2014 Perfection

I was reading this article on turnoutblog.com about the soldiers at the tomb of the unknown soldier, and it got me thinking. It got me thinking about the new year, where I have been, where I plan on going, training, goals, etc. But mostly had me thinking about training and how it relates to my job.

If you havent looked into what it takes to be a guard at the tomb of the unknown solider, I would recommend taking the time to do so. It made me really desire to visit the tomb one day and view first hand the changing of the guards.

There are so many lessons one can take away from the guards here, especially as it relates to the fire service. These guys are masters of their craft. They know the job inside and out, it means everything to them and they strive for perfection. Now we all know perfection cannot be achieved, as we see in the article I posted above, where one of the guards failed inspection. But this is one mistake out of tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of changeovers over the past 92 years. Have there been others? Sure, but they are so rare they are almost mythical.

These guys commit their lives to this job,  they commit everything they have to those 21 steps, those 21 seconds, and the changing of the guards presentation. They perfected it. Fewer than twenty percent of volunteers are chosen and only a fraction of those actually pass the rigorous training required to be a sentinel.

When it comes to our job, we train, we get dirty, we go back, shower up and rest. Are we actually "mastering" anything in that? Now I understand our job entails many more functions than the sentinels have to deal with while on guard, but what if we treated our riding position as our very own guard mat?   What if we took the handful of functions we are required to know for our seat on a first due fire and strived to perfect them? Is that possible?  No, because our job is ever changing and fires are never the same, but if we aimed to perfect a few specific tasks it would be safe to say we would become pretty dang good at it. Not perfect, but excellent. Just as the sentinels, while they appear so, arent perfect but have mastered the job they are expected to do.

If we put the time and effort this next year to mastering our craft as it relates to our riding position (while still keeping fresh on everything else), We could have an impact on the crew around us. And if one whole crew was striving to master the craft of their apparatus imagine the effect on scene it would have on a whole battalion, and if a battalion was striving...well...you get the point!

Just as only a few percent of soldiers make the cut to be a sentinel, so are there a few percent of firemen who are sold out to the job. But it starts with the few percent. Be a virus, infect the others with passion!

Always remember, we arent perfect, were human. We will never know it all, and when we think we do its time to go home.

"We will be relentless in our pursuit of perfection. We wont ever be perfect - but in the process we will achieve greatness."  -Vince Lombardi