Login & Share to Win! Given the chance to travel back in time, what advice are you giving yourself?

Do not take a 15 year break in service

Work harder and make more jumps out of the planes. I only had 374 jumps when they told me I could not any more. the body got old to fast.

Stay more sober. Clean my weapon.

Thanks for sharing

I would to keep myself doing everything that I was told to do and keep myself looking like a 4.0 sailor and not get in with the party crowd. And myself out of trouble.

I would advise my younger self to focus more on the job at hand than the long-range career. Yes, you do need to make career decisions all through your time in service--in choices of assignments, training opportunities and other opportunities as well. But you will always be graded on how well you do your work and how you interface with others around you. You also learn how to lead. All if these are important, especially as you progress. Look at the long view, but don't forget the short view. Its consequences are always with us.

Further commentary on the need for raising a generation of men and women whose loyalty is to the nation as I posited as the reason the Afgan Army gave up so easily and why we failed in Vietnam. We now find the USA with perhaps two generations whose loyalty is not primarily to the nation. Since our school curricula are determined state by state and sometimes School District by School District, there is no focus on teaching our children how the federal government system is supposed to work. We do not expose the children to the process of reaching a consensus among a diverse group of people with diverse belief systems. Adults do not "model" good citizenship by themselves participating in the political system from local government to the national government. No one's way to solve a problem is so perfect that it can't be improved or made less unacceptable to those reluctant to agree with your solution. This is a failure to teach children how to listen with an open mind. Instead, while the other person is talking, most seem to be planning their rebuttal to the statements being made.
Our government, meaning the people we elect to office, needs to realize that our people are our most valuable natural resource and should be invested in from birth to help them become all their natural abilities allow. Until that happens, unequal justice, education, affluence, and dignity will continue to deteriorate with the real danger that the nation will end in an unending civil war. I have the good fortune to volunteer as a counselor with the California Boys State program. This is my 25th year doing it, and among the lessons learned is, that there are thousands of boys and girls of 16 or 17 years old in this country who are very bright and teachable who are coming out of our high schools with little or no knowledge of how our government and political systems work. We teach those who attend about both systems and most of them take to it with passion. Many of our alumni alter their career plans as a result of the program and many more return later to become counselors themselves. The raw material is there if only our so-called leaders would recognize it.

Ah, to be that young 17yo Private again... I would tell myself what I told new recruits in my later years. Basic Training will be challenging, but nothing you can't handle. Listen to *what* is being said to you, not *how* it is being said. It is a game in the end, all you have to understand are the rules.

I've thought about that some times, and decided that I am actually pretty happy about my life. I would probably do somethings different, but not really change the way things turned out, I had a good career, made some great ports, and baked a lot of bread. If I had made significant changes I probably would not be where I am now, and I am happy.

Pay attention to details as I learned in the various courses that the Corps offered for my benefit