
Okay, I just noticed something and need everyone to stay with me.
So May's graduation party. We have the blue and red of parenthood heavily at play, since Maddie is about to find out she's pregnant.
So this happens. Notice the guitars complete the color theory. Same with Maddie alone with the blue guitar, and Chim's red hat.
And notice the guitars aren't really visible in everyone else's pictures.
But this post is to say, look at the guitars.
The pictures with Chris have the red element from our little color wheel theory, with the hat, the guitar, and the red microphone, which is blue for everyone else.
We also have a moment of Harry and May being the blue and red elements, I talk about how they use this with Harry, May, and Bobby in this post if you wanna read more. Same with Denny's blue shirt to his red hat. And a little shoutout to how they do the blue and green with henren through the details.
But the thing that I really want to point out is Buck's yellow guitar to Eddie's blue one. Because if they are doing the blue and red with madney and all the kids, then this is on purpose. Especially when Chris is red and yellow (Eddie's color that's heavily present with Buck at the time), even the picture with Buck doesn't have blue elements, when Denny, Harry, and May are blue and red.
Long live the blue and yellow, all praise the 911 crew.
Next on our 911 Season 10 Wishlist? The classic Bottle Episode. A 911 bottle episode would cost the network $12 and emotionally destroy us. Everybody wins. ✌️
Eddie putting Buck in his will in the context of Eddie begins makes me want to lie down on the floor. The flashbacks show us that Eddie has a real problem committing to things when someone else can hold him responsible for his faults. He can’t commit to being a husband, or a father, until he literally has no choice. Now, he’ll hold himself responsible until the sun goes supernova, obviously, but he can’t stomach the idea of sharing the burden (martyr complex hello) and possibly someone bearing witness to his fuck ups.
But the will. The will is committing to Buck. Specifically, it’s committing his failure as a father to Buck. Buck gets Chris if Eddie dies—never mind that they’re partners on the job, that if Eddie dies and Buck doesn’t, it’ll haunt him for the rest of his life—that’s Eddie’s failure to bear. And he’s letting Buck see it. Buck sees at as the ultimate gesture of trust that it is, but it’s not just Eddie making sure Chris will have the best care, it’s Eddie saying: you get to see the aftermath. I’ll let you be around when I fail. I’ll let you pick up the pieces.
And then Buck does, and Eddie doesn’t even have to die for it.
I saw this tiktok and now I'm hyperfocused on a season 3 rewrite after the fire truck bombing where instead of miraculously healing, Buck goes through a series of failed surgeries resulting in a below-the-knee amputation of his crushed leg.
And then we actually spend some time with that.
Buck struggling through rehab. Buck being furious and scared and stubborn and pretending he’s fine (he's completely fine you guys) in ways that are deeply, obviously not fine. The 118 trying to carry on without him. Someone like Bosko coming in as a temporary replacement, and Buck being totally normal and chill about that. Obviously.
And then Buck gets a super cool firefighting prosthetic and we get a whole storyline (let's be real, one episode) about him training to recertify, learning what his body can do now, meeting other amputees and firefighters and athletes with prostheses, and fighting his way back to the 118.
It’s triumphant. It’s emotional. I’m crying. You’re crying. Bobby's in the background looking proud.
And all the while Buck's been living with Eddie and Chris because of course he has. He can't be in the Loft by himself with that kind of injury and Eddie knows how to be a caregiver to someone with mobility issues and beside, he's a paramedic. And he's Eddie.
And Buck bonds with Christopher over disability and mobility and frustration and adaptation, but coming at it from different angles – being born with disability vs. coming to it at a later age. Both of them understanding something about each other that nobody else quite does.
Meanwhile Eddie's fully slipping into husband mode without noticing. He’s managing meds. He’s driving Buck to appointments. He’s making Christopher do his homework at the kitchen table while Buck does PT exercises in the living room. He’s saying things like “our house” and “we need more space” and somehow not hearing himself at all.
And by the end of the season Eddie's fully house hunting for a 3 bedroom accessible house because they need more space and the 118 is side-eying them all so hard they're getting migraines.
And then Buck and Eddie kiss about it in the finale.
Watching 8x17 again before starting my hiatus rewatch and in the Buck and Pepa kitchen conversation he tells her “Bobby was our center. Without him everything feels off balance, kind of like gravity is gone” and I keep thinking about how the whole of season 9 is really just all of them trying to find their center again. Trying to figure out what still pulls them back to earth after losing the person who held all of them together for so long.
It’s Athena in space where there is literally no gravity at all and it’s all consuming in its vastness and endlessness and she has to choose to reach for that hand pulling her back anyway, has to decide she wants to keep fighting instead of letting herself drift into the void. And it’s her at the end of the season once again choosing to keep going and growing and changing because that center will always be with her no matter where she goes and what she does.
It’s Chim staring at the shape Bobby left behind and wondering if he’s big enough to fill it, if he can be the thing that keeps the rest of them grounded and steady, and the season answering him over and over again that there is no one better to carry that weight.
It’s Hen finding her footing again and returning once more to the job that keeps calling her back because this is who she is even when she forgets it for a little while. Even while fighting an illness she’s fighting to stay, to keep doing the thing she loves, because being a paramedic has never stopped pulling at her.
It’s Maddie stepping into this new role at dispatch and discovering she’s good at it despite all her fears, pulling people forward while letting herself be pulled forward too.
It’s Eddie coming back to LA and becoming his own kind of gravitational force, pulling his son back toward the place he belongs, because for the first time in a long time Eddie is finally steady enough to hold onto the most important relationship in his life instead of fearing it slipping through his fingers. And it’s him still looking for that gravity in all the wrong places and losing another one on the way and still still finding his footing once more and finding comfort in those around him. And maybe now that he’s survived all of that loss and guilt and loneliness he can finally start figuring out who he is on the other side of it too.
And it’s Buck being pulled in every direction in the absence of that gravity and not knowing who he is without it and still stepping up for Harry anyway, becoming the steady and guiding thing Harry needs because Buck has been there before and Bobby had been there for him and so Buck asks himself what Bobby would do and he already knows the answer. It’s him opening his heart and his home to a little kid who has lost everything even knowing it might only be temporary because maybe the point is that someone was there at all. Because even temporary gravity can change the shape of a life forever. Because maybe having someone hold you together for even a little while is better than never having had that at all.
The thing is, Eddie being held separate from the rest of the 118 could be a really strong, intentional piece of storytelling about the isolation of not being your authentic self, how keeping things hidden or repressed means not only that you’re preventing pieces of yourself from being part of the whole you but that you’re always holding back from true connection with the people around you, consciously or unconsciously, to prevent them from surfacing or uncovering those hidden parts that you don’t want seen.
It could be quite powerful, beautiful even, to see those connections flourish once Eddie is allowed to discover and express his truth.
I’m just not convinced the writers are doing it on purpose, or that they’ll ever even acknowledge it never mind use it narratively in this sort of way.
