Owning it...

Today, for 24 consecutive hours, I own Station 5. You can say it's the city's, the community's, or whoever's but you'd be wrong. Today I have been entrusted with a crew, a truck, a station, and a territory and nobody can be held responsible but me. 

I didn't always think that way. I've made excuses for years: "they won't train us", "they won't give us", "they won't let us" but I'm done with "them". To hell with them. They've never came through and and probably never will. These men beside me though, those defiant Relentless Few, would kick the Grim Reaper in the balls on my behalf without a second thought. For these Few I will give, I will fight, I will bleed, and I will sacrifice whatever is necessary. Together we will crush "their" minimum standard. We won't ask permission to do what's right. "They" will get on board or get out of our way for they have forfeited the right to lead.

Nobody owns me but me. I won't dare say I have made myself of my own accord because I haven't. I didn't write Essentials. My name isn't Brunacini. But when my neighbor needs Superman and I offer him Spongebob the failure is all my own. The chief, the training officer, the other shift all didn't receive the call, we did. They weren't needed today, we were. They can't stretch our line. They can't throw our ladder. They can't assess our patient. Our ability or inability belongs to us and no other.

VonAppen put it well. "Excellence is my responsibility." The Relentless Few live that creed. Excellence is our responsibility and we WILL OWN IT!