Alright, so it wasn't that dramatic.
And I wasn't taking a selfie as MacArthur waded ashore in the Philippines.
I didn't get to the Philippines until 36 years later.
So I wasn't there.
But I was out of town this weekend.
Now I'm home. So I have returned.
So, I've got that going for me...
Speaking as a tie dodger, look at that photograph of men at war. No no, not the ones in the foreground. Nothing was writ larger than "do as I say and not as I do" that day. I was ever the despair of senior NCOs who insisted that I set an "example." I finally figured out that senior NCOs all have an 11 on their, "set an example" meter. After my first tour, I never played that game again wrt to uniforms and I was, at best, an also ran during that tour. I decided to default instead to, 'show up on time, do the very best job you could, leave when we say.' Me and the Chiefs usually agreed about the first two and I 75% of the time agreed with them about the time to go. The difference between burning out good people forever and merely inconveniencing them is best not left to bachelors. One has to know what is critical from what is show. Show doesn't matter in engineering; Power, Light, Propulsion, hot water, steam, go away.
ReplyDeleteThat one paragraph speaks volumes as to the right way to do things.
DeleteMethinks you had a clue, Cap'n.