My Calling

What is my calling?  Have you ever asked yourself that?  For me, it is leadership development and I try to apply it to every job that I have in the Army.  It may seem like second nature to apply leadership development to every job in the Army, but sometimes it can be a stretch.  For example, staff jobs can give you tunnel vision to the point where you're focused so much on the next brief to prepare or the next operation to plan that you lose sight of developing the subordinate leaders around you.  I used to fool myself into thinking that I wasn't influencing anyone around me in terms of leadership development because everyone was simply stuck in the staff vacuum focusing on their own thing.  However, after a while I realized that as an officer, you are a leader 100% of the time regardless of your job.  The rank on an officer's chest means that Soldiers are looking at him to set the example at all times.  It doesn't matter if you're a LT making coffee for the battalion S3 or a CPT writing an operation order, Soldiers around you still see you as a leader.  I sometimes doubted this fact until I heard Soldiers complain about a lack of standards with a various staff officers.  This meant that there was still a higher standard they expected from these officers although they were not in official leadership positions.  It's up to an officer to find the opportunities, which may be few and far between, to create more leaders by developing those around him.

So fast forward to my current job as a military science instructor at West Point.  This seems like a no brainer in terms of having a chance to develop future leaders.  However, a 55 minute class period is not a whole lot of time to cover the class material of warning orders, operations orders, tactics, doctrine, etc.,  This means that actually talking about leadership development seldom happens in the classroom unless I take less time to teach the required material.  As my time management improves, I hope to take 5-10 minutes each class to talk about leadership in general...but I'm not there yet.  In order to answer my calling in this job, I have found that there are many opportunities to work with cadets outside of the classroom.  These are the opportunities to talk to them about what to expect in the Army and why their development at West Point is so important.  These are the moments that give me purpose in this job.  Teaching military science is great and the cadets need that knowledge as a future officer, but my true passion is helping them develop as leaders.  It is music to my ears to hear a cadet talk about ways he can improve as a leader and then see him start to apply the changes to his daily routine. Or to see the look on a cadet's face when the light bulb turns on and he gets excited about a leadership technique or training event to try with his subordinates.  

There are times when I may feel beaten down or mentally spent during a day, but it's small events like those above that put a spring back in my step.  While finding my calling may vary in difficulty depending on the job, I just have to look for the opportunities.  This is what keeps me going in the Army. 

BMW R1200GS

I just realized that I hadn't written anything on my blog since April...talk about dropping the ball!  But anyway, life has changed drastically since my last post.  It is all due to the fact that we are at West Point now!  Thus far, this post has been a great time for family...even when I was working with cadet summer training immediately upon arrival and when I was rehearsing all my classes that I will start teaching cadets next month.  The month of July has been a whirlwind since it includes both Leigh's and my birthday.  We bought some expensive gifts for each other (to include a mountain bike, crossfit garage gym, and a motorcycle) and we'll have to settle down next month.  But let me get one thing straight...this post is about the motorcycle!  I am ecstatic...no...I'm excited beyond words...no...I'm speechless with the deal that I received on this motorcycle.  First of all, the MSRP on this bike from a dealer is $14,990 before taxes and registration.  Add NY taxes, registration, and additional accessories and it increases the total to around $18,000.  This is for a motorcycle!!  Holy crap!!  This is why the bike has always been a pipe dream to me and nothing more.  But I thought I might buy a used bike that was in my price range.  After scanning ebay for two weeks (and the past 12 years, but who's counting!) I realized that the resale value on these bikes was amazing.  I was watching five year old bikes with over 20,000 miles go for more than $10,000 on ebay!  So I tried craig's list and saw THE bike that was meant for me.  A 2010 sapphire black R1200GS with only 1800 miles on it...and it had over $2,000 worth of accessories on it.  However, the seller wanted $1500 more than I was willing to pay.  I sent him a quick e-mail with an offer and did not expect any reply since I was kind of lowballing him.  Surprisingly, he told me that he needed the money and would sell it if I had cash in hand and could buy it that weekend.  Fast forward two days and I was riding a "like new" R1200GS home from Brooklyn in 107 degree temperatures.  Even more impressive, Leigh and the kids were there for moral support the entire time (Leigh has so much patience with me!).  After waiting for over ten years, I finally bought the motorcycle I was drooling over and it was for the exact price that I was able to pay, which happened to be close to $6,000 below the actual value.  

Making Sense of It All

"I thought I was going to die."  Have you ever heard someone say that?  Most of the time I hear someone use that phrase, it refers to "die laughing" or "die of embarrassment" or "die of boredom."  People use the phrase as a figure of speech.  Well, there were a few times in 2005 where my mind was convinced 100% that I was going to die.  Unfortunately, I mean this in the literal sense.  However, that thought did not occur at times that may seem obvious based on movies or TV shows.  When IEDs, grenades, or RPGs were exploding around us, "I'm going to die" never crossed my mind because I was too busy reacting and taking action...there was no thinking.  The true fear and dread and fatalistic thoughts occurred minutes before the next mission.  Even worse, I know for a fact that my Soldiers felt the same way.  The fear was so thick that it felt like death was riding in the truck with us.  I still remember when one of my Soldiers said, "maybe we should say a prayer," before one of our patrols.  He was not a religious person to say the least...he was quite the opposite in fact.  This alone displayed his apprehension at the time.  We all felt like it would be our last mission because the previous one was just too close and there was no way that the insurgents could get that close without killing us the next time.  It was a very heavy feeling that made me want to throw up.  As a leader, this is when you will do anything you can to lighten the mood and literally laugh at death by saying things like "If you're the one that doesn't come back, can I have your DVD collection?"  or "Quit your whining, at least you'll die in a clean uniform!"  God bless the resiliency of Soldiers!  In the movie, Band of Brothers, 1LT Ronald Spiers tells PVT Blythe, "The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse.  All war depends upon it."  I understand this quote more than I would like to.  In order to get rid of the fear, you need to accept that you might die and come to terms with it, then you can move on and execute the mission. 


So what is the point of all this?  Why did I write about the events in my past three blog posts?  It's actually very simple.  I am still here because it was in God's plan.  Losing all the baggage from the deployment took a couple years, but it was God who gave me strength to get through all of it.  He also gave me an amazing wife and three beautiful children to constantly remind me of his plan.  I know he has been watching over me and even if I die tomorrow, my only worries would be for those left behind that I will meet again someday.  If you doubt that it was God who was beside me, then all I can say is that I know how my life was before I embraced Jesus Christ and I know how it is now that I have accepted him as my Lord and Savior.  There is no way I would ever want to go back to a life without him.  
  
So what about those who did not make it back on that deployment?  I think about them every day.  The Bible says "The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death." (Isaiah 57:1-2)  We may not know God's plan or how we fit into it, but that doesn't really matter as long as we know HIM.  Now when I think of the past turmoil, it only increases my faith in God because I know that he is not done with me yet.  I couldn't think of a happier ending to all these stressful stories.       

Vulnerable

10 Aug 05:

We hit an IED today.  I thought Letcher was hurt bad at first and that fear was mind numbing.  We were driving west on a main route through the city and Roddy saw some shop owners quickly shutting their doors while others were simply running away.  Letcher saw something under some concrete slabs in the median on the left side of the road.  He realized it was a 155mm artillery round and was about to say something when all of a sudden we heard a loud explosion and felt a powerful concussion.  The cab of the HMMWV was instantaneously filled with black smoke and dust and we could not see anything.  The windshield had a jigsaw puzzle of cracks in it but none of the shrapnel penetrated the ballistic glass.  The dust in the cab was so thick that we were having difficulty breathing but no one dared to open a door in case there was another IED set up for a secondary blast.  Finally the dust started to clear and I realized that we were still rolling forward and the BFV that was in front of us was now about two feet away on our left side and a telephone pole was approaching rapidly from the front.  I told Roddy to stop and back up away from the telephone pole so we could get out of the kill zone.  I kept yelling “Is everyone okay!?” Roddy responded with “I’m okay” and Mr. T (the interpreter) said he was fine.  However, the blast had thrown Letcher down from the gunner’s turret and he responded with “I have shrapnel down my back!”  I didn’t see any blood, but I thought he said “I have shrapnel in my back” and when I saw him try to get back into the turret and fall down, I feared the worst (He fell again because he was still stunned and shaken up from the blast).  I told the patrol leader that we needed to get to Patrol Base Razor, but as we started to move, Letcher said he was okay, but just had some shrapnel fall down his back and it burned him.  So I told the Bradley that was escorting us that we did not need to go to Razor.  They dropped us off at a nearby OP and went back to secure the IED site.  I got out of the truck and assessed the damages to be three flat tires along with a cracked windshield and a cracked side window.  Most importantly, no one was hurt and that was all that mattered.  After returning to the patrol base, Doc Alladin sent Letcher to Razor in order to get a 2^nd degree burn on his back checked out.  It was a patch a little bigger than the size of a silver dollar.  They bandaged it up to keep it free from infections and sent him back.