Heroic Courage

I have been thinking of how to explain to Rowan what heroic courage means to me. Heroic courage is one of the virtues of Bushido and I would like to teach Rowan what they mean to me and how to apply them to his life just as I do my best to apply them to mine. For 18 years I fought forest fires in the summers for a living, and I became one of the elite ( what we refer to here in Canada as an Initial Attack fire fighter ) and a Crew Boss of elite crews. The media has often referred to Fire Fighters as " Heroes " , and I have been interviewed by paper, radio, and TV and been called a hero in the interview. I was never the hero and I never wanted to be, I realized that for those who many refer to as a hero are just average people doing what they can in a situation that is something other than ordinary. My wife asked me one time, just before I was going to leave for a fire( she was being sarcastic because she was scared ) why I had to go willingly into what she perceived as danger, and all I could reply was that I have a responsibility to go, I was highly trained and if I didn't go then who would? would they send someone who didn't have the experience and training I did? would that person make a mistake and cause harm to themselves or to someone else? You see I was never a hero ( not in my eyes anyway ) I was doing what was best for myself and for those I lead.
Courage, that is allot easier for me to explain to Rowan, To me courage is not being without fear, courage is knowing your fear and working with it or through it. I once told Dana ( that's my wife ) any person who is willing to jump out of a helicopter into a living forest fire and says they have no fear AVOID THEM !!! these individuals are either liars ( and I never trust a liar so I wont put my life into the hands of a person I don't trust ) or they are an idiot ( and I would never trust my life to an idiot on a fire ) Nearly every fire I have responded to I have been afraid to one degree or another, I just know what that fear is to me and I either use it to be safer or use it to be safer and to give me strength to lead my crew through the situations that present themselves.
To me that's what " Heroic Courage" is, its what makes a Fireman run into a burning building to save a life, its what makes a cop willingly place himself between a killer and a kid, its what drives the soldier to go to another country and defend the lives and freedom of people he will never get to know. I was never a hero, not to myself but to others maybe I was, all the hero's I know never seen themselves as one.

God bless us all.