Wounded not Defeated
Special Guest Student of Fire, Jason Bennett
Choosing, or Finding the Hard Path
As a new guy working my first fire in the Poudre Canyon, I can remember thinking “This is crazy, they are paying me to do this?” I was hooked instantly, the chaos, the danger, the challenge. At the same time, I had never worked so hard in my life and wasn’t sure if it was even possible for me to hang with the workload these senior guys had undoubtedly managed so many times. Was I tough enough? Did I have the courage to pull my weight on the team? It wasn’t long until I recognized you had to go to a different place. However, it was many years before I could give it a name.
Dr. Preston Kline describes an immersion event as a discreet liminal event, where the individual or the team must pass through a crisis. They cannot volunteer out of the event, they must see it through (Fighting a fire, combat, surgery, rocket launch, etc.) “Operators spend years developing their ability to seamlessly enter and exit immersion events, often in a “flow state,” a period of effortless calm and focus where solutions seem to emerge as fast as the problem sets (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)”.
I have been fortunate to go on to make a living as a firefighter and rescue man. Moving into those immersion events effectively became natural and a driving force.
Nothing replaces experience and nothing is learned without failures. However, there is also a toll to be paid along the way. The path is hard on the body, mind, and soul and self-doubt and anxiety are always creeping around in the background. Moving out of those events and back to “normal” life proves to be an even more difficult challenge at times. We move in and out of those places that are hard to explain and back, sometimes in very short periods of time.
Brotherhood
“Four brave men who do not know each other will not dare attack a lion. Four less brave, but knowing each other well, sure of their reliability and consequently of mutual aid, will attack resolutely”. Ardant du Picq.
Much of the credit goes to my family for getting me this far. It wasn’t that my dad gave me any extraordinary words of advice. Turns out words are overrated. My brother discovered some research recently that helped me understand that we had been giving a gift imprinted in our genes. Emotional and psychological trauma can be passed down in the epi-genome, basically the software running on our genes. It also turns out this isn’t a bad thing, it’s an advantage when dealing with the residue of extraordinary experiences.
My Grandfather, William Bennett served in WW2 as a gunner in a bombardier squadron in Italy. He never talked about his time overseas. It was only in going through his stuff after his funeral that we learned he had flown 62 missions with the 47th Bombardment Group, mostly as a member of a 4-man crew in the A-20 Havoc light Bomber. Looking further into the history connected me with the stories of these crews of brave men. Individually, they were all terrified getting on those planes, they knew this could easily be their last flight. These men were lucky to survive the required 40 missions to get a ticket home. Yet, many of them volunteered to fly more, clear on the risks. Someone has to do it, they would say. So, what made them brave? I’m certain it was each other.
This Christmas I received a very timely gift from my girlfriend. She arranged for a friend of mine to build me a new Boston Strap for carrying my radio. My old one was mostly duct tape and tie wraps. I now carry my grandfather’s squadron’s patch. It was important to me that it was the patch the men themselves created during the time he was in Italy, different from the one the Army Air Corps officially ended up adopting.
I now find myself, one of the senior guys in our rescue company with the wear and tear of 29 years of service. Every time I put that radio on and go out the door it reminds me I’m a part of something bigger. How I am nothing without those 4 brave men. How important it is to flip the switch and move as one when entering those places. How grateful I am for my crew but also my grandfathers’ crewmembers and how I most likely don’t exist without them. The 47th group motto is carved in the strap. “Vulneratus non Victus”, Wounded not defeated.
When the old body is hurting and the self-doubt is creeping in, when my brain is full of bullshit, and won’t shut up. Wearing that patch with those words reminds me to suck it up and focus, there’s no room for me in those moments.
It’s us and those moments, when we get it right, are excellent.
