To The Man In The Arena

The first time I met Danny Steele I thought to myself “who the hell is this guy?” 

While leading LinkedIn’s veterans program, Cory Boatwright and I had rounded up some vets and “allies” (employee supporters of the military community) to join a leg of Team RWB’s annual Old Glory Relay, where they run a single American flag from one coast to the other, passing it relay style from community to community along the way. I’d never met Danny before, and wasn’t quite sure how he found his way to the event, but he had a LinkedIn vets t-shirt on so I thought, hey, the more the merrier.

But the thing that made him stand out wasn’t his t-shirt. Danny had on these incredibly loud American flag shorts, a matching American flag headband, and this wide-toothed, pearly white grin that made him look both comically happy to be there and comically patriotic. Danny struck me as the kind of guy who would look at you with that same grin whether it was a sunny day in San Francisco or the middle of a firefight in Baghdad. He seemed young and energetic - I appreciated his presence, but to be honest, I didn’t take him entirely seriously.

The more I got to know Danny though, the more I liked him. It turns out Danny had always wanted to serve. He enlisted a few years prior, but due to a medical issue he wasn’t able to attend basic training. I never really probed to learn more - it seemed legit enough, and he seemed like a good guy. Every chance he got, he volunteered to support the Veterans Employee Resource Group, and any time Cory or I needed someone to support an event as a LinkedIn profile coach for veterans or even just as the guy to stay late and help tear down tables and chairs, Danny was the first to raise his hand.

We started to talk about his goals, and it turned out that Danny’s aborted attempt at joining the military was a serious issue in his eyes that he aspired to rectify. Many people have unfulfilled dreams, but for Danny this was different. He saw this as a failure that ate away at him, that he was desperate to overcome. He wanted to serve his country. He NEEDED to serve his country. He needed to prove to himself that he was able and willing, that he could stand up to the dangers that all of the veterans in our group had faced, and that he could come out equally as strong.

Danny told me he was planning to leave LinkedIn to enlist in the infantry. I thought he was insane. Here’s a guy who had a secure and lucrative job doing tech sales for the world’s largest professional network. Danny was a junior member of the LinkedIn sales team, but if you met him you’d know immediately that he was built to be successful in that kind of role. Danny would have done extremely well for himself financially, but that wasn’t the path he sought. Danny didn’t just want to enlist in the infantry, he wanted to become a member of the US Army Special Forces - a Green Beret - and he had a plan to do it.

He told me whatever story that his recruiter cooked up for him about how this could play out (and for anyone reading this who has served, you’re sitting here going “oh god, here we go”, which is exactly what I thought). I was sure he was getting scammed. Danny had a bachelor’s degree, so many of us tried to convince him to get a contract to become an officer and then apply for Special Forces, and if he failed, at least he’d be an infantry officer rather than a line soldier, with more control over his career and his day-to-day quality of life. 

He refused. He was certain that he knew what he was doing. We all thought he was crazy and that he would end up as a private mowing lawns in Fort Polk, Louisiana, hating life and longing for the days of free gelato on the 17th floor roof deck at LinkedIn. I’ve kept in touch with several close friends who have made it through the Special Forces selection process, and I didn’t think Danny had remotely any clue how arduous a task he was asking for. He might as well have been shrugging his shoulders saying “well I REALLY want to be an astronaut, so I’m sure it’s going to work out,” smiling the whole damn way.

We failed to talk him out of it. Danny quit his job late last year and enlisted in the infantry. On his way out the door, for Veterans Day he threw the largest Friday “Tappy Hour” fundraiser I’d ever seen at LinkedIn, with live music, beer, and t-shirts, and raised something like $5,000 for a local veteran-serving nonprofit, Swords to Plowshares. At our Veterans Holiday Party which doubled as his going away, I called Danny up to the front of the room to embarrass him and tell his story and how proud we all were of him. We thought he was nuts, but we admired him for the choice he was making.

Instead of congratulating him, a lot of people came up afterward and gave him a really hard time about his decision. People told Danny he was an idiot, and there was no way he would be successful. They swore his recruiter lied to him and he would end up miserable. They asked why would he give up a cushy Silicon Valley lifestyle to go get hazed in boot camp and told him he was going to be poor. Danny was undeterred. I felt terrible, because I was trying to show him how proud I was that he stood up for what he believed in and instead he got harassed. A few weeks later, I remember the last time we spoke before he started bootcamp. I heard the nerves in his voice mixed with pride. He knew it took guts to do what he was doing, and he was going to see it through.

After periodic updates that he made it through basic training and Airborne school (the less-fun Army version of skydiving), Danny predictably went dark during Special Forces selection. Sitting at my desk last week, out of the blue I got the following text:

“Wanted to check in...I made it man. I got selected last night. 18D. The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

I should be more poetic with my words, but to be honest I muttered to myself “That crazy son of a bitch did it!” Not only did Danny get selected to be a Green Beret, he got selected to be a Special Forces Medic (18D in Army speak). For the uninitiated that might not seem like a huge deal, but essentially SF medics are some of the most highly qualified, highly trained medical professionals on the planet. They essentially develop the skillset to perform emergency, life-saving surgery in the middle of combat, hundreds or even thousands of miles from the nearest friendly position or aid station. Special Forces medics are legendary - and to me, that’s exactly what Danny is too. 

Danny called his shot. When no one else believed in him, when people were criticizing him, even when he suffered a case of rhabdomyolysis during his training, his belief never wavered. He trained longer and fought harder than anyone I’ve ever known. Anyone who knows me well knows how much I hate meaningless platitudes like this, but from the bottom of my heart I mean it when I say that Danny is my hero. I’m astonished by the courage and dedication it took to pull off what he did, and humbled by his commitment to our country, at a moment in history when we need people like him more than ever.

In the last few weeks our ship of state has seemed even more adrift and directionless than it ever has in my life. Our sails are tattered by cynicism and our hull is daily battered by the beating waves of corruption and partisanship. Career diplomats and decorated soldiers are being shouted down and their reputations assailed for living out the oaths they swore to obey and for which we have always commended them. We are abandoning our allies and our own. We are on the precipice of being cast into the dustbin of history as yet another formerly great empire that lost its way, with the fabric of our collective sense of social responsibility nearly unrecognizable.

But in spite of these dark days, people like Danny continue to stand up and answer the call. Men and women like Danny still believe in the idea of America so much that they are willing to give their lives in its defense. Our nation’s most respected and trusted institutions are still comprised of true patriots who are willing to put the cause of defending our constitution ahead of their own interests. In his 1910 speech at the Sorbonne, titled “Citizenship In A Republic”, Teddy Roosevelt spoke of the source of the greatness of republics like ours, citing citizens like Danny:

“In the long run, success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average woman, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, everyday affairs of life, and next in those great occasional crises which call for the heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation.”

Since our founding, our nation’s success has depended on people like Danny, and it’s heartening that they still exist in abundance. Specifically, it’s critical that at times like these, people are still willing to set aside their politics and defend the nation, including every one of its citizens - red, blue, green, or purple. As General Douglas MacArthur addressed the West Point Corps of Cadets shortly before his death, he described their role:

“Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men's minds. But serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation's war guardians, as its lifeguards from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiators in the arena of battle...You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the Nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.”

I’m hopeful for our future because of people like Danny. And I’m inspired to keep striving, to dig deep into myself to set loose dreams I’ve always aspired to, and to have the courage to strike out and make them a reality. Later in Roosevelt’s above-cited speech, he talked about people like Danny and compared them to those who never put their neck on the line for anything meaningful:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Danny - you embody Roosevelt’s Man In The Arena, and MacArhtur’s stoic ideal. You inspire me and all those around you. Congratulations on this first of many victories in your military career. You are guaranteed to encounter setbacks - you’re guaranteed to stumble. You’re guaranteed to be marred by dust and sweat and blood. But you’ve also charted your course in pursuit of an incredibly worthy cause, and you have literally thousands of people from across your life cheering you on. With character and intention as strong and true as yours, you’re guaranteed to succeed and to inspire others to do the same.

Here’s to you, my friend.