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This author first learned of discipline when he was given the task, at 7 years of age, by his father, of straightening (over the course of an entire summer vacation) a huge box of rusted, crooked nails.
Being poor dirt farmers, we reused everything on our farm. Nothing got thrown away, which meant that over time all of the nails my Dad pulled out of the pieces of wood he salvaged for future projects ended up in that box, until finally it was filled to the point that he thought it time to straighten them. As to why he needed them straightened, as I recall he intended to use them the next summer, when he would build a garage for the family car. With that in mind, I was assigned the task of hammering them back into shape.
At the time it seemed like punishment, but he told me it was not. Instead, when I protested, he calmly explained to me that no, he was not punishing me, he was teaching me discipline. He said it was something I needed to learn, and besides, I had the entire summer to get the job done, so there was no reason for me to start whining.
By the time school started again in the fall I had finished the task; usually working little more than a couple of hours a week on it. Yet while the task was done, my learning about discipline was not. That fall, as my older brother headed off to start his 7th grade of school, and I joined the 2nd grade, I learned that my training in discipline would now see me polishing both my and my older brother’s shoes every Sunday night, so that they would be clean each Monday when we both went off to school.
And so it continued. When my younger sister started school, her shoes were added to the pile, and I kept polishing away until I graduated high school and went on to college.
In college the discipline of forcing myself to do things I didn’t necessarily want to do paid off. For one thing, I got a degree in electronics engineering; something I never would have gotten if I hadn’t spent as much time as I did locked in my dorm room, studying. With the distractions of college life in Boston, that took discipline.
That degree got me a job at the Atomic Energy Commission, working at the task of accelerating protons as close as possible to the speed of light, in order to test the limits of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. There too discipline helped me do a good job, until eventually—after only about 4 months—Uncle Sam came along and invited me to join the Army.
Discipline stopped me from feeling sorry for myself, like the adolescent child I still was back then… and even from running away to duck the draft... an idea that passed through my mind numerous times as the bus took me from the civilian life I was just starting in New York, to Fort Dix, New Jersey, for Basic Training. There... surprise – surprise... I got another taste of discipline; but this time it was nothing like what my Dad had taught me, or what I had taught myself. This time it was real discipline, the kind only the Army can meter out. At Fort Dix nothing brought home the idea that I was no longer in full control of my life faster than being disciplined when I stepped out of line.
There, for the first time, I learned the consequences of what an undisciplined life could be like, and I didn’t like what I learned. Yet I made it through... as all but the most hopeless of young men did during that time of the Vietnam War draft. In fact, better than just making it through, I found that when I combined the discipline I had learned as a young child back on the farm with the type of discipline the Army was now pounding into me, I could actually make my time in the Army less painful and even on occasion enjoyable.
From Fort Dix I was sent on to Fort Gordon, and assigned the onerous task of learning how to run a teletype. Feeling that such a duty was below the level of someone with a double-E degree and a minor in quantum physics, I applied for Army Signal OCS and within a few weeks found myself accepted.
It’s at that point that I really began to appreciate the power behind discipline. Unbeknownst to me, the TAC Officers at Army Signal OCS already knew that those who made it into the OCS program must have previously mastered the art of discipline, or else they wouldn't be there. So they didn’t waste their time trying to teach it to us. Instead, they applied it to us... judiciously, over and over again, in ever smaller increments throughout the course, until we began to see and understand that with discipline any one of us could master the skills needed to mold a group of undisciplined egos into a cohesive team... a team able to turn adversity into strength, and strength into success... success in the form of an accomplished mission.
They taught us that with discipline we could take a rag tag group of men and turn them into an unstoppable force, able to do all we bid them to do. And they taught us that the only bidding we should ever ask a force like that to do was bidding born of goodness… like helping a people be free from tyrannical rulers.
And so it proceeded, until one day they determined that they had taught us all that we needed to know about how to use discipline to mold men under our command into machines; and how to instill in those men an ability for each to discipline himself, for the good of his fellow soldiers, his country, his family, and himself. Then, when they felt that they had accomplished their goal, they put a couple of gold bars on our shoulders and sent us off to all parts of the world, where, as it would turn out, we would each be given our own small group of men to discipline into a fighting force for good.
Slowly it proceeded from there. These small groups of disciplined men that we found ourselves in command of were assembled into ever larger groups, until in the end there existed just one gigantic group… the United States Army… a group that through sheer discipline was able to make the United States of America the most powerful country on earth, and the world’s largest force for good.
Imagine then what would befall a country like America if the men that fought to keep it free lacked discipline? If any one of the millions of men in the tens-of-thousands of small groups that make up the U.S. Army felt that they were above discipline… to the extent that they could brazenly put their own well being ahead of that of the other men in their group? That they could toss discipline to the wind and walk away from their group—and their country—at any time, regardless of the jeopardy such an act put their fellow soldiers in? Imagine if that were to happen.
Well, that’s what Bowe Bergdahl did. And if he could do it, then why not every single member of every group that makes up the United States Army? If Bowe Bergdahl could live an undisciplined existence, could turn his back on those who lived to protect him, turn his back on the country that stands more than any other for the very kinds of freedoms that he wants for himself, then why not every other man in America’s 2,220,412 person military? Why can’t they all just walk away when they get sick of it too?
If I did not straighten my Dad’s rusty box of nails, our life on the farm would have been none the worse, but I would never have learned what discipline is.
If I had not disciplined myself to polish my sister's and brother’s shoes, their life would be none the worse, but I would never have learned why it is necessary to discipline oneself.
And the same is true of my disciplining myself to study at college, rather than party. Only through self discipline was I able to better myself as a man. In this regard, my upbringing was little different than that of any young American of the time. In those days learning about discipline began at home, continued through school, was supplemented through religious education, and was topped off in the military.
But if I had eschewed the discipline the Army Signal Corps taught me in OCS, in favor of a self centered existence, all of my education in the purpose and value of discipline would have been for naught, because many more men than those that did die on my watch would also have been left behind in Vietnam. The Army lives on discipline. If Bowe Bergdahl is not brought up on charges for his actions, then that most fundamental element of military cohesion—discipline—will cease to exist; because if Bowe Bergdahl can walk away from his duty and consort with the enemy whenever he wants, then why not everyone else?
Without discipline America has no Army, all it has is a well armed rabble.
Every soldier in the U.S. military has been watching to see if President Obama’s penchant for making political decisions that pander to his liberal base would cause him to prevent the legal prosecution of Bowe Bergdahl… especially after his ignorant National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, spouted off that Bergdahl "served the United States with honor and distinction". Those of us that did serve with honor and distinction know better… and we also know that if Bergdahl doesn't find his sorry ass in court facing charges, the sacrifices of every soldier from the time of General Washington until now will lose their meaning.
If America wants to have a military, then Bergdahl must face charges. If he does not, desertion will become the accepted norm in the U.S. Army.
As to what should happen to Bergdahl when he is brought up on charges, that is of no consequence. Let the chips fall where they may. We wish him no ill will. We merely wish that his selfish, undisciplined actions not be the source of the permanent degradation of the U.S. military's superb level of discipline… as it would be if he did not face charges of misbehavior before the enemy and desertion.
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