Encouragement Tuesday - inspiration to weather the Deployment and War against COVID-19

That’s right LinkedIn family, we’re all experiencing what it’s like to be “Deployed”. I sympathize with all of you who are not prior military since you were not “prepared and trained” for this moment. So today’s #dailyInspirationandGratitude message is for you, as well as all my brothers and sisters that have served, are serving, or whom have paid the greatest sacrifice for all of us.

Anyone who has served can tell you our training started the second we stepped off the bus upon arrival in Boot Camp. We were stripped of all our identity, personal belongings, and right to defend ourselves for what many of us felt (at the time anyway) was “injustice”. Looking back on it now, I realize it was all in preparation for what lied ahead.

In Boot Camp they drilled into us concepts we lived by in the military like attention to detail, teamwork, and sacrifice for the greater good. These concepts are emphasized and scrutinized continuously for every minute detail including:

Attention to Detail

• Is your bed made with perfect 45 degree angles (heaven forbid if you had any wrinkles)?
•  Are your clothes folded “perfectly” according to their explicit instructions?
• Is your gig line (pants and belt) straight?
• Are you wearing the correct “Uniform of the Day” (They would switch it up at times to catch people not paying attention to detail)?
• Is your uniform ironed and “how sharp do your creases look” (many uniforms required us to iron very intense “creases” into them to make our uniforms look extra sharp)?
• Are your shoes polished and shined?

Teamwork

• Do you know where to line up in formation? More importantly, do you know your role in the formation and how it relates to everyone on your team?
• Is the entire team completely ready and standing by for duty at the designated time? It didn’t matter if “you” were perfect. If the rest of your team was still flailing or not up to standards, everyone would pay the consequences!
• Is your team in synch with each other? It doesn’t matter if you “like” the person your lined up next to or don’t agree with them. Everyone has to operate as one cohesive team. If the person in front of you does a right flank, you had better be prepared to do a right flank. If you don’t operate as one cohesive team, people die!

Sacrifice

• You may have to stand the midwatch (midnight shift) while the rest of your teammates sleep. Are you tired? Suck it up buttercup, it’s you duty!
• You may need to sacrifice being “the best” to help those on your team who are weaker and need help. You don’t get any brownie points for being the best if your entire team isn’t right there with you!
• You have no rights in Boot Camp. The only rights you have are the rights provided by the highest power (no not God) your Drill Sergeant. These rights may seem unfair or cruel. However, I can assure you any rights they take away are for the greater good of the team.
• Your individuality. The only way your allowed to be yourself, is with the direct permission from God (i.e. Drill Sergeant) and explicit instructions on what you are allowed to do. Individual wants and needs that don’t align with the needs of the team are dangerous and divide the team. Believe me, you don’t want to divide your team! I thought the consequences were severe when the team screwed up, but I learned the consequences when they divided us into smaller teams were far worse!

Every service member had to go through this experience for one reason, and one reason only. To prepare us for “Deployment”. It doesn’t matter if your Deployed to the streets of Baghdad, onboard a warship off the Somali Coast, flying a surveillance plane at altitudes where mistakes end in tragedy, or simply deployed for a weekend a month or two weeks a year in your own state. What matters is that we are a team. We support and defend one another regardless of whether we like you, agree with your views on life or politics, or even your personality. Race, Religion, Age...all that gets thrown out the window for the greater good of the team!

We are in a “Deployment” right now. We veterans and service members have been training for this Deployment ever since we stepped foot off the bus. I sympathize with those of you who have not had the benefit of this preparation. So let me share a few lessons I learned that prepared me for “any Deployment” life can throw at me:

1.   The team is more important than “any” one individual

This is just as important in life and business as it is in the military. Diversity is valued because it brings different ways of thinking and when harnessed can lead to amazing innovations. LinkedIn family we are a team! Please be responsible and respectful to your teammates.   

2.   Any rights you have are given to you.

It doesn’t matter what your wants or needs are. It may seem that these rights are unfair at the time, but you will look back on this years from today and realize that any rights taken away are for the greater good and you should give leadership the benefit of the doubt (within reason of course). Remember, any rights you had were provided by the sacrifice of millions that came before us!

3.   Sacrifice is required for the greater good.

We are blessed with a lot of gifts that we all tend to take for granted. We get so comfortable with these gifts that we assume they are our rights and our needs. I’m sorry you can’t go out to a nice dinner. Be grateful for the food that you have (which you didn’t have to hunt for or grow in your garden – thank you farmers!) and that you get to spend extra time as a family. Be grateful for the 850+ channels provided by cable or the ability to go to a streaming service and watch whatever you want, when you want!     

Finally, respect one another. We are a team. You may not like it, but we are at war and all deployed together across the entire globe battling COVID-19. Perhaps you think older people are too stuck in the past, or you think that the shelter-in-place and social distancing policies are dumb and unnecessary. Remember, that may be the case for you, but is that the case for the 85 year old grandmother? Or your friend battling cancer who has a weakened immune system? Yes you can take a risk, and if you get infected, you’ll likely live. But how many of your teammates will die as a result?

The rest of this article is a post shared by a great friend of mine. Being that I don’t know the author, I have no idea if this is real or fake. Personally, I don’t think it matters. This is a perfect encapsulation of the attention to detail, teamwork, and sacrifice required by us all to win the war (not the battle – the war – it may be slowing, but it’s not over yet) on COVID-19. I hope you enjoy:

THIS WORTH READING AND TAKE HEED

Something we need to relearn and why I'm reposting it! ? Author unknown.

I talked to a man today

I talked with a man today, an 80+-year-old man. I asked him if there was anything I can get him while this Coronavirus scare was gripping America.

He simply smiled, looked away and said:

"Let me tell you what I need! I need to believe in, at some point, this country my generation fought for... I need to believe in this nation we handed safely to our children and their children...

I need to know this generation will quit being a bunch of sissies...that they will respect what they've been given...that they've earned what others sacrificed for."

I wasn't sure where the conversation was going or if it was going anywhere at all. So, I sat there, quietly observing.

"You know, I was a little boy during WWII. Those were scary days. We didn't know if we were going to be speaking English, German or Japanese at the end of the war. There was no certainty, no guarantees like Americans enjoy today.

And no home went without sacrifice or loss. Every house, up and down every street, had someone in harm's way. Maybe their Daddy was a soldier, maybe their son was a sailor, maybe it was an uncle. Sometimes it was the whole damn family...fathers, sons, uncles...

Having someone you love, sent off to war...it wasn't less frightening than it is today. It was scary as Hell. If anything, it was more frightening. We didn't have battlefront news. We didn't have email or cellphones. You sent them away and you hoped...you prayed. You may not hear from them for months, if ever. Sometimes a mother was getting her son's letters the same day Dad was comforting her over their child's death.

And we sacrificed. You couldn't buy things. Everything was rationed. You were only allowed so much milk per month, only so much bread, toilet paper. EVERYTHING was restricted for the war effort. And what you weren't using, what you didn't need, things you threw away, they were saved and sorted for the war effort. My generation was the original recycling movement in America.

And we had viruses back then...serious viruses. Things like polio, measles, and such. It was nothing to walk to school and pass a house or two that was quarantined. We didn't shut down our schools. We didn't shut down our cities. We carried on, without masks, without hand sanitizer. And do you know what? We persevered. We overcame. We didn't attack our President, we came together. We rallied around the flag for the war. Thick or thin, we were in it to win. And we would lose more boys in an hour of combat than we lose in entire wars today."

He slowly looked away again. Maybe I saw a small tear in the corner of his eye. Then he continued:

"Today's kids don't know sacrifice. They think sacrifice is not having coverage on their phone while they freely drive across the country. Today's kids are selfish and spoiled. In my generation, we looked out for our elders. We helped out with single moms whose husbands were either at war or dead from war. Today's kids rush the store, buying everything they can...no concern for anyone but themselves. It's shameful the way Americans behave these days. None of them deserve the sacrifices their granddads made.

So, no I don't need anything. I appreciate your offer but, I know I've been through worse things than this virus. But maybe I should be asking you, what can I do to help you? Do you have enough pop to get through this, enough steak? Will you be able to survive with 113 channels on your tv?"

I smiled, fighting back a tear of my own...now humbled by a man in his 80's. All I could do was thank him for the history lesson, leave my number for emergency and leave with my ego firmly tucked in my rear.

I talked to a man today. A real man. An American man from an era long gone and forgotten. We will never understand the sacrifices. We will never fully earn their sacrifices. But we should work harder to learn about them..learn from them...to respect them. ?? Author unknown.