This week, four points converged and created a broader, insightful, and more interesting perspective.
1. We came to Coronado Island, a navy island and home of the west coast navy seals, for the week of fourth of July.
2. We saw the new Tom Cruise "Maverick" Top Gun movie.
3. I picked up a book by Mark Owen, titled No Easy Day, The First Hand Account of The Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden.
4. I watched navy men paddle pontoon boats, possibly for their first time, at sunset.
The broadened perspectives:
*Over the years, I've watched navy men and women train in the ocean and on the beach. This morning we paddled parallel to the navy seals who were ocean-swimming long distance. Their perseverance and strength were admirable. As I watched one-third of the swimmers fall behind, and two swimmers fall farther and farther behind, I thought differently than before. I saw the slow swimmers as a liability and knew if I were to pick my team, I'd want the best swimmers. The team that saved Captain Phillips (from Somali pirates), and the team that flew into Abbottabad, Pakistan in pursuit of Osama Bin Laden, depended on one another for their very lives.
I saw more deeply into being a valuable, reliable, member of a team. Of a family. Of the need for a mom who can be counted on. A dependable wife. A coworker who has the team's back.
* Feel good movies still exist. Get out to the movies and root for the good guys. Especially when they are fictional.
*If we train men to go to war, if we train killers, we will always have war. Yet, I can hate war, but still see the necessity of defending ourselves from men such as Osama Bin Laden.
*Those new navy recruits out in the pontoon boats. The last boat stumbled in and couldn't carry their boat in unison. Whomever was in charge, made them lift that boat in unison fifteen times to the rhythmic beat of an air horn.
Their arms must have felt like jelly. And they still had to paddle back to where they started.
Once I was walking past a new group of navy boys coming into the shore. I was appalled at their inability to ride in the waves as I watched several of them capsize. I approached the sergeant in charge and asked him, "Don't you give them any instruction?"
"Ma'am, some of these boys have never even seen the ocean."
He placated the tender mother, "They learn Ma'am, they learn."
Don't we all.
Comments