While many experiences in life add to a person’s grit profile, I am going to relate a handful that I know were very influential in my personal life.
Let’s start with how and why I joined the US Navy in the first place. My parents were lower-middle-class and both blue-collar workers without the advantage of even a high school education. As a result, when it came time for me to consider going to college, it was preordained that I would have to work my way through college.
I first attended what was then New Mexico A&M with the thought in mind of going to school for a semester, then working at the White Sands Proving Grounds in a program A&M sponsored for engineering majors. While this program sounded good from afar, I soon learned that the compensation while co-oping was not nearly enough to support oneself, let alone meet the expenses of enrolling in their Mechanical Engineering program. After one semester, I transferred to Wittenberg University in my hometown, which had a program in engineering linked to Case Institute in Cleveland, Ohio. To pull this off, I had to work full-time, which I did as a gas station attendant on the evening shift, some 4 PM to 11 PM at Joe’s Sunoco. After a semester and a half of being a full-time pre-engineering student and working full-time, but making passing grades, my parents suggested I join the military, and when I finished my tour, they would be able to help me out.
A little over three years into a four-year tour in the Navy, my father suddenly died, and all bets of any help were null and void. As luck would have it, almost in concert with my father’s death, the Navy instigated a program wherein if you passed a test that was more difficult than describable, you would be selected to attend either Purdue University or the University of Washington. I made it through all the barriers and received my third choice of a major and school, Electrical Engineering at Purdue University, where in four years I obtained a BS & MSEE with Distinction.
As you can see, I had many opportunities to pack it in, but didn’t. While not having the deep pockets that many parents have, my parents instilled in me the many advantages of education, so I pressed on. This is one of the many ways life’s experiences contributed to my grit.
Here’s another instance. After joining the Navy, I was shipped off to boot camp in San Diego, CA. It was early Spring and seemed to rain all the time. We had one bucket of water in which to wash and rinse our clothes, and had to hang them out to dry using clothes stops (short pieces of line) with military precision. We had to accomplish this task daily, in rain or shine. Many times we hung our clothes in the rain, took them down in the rain, and wore them wet. When a recruit bitched to our Company Petty Officer, a whizened Chief Bosanmate named Crocker, he replied, “Sympathy is between Shit and Syphillis in the dictionary, and that’s where you are.” In other words, man up. Griping is not going to change things. You’re in the Navy now. Deal with it. His quip is still with me, and I often think back when life gets a little out of hand, what Chief Crocker would say about it.
Here’s a third instance. While stationed aboard the USS Long Beach CG(n)-9, I was at one point the Talos Fire Control Officer, responsible for all the computers, radars, and display equipment that were involved in engaging N. Vietnamese aircraft and, in particular, MiGs. We were the first US ship to actually shoot down several MiGs. Up until we arrived in the Gulf of Tonkin, it had been strictly an air war, and we provided a new deterrent to the combat picture. I was at the same time the Senior Watch Officer, which meant that I was a bridge watch stander and responsible for the training of all junior officers standing watch on the bridge. Along with all of this, I was also the Weapons Liaison Officer, the person operating between weapons in one ear and control in the other. As a result, the Captain wanted me in the ship’s Decision and Control area when MIGs were up, and we were presented the opportunity to go after them. He set me up so I stood watch on the bridge driving the ship from midnight until four in the morning, and stood watches from noon to four in Decision and Control. Now MIGs didn’t know or care when I was on watch, so they came up in the late afternoon and stayed just out of engagement range and otherwise dilled dalled around, so I never got off watch at four, more like six. This took place for sixty days at a time, during which I NEVER got more than four hours of sleep at a time. This effort over a nine-month period taught me resilience like no other situation could have. I learned how to pace myself, concentrate on what’s important, and above all else, to approach any situation with GRIT foremost in mind. Who needs sleep? Not a Lieutenant in a nasty war zone involved in why he is there, shooting down enemy aircraft that were only there to harm our troops. BTW, as a result of my performance in this and other combat operations, I was promoted two full years early.
One more: Along the way, as a senior Lt Commander, I was told that I was diabetic, which in normal circumstances is a career-ending ailment. Rather than acquiesce to the disease, I started running, modified my diet, and changed my lifestyle. In due course, I was found to be physically fit for any duty anywhere. I pushed myself to overcome this shortfall while on active duty. This took more GRIT than I can describe and is yet another instance where real obstacles can be overcome if one sets their mind to the task at hand. Yes, diabetes eventually won, and I am on dialysis now, but hey, I’m alive and still enjoying life.
GRIT got me here.
