the marines wouldn;t take you with kids? man, the army took me the second time i joined with two kids.
everyone thinks they have not done anything significant, in their own mind but when other people hear what you have done, its significant to them because some people don;t get to do normal things like live in one place and have a house and stuff like that. i still don;t own a house. wish i did but i have never been able to to. now i am finally trying to but waiting for paperwork.
you know whats crazy? i have a guy who works in my shop that builds transmissions. he is a quiet guy who never really says a lot. older fella, could retire if he wanted. he has two purple hearts!!! i am amazed at hte people i work with and what they have done. i wouldn't have known that because he doesn;t tell people, the lady he works with told me when we were talking about the military because she is a vet too. two purple hearts, that is not someone most people will ever know or have the luck to meet.
i have some leadership lessons pinned up on my desk, on the over head doors because i thought they were really good the first time i read them. i read them over every once in a while to remind me of why i am here.
number 4 says:
take time to know your people. life in the military is hectic, but thats no excuse for not knowing the people you work for and with. who are the heros that walk in your midst?
i read about a guy who worked at annapolis or one of hte other military schools as a janitor. everyone always said hi but not much more then that because they thought they were above him since they were there for officer training. but they didn;t know this guy won the medal of honor because no one took the time to get to know him. that is sad.
like that guy who used to run the auction house here in town, robert edlin. i told ya'll about him already but in case some new people are here, here is the wikipedia on him.
On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Lieutenant Edlin helped to lead Company A onto Omaha Beach, receiving debilitating wounds in both legs; evacuated to England the following day, he rejoined his platoon in France on July 15, 1944.
During the late summer of 1944, the 2nd Ranger Battalion was assigned to support the American advance in Britanny; on September 9, preceding a dawn attack on the antiaircraft Graf Spee, or Lochrist, battery near the French city of Brest, Lieutenant Edlin was ordered to lead a four-man reconnaissance patrol to spot enemy pillboxes and snipers and chart a way through the minefield surrounding the garrison, the capture of which was critical in the effort to retake the port city.
The patrol navigated a large minefield and encountered a German pillbox, where Lieutenant Edlin captured the officer in charge; Lieutenant Edlin then forced the officer to escort him and his interpreter to the commanding officer of the Graf Spee battery. On entering the commander's office, Lieutenant Edlin took a grenade, pulled the pin, and held the grenade to the commander's stomach, forcing him to surrender the fort, along with four 280-mm guns, supporting small-arms positions, pillboxes, and approximately 800 enemy soldiers.
Recommended by Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder, commander of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, to receive the Medal of Honor, Lieutenant Edlin refused to accept the medal in order to avoid being reassigned to a unit within the continental United States.
Lieutenant Edlin was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his extraordinary heroism in battle, and in 1995 he was inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame; a book recounting his remarkable military service was published in 2002.
little old guy running an auction house the wife and i would go to on friday nights. i would've never known he was a war hero because he never mentioned it. when his book came out, thats how i found out. it was for sale in the auction house and i picked it up. wow, amazing the people we know but never really know. and i was at the ranger hall of fame opening in 1995 at fort benning, i was at airborne school when it opened. i saw him then too and never even knew it till i read the book.
don;t worry about if you think your life has not produced anything amazing, it will and probably already has, but you don't know because it happens to you all the time.
im finally a part of the american workforce again!
