Third Time’s the Charm…
This is a pretty personal story… I kept it very personal and very private when I was in the Marines because I saw it as a hindrance to leading Marines. In order to lead Marines, one must pass Officer Candidates School (OCS), The Basic School (TBS), and a speciality school. I had commited to join the Marines three years before September 11th. In order to earn the title of Marine Officer, one must pass OCS. I kept this story private because I failed and failed again. I was going to lead Marines and I needed their full faith and confidence and I thought this story made me weak. Failure taught me this: Failure can be the result of lack of preparation, lack of understanding, or dumb luck.
Summer, 2002
I knew in advance that I was heading to OCS. I was lean, very fast, good at hiking, but I wasn’t super strong at upper body exercises. When I arrived for my six weeks of OCS, I was doing well enough. As time worn on and injuries started to mount (this is a given) I started to find that I wasn’t strong enough to excel at the obstacle course and endurance course. I started falling short on the final exams towards the end of the program. I was “dropped” three days prior to graduation and I was sent home with an offer to return. I stood before a board at Texas A&M to explain why I failed to pass OCS during a time of war. Young men & women were going to war and I wasn’t good enough to earn the title. I failed to prepare hard enough and I failed to understand what I needed to be to succeed. I needed to be strong enough to succeed when I was at my weakest.
I spent the next year training at the things that I was the weakest at. I climbed ropes over and over. I trained my upper body. I trained my core and the stability of my lower body to help prevent injury. I promised myself that I would be ready. I understood the task in front of me and I was prepared for it.
Summer, 2003
I went to OCS with an idea that I was going to succeed. The first two weeks went extremely well. I was handling the obstacle course and endurance course better than ever before. A day after conducting an event where one crawls through a long, putrid, trench that is full of the foulest water on the planet, I started to experience pain in my foot. I thought I sprained it. Over the next day, it became apparent that I had an aggresive cellulitis infection streaking up my leg. Oral antibiotics did not succeed and I was sent to an Army hospital. The doctors almost conducted a surgery but ended up sucking the worst part of the infection out with a syringe. It took a month of antibiotics (oral, IV, hip injected, etc) to shake the infection. I had failed again. This time, it was because a bacteria (probably) made its way through cracks in my foot and made sure that I didn’t walk for weeks. Dumb luck.
Winter 2004
I had missed my chances to earn the title “Marine” during the two summers at the end of my time in college. I wouldn’t be commisioned at graduation. I would have to return to Quantico, VA in the winter of 2004. This time it would be ten weeks long. Long story short, everything was a little harder. Everyday, my finger tips would freeze, the obstacle trenches had a foot of ice in them, candidates got hypothermia regularly. I graduated OCS after 18 weeks of training. I went on to have a decent career of nine years and three deployments to Afganistan.
The lesson here for me was this: failure is professionally and personally embarrassing. It just is. It, however, doesn’t need to be permanent. Failure is a growth opportunity if one is open to it. It will hurt but the pain will be a teacher unlike any other if you have the awareness for it. Telling someone to “never give up” is just a catch-phrase if they don’t understand that it means failing a lot. Failing will hurt but failing will be worth it. Failure eventually gives way to success. Success leads to greater failures. Great failures prepare one for greater successes. The cycle never ends. I look back on those years now and realize after the years of war that followed that the chance of failure is always present and the stakes will get higher and higher the more you keep trying. You just have to keep trying…
