THE LEADERSHIP THING- A thought about a Christmas past...and the biggest towing bill ever.
In what must be the fastest follow-up post ever, I was recently reminded of an old Captain of mine. This guy taught me a lot. Not so much about the fire department, but about that ever-hard-to-quantify "leadership thing". His name is Bob. Read the start of this, and I promise a funny story at the end.
Bob got my attention (again) a few weeks ago when he was promoted to the rank of General in the United States Air Force. Not brigadier, I mean O-10, four-star, real-deal General. He is in charge of a major command, and is responsible for the direction and supervision of tens of thousands of people and a bevy of super-important programs. He hasn't been active in our fire department for more than ten years, but those of us who remember his days in the department often speak of how we thought he would be the next Chief of the Department. We had our disagreements, but I have always very much admired him.
During the time when I had the honor of serving with Bob in the fire department (circa 1986-1990), he was a Lt. Colonel and Colonel. Little did we know that he had already been pegged by the USAF as a "rising star". In the fire department, he was a competent, but never super-strong or remarkable fireground commander. What he had though, was an ability to make people do what needed to be done. This included the ability to get people to do extraordinary tasks in firefighting, maintaining the firehouse, maintaining apparatus, serving on committees, setting up events, maintaining discipline, or anything else that goes on in the fire department. He was so good at overall personnel management that people like my brother and I, who were young and admittedly disrespectful of him at the time, were astounded at his ability to make things happen. Having now served as a Captain in the fire department for several years, I look back and wish that I had half of the prowess at motivating people that Bob had. The point is that any fire officer can grab a rookie by his airpack and drag him to a fire, whether he wants to go or not. It takes talent to get someone to clean up a boiler room, or to get all of the personnel of the station to do landscaping work for an entire weekend without complaint. We saw this talent in Bob. Unfortunately for our fire department, so did the federal government. Bob has been going up the promotion chain steadily since he left us. Given his very impressive service record, the United States has needed him far more than we did. Congratulations, Bob! Your achievement is literally beyond belief.
OK, enough of that stuff. As Christmas approaches, I am reminded of a General Bob-involved story. Despite his skill with leadership, this story ends with a great big "I told you so" directed at Bob.
Christmas 1990. The last great day of home response in the history of our fire department. Full-time duty crews went into effect soon thereafter, and home response essentially ended. At that time, I was a live-in at my current firehouse. My brother, whom we have called "J" herein, was in the process of transitioning from the firehouse in North Woodbridge to our current home in South Woodbridge. Our parents lived in the first due of our department's third station, one where neither of us routinely went. Sometime in December, I had been turned over (allowed by department rules and testing) to drive the ladder truck assigned to that station. On Christmas eve, J and I took our fire gear to our parents' house with the idea that we were close enough to respond into the nearby firehouse to get the ladder truck out. The engine was going to be staffed, as a family unit of Mother (driver), Father (officer) and Son (fireman) would be covering the engine. J and I checked into the firehouse and learned that Bob, who was a Captain, would be coming in for the ladder truck as well, so the plan was the the family would be the engine company, and that Bob, J, and I would come in for the ladder. The joke of it all was that there was absolutely no reason to expect a call, as that firehouse was one of the slowest in the county at the time.
Jay and I set our gear by the door and after hanging out with our parents for the evening, went to bed. To our surprise, our alerting pagers went off at about 0300. A call for the ladder truck! It was a genuine surprise. The dispatch was for a first due house fire, three engines, the ladder truck and a rescue company. J and I grabbed our stuff and jumped into my car. Stepping out the door of our house, you could smell the smoke, and the two of us both said "working fire". I put the little cigarette-lighter-powered red light on the dash, and we took off. To get to the firehouse, we had to drive past the place, or more accurately, the general area of where the fire was. I was going about 60 in a 25mph zone, when we passed a cop, who instead of pulling us over, waived us on toward the firehouse in an encouraging fashion. We saw the flames through the woods. We arrived at the firehouse a moment later, and at the same time as Bob. It dawned on me as I started the truck that this was to be the my first real call driving that truck. It dawned on Bob, too. He started by telling me to calm down and drive. We made it to the call without incident.
I have often said that on the fireground, my win/loss record is [some crazy number] and one. Like 248-1. Or 6579-1. Or something like that. This fire was, and still is, the "one" loss. By loss, I mean a fire that could have and should have ended differently than it did, despite our efforts. This is distinguished from fires that were big and resulted in loss. In this context, by "loss" I mean that we fucked up and the outcome was different than it should have been under the circumstances.
Upon arrival, we found the engine company family unit starting to make a move on the house, which was apparently abandoned. Water supply was going to be an issue, because of the remote location of the house at the end of a long dirt driveway (and ultimately, it took forever- requiring an 1800' three-part, j-shaped series of split lays). When they first started, they had a chance to stop the fire. From the outside, it seemed like there was a pile of refuse burning in the main room, which had extended to the attic and was coming out of the the vent on the "B" side. No problem, right? You can put out a hell of a lot of fire with the 500 gallons in your tank, right? We have plenty of people now and the water supply is coming so we can go in now, right? Wrong. I won't trouble you with the precise reasons that this went bad, mainly because I don't want to dime out my old friends for pump operator errors, bad chief decision making, and a fire attack that was not only late, but both ineffective and wasteful of water we didn't really have. Suffice it to say that nothing went to plan, and the delay in water supply spelled the doom of the building. I had a vision of how to do things differently, and I was really angry that I couldn't get my point across. Time for the aerial master stream.
For you guys not in the fire department, aerial master stream (AMS) operations are sort of a good news/bad news proposition. The good news is that AMS operations are performed infrequently outside of training, so everyone is motivated and excited when it happens. The bad news is that around us, AMS means "you have been beaten". AMS is a big, spectacular, high-visibility monument to "we suck". It's embarrasing. So, in the end, on a house with a relatively small fire and which shoulda-been-coulda-been-oughta-been saved, ended up fully involved and the subject of a prolonged AMS operation. As the driver of the ladder truck, my job was to set up my 110' ladder and pre-piped waterway for maximum effect, and to direct the flow of water from my controls at the turntable. I have to admit, for a first call as a ladder truck driver, this was pretty fucking cool, but I was raging pissed off at losing the building. I spent an hour with a coffee and/or smoke in one hand, and the electronic nozzle controls in the other, and ultimately knocked the entire building down into the foundation.
It being the early morning of December 25, it was cold. In fact, it was right around freezing. We were all wet from a couple of hours of firefighting that was not so much fun anymore. The chief, whom I could barely look at because I was so mad, released the Rescue company to return to quarters. Everyone was anxious to get home, it being about 0600 on Christmas and all. The Rescue was brand new. It had dual rear axles and a total of eight tires supporting the rear of its body. Although it was filled with rescue tools and equipment, it was still generally lighter than a ladder truck. To get off the fireground, the Rescue backed down the driveway a short distance, and then did a three-point turn into a grassy field to get pointed in the outbound direction. Bob and I watched this happen.
About an hour later, it was time for us to go. The sun had come out. While we were still cold and wet, the chill was starting to wear off with even a tiny bit of sunlight. I took one last look at the blackened and debris-filled swimming pool that used to be a house, cursed, and made final preparations to get my ladder truck out of there. I told Bob that I intended to back all the way down the country road that was the driveway, and then turn around at the main road. Bob told me to make a three-point turn just like the Rescue did. J and I both protested, indicating that the rescue was lighter than the ladder truck, had twice as many rear wheels (this ladder had a single rear axle and four tires), and oh yeah, the ground isn't quite as frozen as before. Nope, Bob wanted us to turn around in the grass like the Rescue. OK, Sir. I don't think that this is a good idea, but OK, Sir.
I backed the truck down the driveway. I got to the part where I could drive onto the grass. I intentionally skipped out on wheel-tracking where the Rescue had been. I eased onto the grass. Half way back and with my wheels fully turned to the left, all was well. Front wheels off of the driveway, straightened out, and ready to turn the other way, I shifted out of reverse and into "drive" or "4" or whatever it was. The instant that I started to go forward, there was a huge CRUNCH, and I watched in horror as the turf gave way under my wheels and the axle sunk into the turf up to the hubs. It seemed that the frozen tundra of Lake Ridge could not support my twice-as-much-truck-on-half-the-wheels weight distribution plan if the trick was not moving. J flipped out. "See, I told you so, Bob!" The bad idea now having come to fruition, we were stuck.
The good news is that a ladder truck in this situation can exercise a little bit of self-help. We set out our pads and I put down the stabilization jacks and lifted the truck up out of the holes. We filled the tire-shaped holes with oak cribbing blocks and I set the truck back down. To my amazement, the truck sat level on top of the wood. Bob's plan was that I would try to drive off of the wood with as much speed as possible, with the idea of carrying maximum possible speed onto the grass, hopefully allowing me to drive back onto the dirt driveway. Good plan. The distance from where the wheels were sitting on the wood to the grass was about ten inches. To be honest, I thought that it might work. For the first time all day, I was wrong.
I put my foot on the brake, slapped the transmission into drive, and released the parking brake. I looked to make sure Bob and J were clear, and I romped on the accelerator. The truck lurched forward, and then there was this odd sound, accompanied by the back of the truck going back down. The sound was sort of a WHOOMP, WHOOMP, WHOOMP. I learned moments later that the WHOOMP sound was the wheels driving the cribbing into the turf. Shit. We're stuck. It is now coming up on 0800 Christmas morning, we've been out all night, we're wet, and now we have to get our truck towed out of this crazy remote area we didn't even realize existed. I figured that the chance of getting a tow truck that could pull a ladder truck out of mud under these circumstances was about zero, maybe less.
If you thought that I was angry about the fire going badly, imagine how pissed off I was when we realized that the truck was stuck and not coming out. I was still trying to process how much force it would take to shoot lumber into the underground world using tires, when we heard that a tow truck was on its way. Turns out that the legendary owner of a local towing company was personally coming out (immediately, as it turned out) to handle our ineptitude. I was worried that he wouldn't have enough truck. I was wrong again. This guy knew his craft, and he brought out a big mamba jamba of tow vehicle, and he arrived before 0900. We were out by 0915 or so, and back to the firehouse by about 0930. Upon our arrival, we found our department vehicle maintenance officer waiting for us. "What the hell did you dumb fucks do now?" came the question from Art, the maintenance officer. It was really a term of endearment. J and I both pointed to Bob, and told Art to ask him. Bob recounted the original sinking, and then the secondary sinking. Art thought that the part about driving the cribbing blocks into the dirt was uproariously funny, and he pulled out a creeper to look under the truck.
J and I were making preparations to leave, like that second. We knew that we were going to be late at home. We had a Christmas tree full of presents and a Mom-cooked breakfast waiting for us. We each had a foot under the door, when Art said "Just where the fuck do you to think you are going?" I mentioned the above-listed reasons to leave, but Art just blasted back about how much work there was to do on the truck, and it was a lot. J and I were just kids, and we must have looked upset, being denied Christmas morning and all.
Bob took us aside and apologized for the mishap, thanked us for our good work, and asked us if we could stick around just long enough to help him get the mud off of the chassis, as he expected the truck to be back in service that day. He did this in a way that we couldn't resist. We stayed in the firehouse cleaning the ladder truck until after noon, with a call to our parents explaining the delay. In the end, we helped finish everything. Of course, it was our responsibility, and I am 100% sure that we would have shirked that responsibility under the circumstances. Bob got us to do way more work than planned by apologizing, thanking, asking and expecting, than he ever would have by "telling". That was his way. I learned a great deal that morning. I am glad to have had the opportunity to meet that guy, much less to work with him.
J and I arrived home sometime after lunchtime. We were wet, muddy, firefighting dirty, and smelled bad. We both passed out in our own beds, and woke up for what seemed like a regular Christmas at dinner time. It was a great day. I learned a bunch.
Comment all you want. I'll be back for more later.
DTXMATT12
Bob got my attention (again) a few weeks ago when he was promoted to the rank of General in the United States Air Force. Not brigadier, I mean O-10, four-star, real-deal General. He is in charge of a major command, and is responsible for the direction and supervision of tens of thousands of people and a bevy of super-important programs. He hasn't been active in our fire department for more than ten years, but those of us who remember his days in the department often speak of how we thought he would be the next Chief of the Department. We had our disagreements, but I have always very much admired him.
During the time when I had the honor of serving with Bob in the fire department (circa 1986-1990), he was a Lt. Colonel and Colonel. Little did we know that he had already been pegged by the USAF as a "rising star". In the fire department, he was a competent, but never super-strong or remarkable fireground commander. What he had though, was an ability to make people do what needed to be done. This included the ability to get people to do extraordinary tasks in firefighting, maintaining the firehouse, maintaining apparatus, serving on committees, setting up events, maintaining discipline, or anything else that goes on in the fire department. He was so good at overall personnel management that people like my brother and I, who were young and admittedly disrespectful of him at the time, were astounded at his ability to make things happen. Having now served as a Captain in the fire department for several years, I look back and wish that I had half of the prowess at motivating people that Bob had. The point is that any fire officer can grab a rookie by his airpack and drag him to a fire, whether he wants to go or not. It takes talent to get someone to clean up a boiler room, or to get all of the personnel of the station to do landscaping work for an entire weekend without complaint. We saw this talent in Bob. Unfortunately for our fire department, so did the federal government. Bob has been going up the promotion chain steadily since he left us. Given his very impressive service record, the United States has needed him far more than we did. Congratulations, Bob! Your achievement is literally beyond belief.
OK, enough of that stuff. As Christmas approaches, I am reminded of a General Bob-involved story. Despite his skill with leadership, this story ends with a great big "I told you so" directed at Bob.
Christmas 1990. The last great day of home response in the history of our fire department. Full-time duty crews went into effect soon thereafter, and home response essentially ended. At that time, I was a live-in at my current firehouse. My brother, whom we have called "J" herein, was in the process of transitioning from the firehouse in North Woodbridge to our current home in South Woodbridge. Our parents lived in the first due of our department's third station, one where neither of us routinely went. Sometime in December, I had been turned over (allowed by department rules and testing) to drive the ladder truck assigned to that station. On Christmas eve, J and I took our fire gear to our parents' house with the idea that we were close enough to respond into the nearby firehouse to get the ladder truck out. The engine was going to be staffed, as a family unit of Mother (driver), Father (officer) and Son (fireman) would be covering the engine. J and I checked into the firehouse and learned that Bob, who was a Captain, would be coming in for the ladder truck as well, so the plan was the the family would be the engine company, and that Bob, J, and I would come in for the ladder. The joke of it all was that there was absolutely no reason to expect a call, as that firehouse was one of the slowest in the county at the time.
Jay and I set our gear by the door and after hanging out with our parents for the evening, went to bed. To our surprise, our alerting pagers went off at about 0300. A call for the ladder truck! It was a genuine surprise. The dispatch was for a first due house fire, three engines, the ladder truck and a rescue company. J and I grabbed our stuff and jumped into my car. Stepping out the door of our house, you could smell the smoke, and the two of us both said "working fire". I put the little cigarette-lighter-powered red light on the dash, and we took off. To get to the firehouse, we had to drive past the place, or more accurately, the general area of where the fire was. I was going about 60 in a 25mph zone, when we passed a cop, who instead of pulling us over, waived us on toward the firehouse in an encouraging fashion. We saw the flames through the woods. We arrived at the firehouse a moment later, and at the same time as Bob. It dawned on me as I started the truck that this was to be the my first real call driving that truck. It dawned on Bob, too. He started by telling me to calm down and drive. We made it to the call without incident.
I have often said that on the fireground, my win/loss record is [some crazy number] and one. Like 248-1. Or 6579-1. Or something like that. This fire was, and still is, the "one" loss. By loss, I mean a fire that could have and should have ended differently than it did, despite our efforts. This is distinguished from fires that were big and resulted in loss. In this context, by "loss" I mean that we fucked up and the outcome was different than it should have been under the circumstances.
Upon arrival, we found the engine company family unit starting to make a move on the house, which was apparently abandoned. Water supply was going to be an issue, because of the remote location of the house at the end of a long dirt driveway (and ultimately, it took forever- requiring an 1800' three-part, j-shaped series of split lays). When they first started, they had a chance to stop the fire. From the outside, it seemed like there was a pile of refuse burning in the main room, which had extended to the attic and was coming out of the the vent on the "B" side. No problem, right? You can put out a hell of a lot of fire with the 500 gallons in your tank, right? We have plenty of people now and the water supply is coming so we can go in now, right? Wrong. I won't trouble you with the precise reasons that this went bad, mainly because I don't want to dime out my old friends for pump operator errors, bad chief decision making, and a fire attack that was not only late, but both ineffective and wasteful of water we didn't really have. Suffice it to say that nothing went to plan, and the delay in water supply spelled the doom of the building. I had a vision of how to do things differently, and I was really angry that I couldn't get my point across. Time for the aerial master stream.
For you guys not in the fire department, aerial master stream (AMS) operations are sort of a good news/bad news proposition. The good news is that AMS operations are performed infrequently outside of training, so everyone is motivated and excited when it happens. The bad news is that around us, AMS means "you have been beaten". AMS is a big, spectacular, high-visibility monument to "we suck". It's embarrasing. So, in the end, on a house with a relatively small fire and which shoulda-been-coulda-been-oughta-been saved, ended up fully involved and the subject of a prolonged AMS operation. As the driver of the ladder truck, my job was to set up my 110' ladder and pre-piped waterway for maximum effect, and to direct the flow of water from my controls at the turntable. I have to admit, for a first call as a ladder truck driver, this was pretty fucking cool, but I was raging pissed off at losing the building. I spent an hour with a coffee and/or smoke in one hand, and the electronic nozzle controls in the other, and ultimately knocked the entire building down into the foundation.
It being the early morning of December 25, it was cold. In fact, it was right around freezing. We were all wet from a couple of hours of firefighting that was not so much fun anymore. The chief, whom I could barely look at because I was so mad, released the Rescue company to return to quarters. Everyone was anxious to get home, it being about 0600 on Christmas and all. The Rescue was brand new. It had dual rear axles and a total of eight tires supporting the rear of its body. Although it was filled with rescue tools and equipment, it was still generally lighter than a ladder truck. To get off the fireground, the Rescue backed down the driveway a short distance, and then did a three-point turn into a grassy field to get pointed in the outbound direction. Bob and I watched this happen.
About an hour later, it was time for us to go. The sun had come out. While we were still cold and wet, the chill was starting to wear off with even a tiny bit of sunlight. I took one last look at the blackened and debris-filled swimming pool that used to be a house, cursed, and made final preparations to get my ladder truck out of there. I told Bob that I intended to back all the way down the country road that was the driveway, and then turn around at the main road. Bob told me to make a three-point turn just like the Rescue did. J and I both protested, indicating that the rescue was lighter than the ladder truck, had twice as many rear wheels (this ladder had a single rear axle and four tires), and oh yeah, the ground isn't quite as frozen as before. Nope, Bob wanted us to turn around in the grass like the Rescue. OK, Sir. I don't think that this is a good idea, but OK, Sir.
I backed the truck down the driveway. I got to the part where I could drive onto the grass. I intentionally skipped out on wheel-tracking where the Rescue had been. I eased onto the grass. Half way back and with my wheels fully turned to the left, all was well. Front wheels off of the driveway, straightened out, and ready to turn the other way, I shifted out of reverse and into "drive" or "4" or whatever it was. The instant that I started to go forward, there was a huge CRUNCH, and I watched in horror as the turf gave way under my wheels and the axle sunk into the turf up to the hubs. It seemed that the frozen tundra of Lake Ridge could not support my twice-as-much-truck-on-half-the-wheels weight distribution plan if the trick was not moving. J flipped out. "See, I told you so, Bob!" The bad idea now having come to fruition, we were stuck.
The good news is that a ladder truck in this situation can exercise a little bit of self-help. We set out our pads and I put down the stabilization jacks and lifted the truck up out of the holes. We filled the tire-shaped holes with oak cribbing blocks and I set the truck back down. To my amazement, the truck sat level on top of the wood. Bob's plan was that I would try to drive off of the wood with as much speed as possible, with the idea of carrying maximum possible speed onto the grass, hopefully allowing me to drive back onto the dirt driveway. Good plan. The distance from where the wheels were sitting on the wood to the grass was about ten inches. To be honest, I thought that it might work. For the first time all day, I was wrong.
I put my foot on the brake, slapped the transmission into drive, and released the parking brake. I looked to make sure Bob and J were clear, and I romped on the accelerator. The truck lurched forward, and then there was this odd sound, accompanied by the back of the truck going back down. The sound was sort of a WHOOMP, WHOOMP, WHOOMP. I learned moments later that the WHOOMP sound was the wheels driving the cribbing into the turf. Shit. We're stuck. It is now coming up on 0800 Christmas morning, we've been out all night, we're wet, and now we have to get our truck towed out of this crazy remote area we didn't even realize existed. I figured that the chance of getting a tow truck that could pull a ladder truck out of mud under these circumstances was about zero, maybe less.
If you thought that I was angry about the fire going badly, imagine how pissed off I was when we realized that the truck was stuck and not coming out. I was still trying to process how much force it would take to shoot lumber into the underground world using tires, when we heard that a tow truck was on its way. Turns out that the legendary owner of a local towing company was personally coming out (immediately, as it turned out) to handle our ineptitude. I was worried that he wouldn't have enough truck. I was wrong again. This guy knew his craft, and he brought out a big mamba jamba of tow vehicle, and he arrived before 0900. We were out by 0915 or so, and back to the firehouse by about 0930. Upon our arrival, we found our department vehicle maintenance officer waiting for us. "What the hell did you dumb fucks do now?" came the question from Art, the maintenance officer. It was really a term of endearment. J and I both pointed to Bob, and told Art to ask him. Bob recounted the original sinking, and then the secondary sinking. Art thought that the part about driving the cribbing blocks into the dirt was uproariously funny, and he pulled out a creeper to look under the truck.
J and I were making preparations to leave, like that second. We knew that we were going to be late at home. We had a Christmas tree full of presents and a Mom-cooked breakfast waiting for us. We each had a foot under the door, when Art said "Just where the fuck do you to think you are going?" I mentioned the above-listed reasons to leave, but Art just blasted back about how much work there was to do on the truck, and it was a lot. J and I were just kids, and we must have looked upset, being denied Christmas morning and all.
Bob took us aside and apologized for the mishap, thanked us for our good work, and asked us if we could stick around just long enough to help him get the mud off of the chassis, as he expected the truck to be back in service that day. He did this in a way that we couldn't resist. We stayed in the firehouse cleaning the ladder truck until after noon, with a call to our parents explaining the delay. In the end, we helped finish everything. Of course, it was our responsibility, and I am 100% sure that we would have shirked that responsibility under the circumstances. Bob got us to do way more work than planned by apologizing, thanking, asking and expecting, than he ever would have by "telling". That was his way. I learned a great deal that morning. I am glad to have had the opportunity to meet that guy, much less to work with him.
J and I arrived home sometime after lunchtime. We were wet, muddy, firefighting dirty, and smelled bad. We both passed out in our own beds, and woke up for what seemed like a regular Christmas at dinner time. It was a great day. I learned a bunch.
Comment all you want. I'll be back for more later.
DTXMATT12
posted by DTXMATT12 at 6:07 PM
1 Comments:
I can't help but read all your old-school-awsome tales and think "Man, I wish I was around in the department then to enjoy all that."... Except, oh yeah, in 1990 I was FREAKIN 5 YEARS OLD...
Sorry, had to make you feel old there. Other wise, awsome tale.
Post a Comment
<< Home