Don't Stop, Don't Drop.

A friend of a friend of mine recently published this article on her blog, looking back at her experiences running cross country. There are a couple of things that jumped out at me in reading this especially in the context of me training my replacement for next year and the passing on of the Guidon which will take place this weekend. There is an exclusiveness that is a healthy part of an organization's structure and promotes higher performance, and that exclusiveness and performance must be matched with humility and a servant's heart.
For those of you who are not in the Corps, the Guidon is the unit flag which represents the standards, the history, and the goals of the unit, not unlike the Eagle of the Roman Legions. The guidon bearer is chosen each year in a process know as Guidon Candidacy, a two-three week period in which freshmen carry mock guidons during increased physical training and take part in a variety of leadership development and stress evaluation exercises. When I was a fish, the most daunting part of Guidon training was the high port runs, in which we carried our flags over our heads for 2-4 mile runs. As we fell out for our first high port run, the current Guidon bearer formed us up and said "I have one piece of advice for you when it comes to high porting, don't stop, and don't drop."
That piece of advice has gotten me a long way over the last few years. Don't stop trying, working, or giving and don't drop your standards, your morals, or yourself.
In the article, the author talks about the atmosphere that her cross country coach created, in part by talking about what made them different from the rest of the school. We do this a lot in the Corps, and it is apart of creating excellence in whatever organization we are apart of. This exclusiveness, this concept of us being separate and somehow better than them fosters a healthy pride in the organization and a drive to live up to the high standards that form our identity as separate from theirs. In the Corps, one of the forms this takes is attendance at Silver Taps and Echo Taps, where we remember and pay homage to the memory of Aggies and Cadets who have passed away. We pride ourselves on attending these events in mass because these ceremonies separate us from those who are not Aggies, those who are not Cadets.
This all by itself creates merely pride and snobbery. But there is a difference between the pride of a Marine and the pride of, say, a career politician. The second believe he has risen above the rest, is wiser and better than everyone else and is thus entitled to whatever its politicians are entitled to. The first, in contrast, knows that he has been trained beyond what most others have, knows that he is stronger and tougher than most others, but he knows also that that all the training and preparation has taken place so that he can serve others.
The author of the article talks a lot about helping others and focusing on what we can do for them. My junior year in the Corps one of my jobs was to conduct physical training tests for several units. The final event of the test was a mile and half timed run. At nearly every single test, the leaders of the outfit would come sailing in well under the time limit, wait for a few seconds to catch their breath, turn around and run back onto the track, reappearing a few minutes later running in with the slower fish who struggled to meet the time limit. They did not stand at the finish line beating their chests or bragging about their speed, they quietly used their gifts to motivate and encourage others.

That is why we must push ourselves, why we must work to develop ourselves and those around us, so that we may give back to others.
"Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working withhis hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." Ephesians 4:28



Note: After my sophomore year, highporting was banned in the Corps and cadets are no longer allowed to conduct highport runs.

Do. Your. Job.

As my time in the Corps of Cadets is coming to an end, I have had the opportunity to look back at some of the lessons I have learned over the last four years. I've learned a lot about leadership and followership, mostly by making mistakes. The biggest lesson I've learned is as difficult to execute as it is simple to understand.

Do your job.

It seems simple, but I and others have wasted vast amounts of time and energy doing anything but. In the Corps, as in just about any organization, there is always something going wrong, something to worry, argue, complain, or debate about. There are always people who could be doing their job better, and there are always things that need to be done better. On the other side, there are always personal goals that we all have, either to do community service, grow in our relationship with God, or develop friendships with those around us. The problem that arises is when we neglect to fulfill our responsibilities and chase instead after other things, whether relationships or personal pleasures.

Too often we worry about the people who are not taking care of their responsibilities, and spend valuable time and energy complaining or gossiping about people who are not doing their job, time and energy that could be better spent completing our assigned tasks and leading those around us. Very often, if you perform your job well, you can cover for the mistakes or failures of others and you can set a good example for your subordinates and peers, which will in turn elevate their performance. People who do their job well consistently for long periods of time can build amazing amounts of influence and credibility. It does not happen overnight, but if day in and day out you show up and give 100% of your effort to do your job and then to help others, you will be able to have a positive impact beyond what you imagine.

I've often heard my dad talk about those Christians who are "so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good", and in the Corps I've seen people like this a lot. The Christians who had the most impact for Christ were not the ones who went to all the bible studies, were at church every Sunday  or made every christian retreat, but the ones who did their jobs well. I don't mean to belittle these things, they are very healthy and important for good christian growth. However, I have seen time and again young Christians come back from a bible study or retreat all excited and trying to minister to their roommate or buddies, only to get the cold shoulder. They wonder why their buddies don't respond more positively, and the answer is that while they were off 'getting into the word' and 'fellow-shipping with their brothers and sisters in Christ' their buddies were cleaning up the mess they left behind, scrambling to rewrite the training schedule that was left unfinished or unapproved, or giving the briefing that the christian skipped out on. Bible studies are important, no less than Church, retreats, mission trips, and all the rest, but if we are going to be good witness for Christ, we have to begin by taking care of our responsibilities to others.

It is easy at the end of the day to look at what you did and give yourself a pat on the back for being better than everyone else. You worked hard and they didn't. But remember a few things.
First, everyone has their own struggles and hardships. When you are picking up slack for someone else, remember that people have been picking up your slack since before you were born. Even aside from what our parents do for us, everyone has bad days, problems, and weaknesses. While today you are covering for someone else, someday you will need someone to cover for you.
Second, its not about you. At the end of the day what matters is if freshmen learned the drill movements, if the shipment got out the door, if the reports got filed, if the job got done. When we learn to be humble and handle our own load, we might have the opportunity to help someone else and achieve things bigger than ourselves.