Whenever there are doubts in your mind about decisions you have made in your life. No matter the hardships and the gut feeling to sometimes want to quit you have to look at how the path you have traveled might not have been up to you.
We would all like to think that choice is a choice, and maybe it is. But maybe only to a certain degree. The path I have been on, started when I was six...or even younger. I'm not to sure, but Clint Eastwood had a lot to do with it. The movie, Kelly's Heroes. A bad ass wanna be of a World War II version of the Good The Bad and The Ugly. It even has a knock of Ennio Morricone score.
Playing with my little green army men, or fighting the krauts in the ditches of my backyard, one thing always seemed clear in my mind... I would join the Army.
The years to follow the illustriousness of childhood dreams and fantasy would put the Army on what would've seemed to be a back burner, but in hindsight, it was more of a preparation to need the Army. My high school baseball team believed in hard work, dedication and accountability. To be a Sylmar Spartan baseball player, was not just that you could catch, throw or even hit a ball. It meant that your mom had to drop you off at 6 in the morning, two hours before school started, so that you could go into a cramped gym and lift weights, do cardio, and practice countless reps of bunt defenses. Then it meant that your mom had to pick you up two hours after school ended because you had to do more exercises to help with agility, and balance. The first semester of the school year, I never once touched a baseball except on weekends when we would play double headers. At the time I thought that this was crazy. I just wanted to play baseball.
Another significant aspect that I believe effected every American was the sense of lost security and personal safety, was September 11th. I was a freshman in high school, and the vulnerability I felt during and after that day reminded me that I needed to do something to protect that. I joined a military explorer post that met once or twice a week.
My discipline in high school faltered. I didn't have a lot of personal accountability, and despite having a smart head on my shoulders, I was much the same as a lot of teenagers. I was confused and scared. I had feelings of anxiety and needed a change. It came by way of unfortunately dropping out of high school a little early, and moving to Iowa to work for my uncle and cousin. My cousin Mikey who I had always looked up to, because for one he was quite a bit older, and older kids were always cooler right? I also looked up to him, because he had been a combat veteran during the initial Iraq invasion. He worked me hard, and didn't allow me to slack. He tried his hardest to change some of my bad habits that I had developed. He even gave me a great deal of responsibility, more than I could handle at the time. I learned a lot about myself. My uncle made me finish high school. I made leaps and bounds in personal development. I learned a lot about myself and of life while there. It was one of the best decisions I have made in my life to date.
I moved back home to California, because why? Money! Lots and lots of money. I worked alongside my brother and basically under my dad for a year. In that time, I didn't continue to develop myself. I wasn't happy. I couldn't instill the discipline to change myself. To make myself better. My twin sister did it so easily, and my competitive spirit started to get the best of me. I tried and tried and tried to get better at being punctual. I couldn't beat the snooze monster though and would sleep in almost every morning, just to go to work for a few hours and call it an early day. I missed a lot of opportunities, and after a year of ill-tempered feelings and regret, I finally decided that if I couldn't do something to change my life, I would let someone else take charge.
About the only thing I figured out in that time between Iowa and the Army, was that I wanted to run businesses. Restaurants in particular. I couldn't imagine myself trying to get into having that kind of responsibility without first having personal accountability, and second, without knowing that I had done everything I wanted to do that only my youth would allow me. It was then I took a giant leap. I signed a five year contract with the intent of being in the US Army Special Forces. Green Berets, the best of the best. I went to basic and airborne school, both prerequisites for going to Special Forces Assessment and Selection. I spent 24 days in a suck fest where I learned a little more about my inner self, and the drive and commitment I possessed when the chips were down. I didn't unfortunately get selected, despite performing rather well. I then was cycled into the regular army, where I was selected to my current platoon out of pure control of on circumstance. A man with the same name was the commander of the platoon. Lt Jeffery Wright. He spelled Jeffrey wrong, but I'll let it slide, after all he is from Texas.
I'm now in Iraq, and he is no longer in charge. In retrospect it seems that everything in my life has tried to push me in the right direction. To better myself, to better understand myself. And the only way that I have been able to do any of it, has not been the pushing and shoving of others to conform, but the will power I possess to improve myself.
I guess the old adage that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink has been true to my life at least. But I like to think of it slightly differently. There are people in your life that will show you the positives and negatives, open the doors of life for you to see, and if you want to change, you can't just look at what's through the door, you have to step through it. Caution: Sometimes it's a bigger step then you can see. Advice: Grab a blind fold, hold your breath, and jump.
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