The Longest Moment by Ziggy

I hate these moments. These infrequent moments during an incident, like this structure fire, where there’s nothing for me to do but stand back and watch. As incident commander, sometimes there’s little else for me to do while my paramedics are doing a sweep for victims and my engine crew is working the hoses. They take their duties seriously and do them efficiently, needing little coaxing from me to carry out what needs to be done.

Sometimes, especially during a particularly bad fire, I just want to keep my men outside, out of harm’s way. But I can’t and I send them in to fight the Dragon or to keep somebody from becoming a fatal victim of the raging inferno. It’s my job. Hell, it’s their job. We all knew the risks when we joined the fire department, knowing that the next run might possibly be our last, that we could lose our lives saving total strangers or protecting their property. But that still doesn’t make it any easier having to put their lives in potential jeopardy.

I want to be in the thick of things with them. Not that my presence could stop something terrible from happening. I could end up trapped under a fallen wall or going through the floor with my men, but I guess there’s some part deep inside me that, like a father with his children, hopes that by proximity alone, I could keep the demons at bay.

Or perhaps direct the demons towards me instead, as happened the time when I was the one touching that car’s cool metal when a power line fell during a rescue. Hurt like all get-out, but I was grateful it had been me, not Johnny or Marco, who’d gotten electrocuted; because nothing pains me more than to see one of my men get harmed, no matter how minor the injury. It makes me feel I failed them in some way. I guess all commanders feel that way.

How things have changed since I pinned on these bugles. Even though I still feel like the five men under my direct command are my "brothers," I now find myself viewing them differently. It’s more than just camaraderie, it’s a sense of protectiveness as well, I guess. These are my men and ultimately they’re my responsibility, for now I’m making life and death decisions for an entire station, not just myself and my partner on the hose, all the while hoping the assessments I form are accurate and the solutions correct so everybody gets out alive and, hopefully, in one piece.

When I see Kelly and Lopez working a fire, I can’t help but think back to my own days as a hose jockey. I see Fletcher Morgan and myself, beating back the blaze, working hard to save the day. In Stoker, I see the engineer I once was, manning the gauges, supplying that all-important water to the rest of the crew, a job not to be taken lightly. I find myself a little jealous, for there are times I’d like to go back to being the one in the driver’s seat, having the control of that big, powerful rig resting in my hands. I have to be content knowing that he’s taking as good care of Big Red as I would. In DeSoto and Gage, I am witnessing important advances being made in the fire department. The paramedic program is only a few years old, but countless people owe their lives to those extra few minutes of medical care that give them a better chance to make it to a hospital alive.

But despite all those things, or maybe because of them, one of the worst parts about being a commander is this moment of inactivity, when all I can do is let my men do their jobs. Watch and wait. And hope for the best.