Lessons Learned from Military Days

What I learned from my military experience is simply the best of teamwork. My service duty taught me no matter where or who that person came from or is; as a group we could work together. This was the true melting pot of American idealism.

In my time of youth basic training threw me in a mixture of personalities. There we learned the fundamentals of cooperation, instructed by our well versed instructors. Equality being administered to us all and justice was definitively for all. No one spared and no one favored.

The teamwork forced upon us proved the necessity of reality in a combat zone. We, as kids, in the latter days of Viet Nam, worked in sync as an artillery gun crew. At the drop of the hat, either day or night, the call for a fire mission caused us to run back to the gun piece. Even in the depth of sleep we would wake with our legs already in motion toward the entrance to exit out to the gun. Every one of us would immediately go to our position and operate in a timed sequence to ready the gun for the shoot. Despite all of ourselves, this was more important, a matter of life and death; therefore we had no time for petty differences to divert the real action of getting the job done.

Our artillery crew of six to seven or less people each had their job to do. The ammo bearers would grab the type of the round while another would prepare the charges for the distance. These rounds quickly assembled passed onto the loader who jammed the round into the open breech of the cannon. The assistant gunner at the same time operating the open and shut of the breech would also level the angle called for. The gunner likewise busy traversing the piece to the grid of the target. Once set the gun chief would yell ready for the command to fire. Pulling the lanyard at the bark to fire ordered, the assistant gunner slammed open the breech to eject the casing. Then the team launched back to the sequential motion to readiness for the next shot. All of this in seconds.

My life as a civilian since those days of my youth I can never forget the true meaning of not a democracy but unison of effort. Most of the time I still wonder of the squabble to get things done and somewhat still appalled that differences squander far too many opportunities of unity. For in that very short period what mattered are the achievements and never the rewards.