“Drill instructors. Take charge of you platoon, and carry out the plan of the day.” – Words that marked the start of many journeys
Cover photo by Pixabay.com, CC0
Some years ago, I heard my company commander give that order to the four drill instructors who were standing at attention in front of their new platoon of recruits. “Aye, sir,” the four said. The commander did an immediate about-face and marched out of the squad bay, his polished shoes clicking and echoing across the concrete. When the heavy wooden door clicked close behind him, the world exploded into sound and fury. The next three months of training were a blur of relentless training and chaos, all carefully choreographed through hundreds of years of experience at turning raw, untested and untrained recruits into disciplined Marines.
A Powerful Start in Life
Looking back on my life since spending a summer at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, it’s clear that military service shaped the trajectory of my life and greatly improved the speed at which I was able to achieve milestones. Prior to graduating high school, I had led a fairly simple life. Although I had experienced many hard life lessons, there was always a safety net waiting below me, like when a trapeze artist fails to grasp the bar during training and falls into the net below. I would climb down out of the net, brush myself off, and continue on.
When I stepped off the bus and into the receiving barracks in San Diego, the safety net was gone. The lessons that my drill instructors had learned through decades of their own lives and military careers would be drilled into the recruits assigned to their platoons. By the end of the third month, eighteen year old Marines walked and talked as if they were in their mid 40’s, confident, purposeful, and powerful. They carried the aura of subdued intensity, hinting at the capability of flipping a switch and smashing any obstacle in their way.
Confidence
Your confidence in yourself will determine how many opportunities you take advantage of throughout life. The more opportunities you grab, the farther you’ll go. When I and other newly-minted Marines left San Diego, we carried that confidence with us into the world. As a reservist, I left boot camp and went straight into college, continuing my military career one weekend, and later one deployment, at a time.
Confidence presents you with many opportunities. The most important one is the opportunity to find your soul mate. If my military training only taught me one one thing, and that one thing was confidence, it was all I needed to go up and introduce my self to a girl that I had never met before, and one who would eventually be my wife.
The increase in confidence the military gave me didn’t stop there. It has helped me take advantage of business opportunities and pushed my career far ahead of where I would be otherwise without military service.
Clarity
I remember standing watch on a rooftop during a night time sand storm. The dust continued to blow into my face, my ears, my nose, and my mouth until my relief took over watch the next morning. When I climbed down off the roof, I felt like Pig-Pen from the Charlie Brown cartoon, dust billowing off of me with ever step. I shook out my uniform, brushed the dust out of my hair with my grimy fingers, and wiped my face with dried-out baby-wipes. I laid down on a flimsy metal and canvas cot in the dry heat of an Iraqi day and went to sleep. It would be another week before I could get a shower, but I was used to it at this point. I’d been there for eight months.
Military service strips away all of life’s luxuries. You’ll spend much of your time endlessly sweating outdoors under a broiling sun or sleeping on the ground or in the open steel cargo bed of a truck, shivering yourself to sleep during the cold of winter. And every second that passes by, you’ll be thinking of things that matter to you: Christmas with your family back home, that ski trip you took with your friends, or missing out on seeing your kid grow up.
When you deploy,you’ll receive letters written to you from your friends and family that talk about what they’ve been up to. They’ll say that they’ve gotten a new job, met new people, made due without you, and look forward to seeing you again “some day.” You’ll watch your friends and family move on without you as if you had already died. The realization will hit you that you aren’t immortal and that the world doesn’t revolve around you. You’ll be sick of thinking about how much you miss the things that matter to you the most and how much time you’ve lost being away from them. You’ll realize that you have a finite time on earth and that you want every second, from now until your last, to matter.
This discovery of clarity will benefit your for the rest of your life. You will shrewdly guard your time and invest it wisely. You’ll take every opportunity you can to be a closer friend, a more loving spouse, and better parent because you know that those good times won’t last forever. You will squeeze every drop of joy out of every second of life, and like my grandfather who lived by this same philosophy, you’ll pass away without regrets, satisfied that you experienced everything you wanted in life.
Leadership
Every action taken in the military relies on teamwork, whether it be pilots dropping ordinance in close support of ground troops, engineering teams building battlefield infrastructure, or a motor transport platoon moving heavy equipment from one base to another. Every team needs a leader to give it direction and inspiration. The military is constantly training younger people to both be valuable team players and to be leaders.
Every squad leader, platoon sergeant, and company commander knows that he or she can be incapacitated at any time on the battlefield, and it’s important to develop team members who are ready to step into the leader’s shoes to carry on the mission. One of my greatest joys was giving the Marines in my platoon opportunities to step into leadership roles. People who performed especially well were given the privilege to stand in front of the platoon during the company formation, regardless of their rank.
Every major effort that happens in business, the non-profit world, or the military succeeds or fails based on leadership. As Chris Hadfield describes, “it’s about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it, especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter. It is about laying the groundwork for others’ success, and then standing back and letting them shine.”
The military will give you as many opportunities as you can handle to learn to lead. Take advantage of these, and the valuable skills you build will provide a lifetime of benefits.
Membership in the Oldest, Most Powerful Fraternity
“Were you in the military?” I’ve asked and been asked that question many times. Spotting people who served in the military is usually pretty easy. They are the ones who walk tall everywhere they go, head up and shoulders rolled back. They confidently go through life with a sense of direction and purpose. I’ve had countless conversations with other veterans that I had never met before, shared meals with them while I was away from home on a business trip, and always enjoyed the special brotherhood that forever stays with us.
Veterans are the ones that are often sought out by other veterans for employment and other business opportunities. Hundreds of thousands of people who served following the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center have since left the service and gone into the private sector. Many of them now occupy management roles or are the owners of businesses. When resumes and business deals come across their desk and they notice that the applicant or solicitor is a veteran, I can assure you that these applicants are given a closer inspection.
Military personnel never leave another behind on the battlefield, and the tradition sticks with them long after they’ve left active service. They are your family when you have none, your friend when you need one, and will likely even be your pallbearer some day. You may not know the 20-something year olds in class-A uniforms carrying your casket personally, but you are family to them nonetheless, earning you the privilege of this final honor.
Live Your Life Right the First Time
If the military taught me anything, it’s that you only live once. If you have the opportunity to put on the uniform and serve your country, do it. You’ll learn more about yourself, about the bigger picture of life, and about what matters most to you. It will turn you into a stronger, more powerful you, relentlessly focused and capable of achieving the best that life has to offer.