Remembering Two Heroes - One Long Dead, One Alive

One of the themes that runs through most of the blog posts here is this: Life is challenging, and it takes a strong person to do the hard things.

Recently I spent time remembering my time in Vietnam. The vast majority of my West Point classmates served in combat there. They faced challenges that most people can't even imagine. They had to do hard things.

I served in an area of Vietnam known as III Corps, which is the central part of that country. I wasn't assigned to an American combat unit. I commanded a mobile advisory team. Our job was to upgrade the combat capabilities of the Vietnamese Regional Force and Popular Force units around the town of Cu Chi. We lived and worked in the same villages where these soldiers lived.

I remember advising a Vietnamese captain and his unit one day on a mission to engage a Viet Cong unit that was known to be in our area. Sure enough, when we arrived at the location, we were taken under fire. The enemy was in a grove of trees on the other side of a swamp. I decided that the best way to engage them was with a gunship. I contacted the operation center by radio and requested air support.

AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter

About fifteen minutes later, the aircraft arrived. It was an AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter. I marked my position with a smoke grenade and gave the pilot a vector to the enemy location. He fired several rockets and his minigun into the area. This effectively silenced the Viet Cong's attack on us.

I didn't know it then, but two of my West Point classmates were serving as Cobra gunship pilots in Vietnam at the time I was there.

Richard C. Hulse

One was Rich Hulse. Rich and I were friends all four years at West Point. We saw each other nearly every day and attended many classes together. The sad thing about Rich was that during his final month, just before graduation, he admitted to the authorities that he had gotten married. On the one hand, I found it hard to believe that he couldn't wait until after graduation to marry his sweetheart. Cadets aren't allowed to be married, and they have to sign a statement that they aren't married each time they return from a pass or leave. Rich didn't want to lie about it; he didn't want to violate the Honor Code. So he turned himself in, and they dismissed him from the Academy just days before graduation. So he didn't graduate with us. It was tragic.

But I respected him for having the strength of character to do the right thing. It cost him his degree and his Regular Army commission, after all those difficult years. But he kept his honor.

He became an enlisted soldier, but was soon accepted into Officer Candidate School and became an Army Reserve second lieutenant. Then he went to flight school and learned to fly the Cobra. Soon afterward, he was sent to Vietnam.

In 1970 his aircraft was shot down and he was killed in the crash. Rich Hulse was a man of character and courage. He did hard things and gave his life in service to our country, and I think of him as a hero.

The other classmate who flew Cobra gunships while I was there was Woody Spring. Woody and I knew each other as cadets. He competed on the varsity gymnastics team. He went to Vietnam right after graduation, serving in the 101st Airborne Division. Then he went to flight school and served a second tour in Vietnam as a Cobra pilot.

Sherwood (Woody) Spring

This was a side of Woody that I didn't know. He was fearless. Looking back on my combat experience I believe the most heroic among us were the helicopter pilots. Whether gunship pilots or medical evacuation pilots, their job was to show up at the most dangerous moments. No matter what was happening on the ground, they came through for us. All these pilots were amazing heroes.

Woody survived his tour and eventually got trained as a test pilot. Amazingly, after that he was accepted into the NASA astronaut program. In 1985 he rode the space shuttle into earth orbit, where he launched three satellites during 12 hours of EVA space walks.

So Woody did a lot of hard things, too. He's another of my heroes.

Since graduation in 1967, our life journeys have diverged considerably and I never saw either Rich or Woody again, even though unknown to any of us we were busy fighting the Viet Cong at roughly the same time during 1969-1970 in Vietnam.

Today, there are young people who are still doing hard things and getting stronger for it. They'll be the achievers and leaders of the future. Some of them may even become true heroes.

However, in deference to the truth, most kids these days are involved in escapist activities and nonsense, being cool, and taking the easy way out whenever possible. They have no clue what honor is. It's hard to say what their life journeys will be like.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2013. Building Personal Strength .

Adolescent Rites of Passage - Something of Monumental Importance Has Been Lost

I've been reading about traditional and modern rites of passage. So far, the two most helpful books have been Crossroads: The Quest for Contemporary Rites of Passage, ed. Louise Carus Mahdi, et al (1996); and From Boys to Men: Spiritual Rites of Passage in an Indulgent Age, by Bret Stephenson (2006).

A consistent theme: Long ago, "primitive" cultures evolved effective initiation rites to guide young people from childhood to adulthood. Modern adolescents feel the same powerful need to break away from childhood, prove themselves, find their identity, and be acknowledged by and accepted into the adult community. But traditional rites of passage have for the most part been diluted or discarded, and most young people are left to find their own way, often with disastrous results.

My reading has caused me to reflect on what happened to me during my own adolescence. My conclusion: I had amazing luck in the rites of passage department.

• At age 13, I earned the rank of Eagle Scout after two years of hard work.
• At age 14 in the Explorer Scouts I experienced the "Order of the Arrow' initiation ritual.
• At age 15 my father was assigned to Germany. Our family was on a waiting list for housing, and I had to take his place to help my mother control my six younger brothers and sisters for six months until we could join my father.
• At age 18, after 12 years at the top of my class, I gave the valedictory address at my high school graduation.
• At age 18, I survived the West Point summer "Beast Barracks" training and was accepted into the Corps of Cadets.
• At age 19, I was "recognized" at the end of "Plebe" year and became an upperclassman.
• At age 22 I graduated from West Point and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the a Regular Army.
• At age 22 I was married in a Mormon temple with my grandfather officiating.
• At age 22 I successfully completed the Army Ranger School.

Each of these rites of passage required that I accept a "call to adventure" and survive an ordeal, a test to prove myself. After successful completion I was recognized by my community in a way that made me feel I had arrived at a new level in my life. In other words, I was involved in several structured processes that helped me develop personal strengths that would empower me throughout my life and careers -and be recognized for doing so!

Nine of them! How lucky is that?

One of my most intense ordeals happened soon after my adolescence. As a young captain I served in Vietnam as an advisor to Vietnamese infantry units. During that year I participated in over 200 combat missions. I was given several awards for valor and service, but at the end the acknowledgement and acceptance back into my community was non-existent. Instead there was confusion and alienation. I remember an incident during my graduate studies at Duke University when an enlightened coed called me a "baby killer." So my service in Vietnam never became a true rite of passage.

And it wasn't a rite of passage experience for the three dozen of my West Point classmates who died on the battlefield. And soldiers returning from combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't made to experience developmental rites of passage either - a huge opportunity wasted.

Young people will always need to be challenged, tested, guided and accepted in a powerful way in order for them to define who they are and feel they've put childhood behind them. But modern culture has abandoned the old structures without replacing them. Gangs, high society, and college fraternities and sororities have their initiation rituals, but these are pathetic remnants of ancient traditions. It's a tragic, mostly unrecognized shortfall that has left our youth adrift.

The consequences of teens trying to find their own way towards being adults - unwed teen mothers, gangs, crime, substance abuse, and suicide. And yes, middle-aged offspring who still live at home and who have never become adults.

Given that the rituals that served ancient and primitive cultures are inappropriate for our time, is there a way to recreate effective rites of passage for today's youth that are appropriate for modern life? It's something I think about a lot these days.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2013. Building Personal Strength .

Dancing in the Dark - An Old Ax Gets Sharpened

2013 Photo by Kathleen Scott

I met Warren at the farmer's market in downtown Fredericksburg, Texas. He was the elderly gentleman wearing a black cap with the inscription, "U.S. Army Air Corps - World War II Flyboy" on the front. The sign at his booth said, "I sharpen anything that cuts."

I told him he didn't look old enough to be a World War II veteran, but he said he was 88 years old. And still showing up to do something useful in the world. "Do you get much business here?"

"It keeps me busy. I set up here and at the New Braunfels farmer's market."

"I go to the New Braunfels market every Saturday. Can you sharpen an ax?"

"Sure."

My ax had never been properly sharpened, so it was practically useless. But I kept forgetting to bring it to the market. Finally I got the bright idea of storing the ax in the trunk of my car, so if the blade-sharpening man showed up, my ax would be only a few steps away.

On my next trip to the New Braunfels "Farm to Market" I saw his booth and handed him my ax. "It's in bad shape," I said.

"That's a good ax you have there. You want to hear an ax story?"

Are you kidding me? I have a Ph.D. in literature. I write stories every day. You might as well ask a little kid if he wants a candy bar. "Absolutely."

"Well, I have an ax just like yours. I live out in the country and I always keep it sharp. One day I was driving home in my truck and there was a grass fire next to the road. I got my ax out and cut some branches and started beating the edges of the fire. Then a young woman stopped and she started helping. She had a wonderful singing voice and later on she sang all over the country."

"What did you do in the war?" I asked.

"I flew B-17s. When the war ended I was a flight instructor."

An image of those old bombers formed in my mind. "Wow. B-17s. That must have been pretty scary." I told him that in Vietnam I went on over a hundred combat missions but returned without a scratch.

We were both silent for a moment. This kind of talk was a little out of place next to the mundane necessities of life, like buying fresh vegetables and sharpening an ax.

"Do you know the song, 'Dancing in the Dark'?" he asked; and without waiting for my answer, he began to sing:

Dancing in the dark
Till the tune ends
We're dancing in the dark and it soon ends
We're waltzing in the wonder of why we're here
Time hurries by, we're here and gone...

It felt strange to be the one-man audience of an old man's song. It was as if he needed to tell me something, and the song was the best way to do it. When he finished I said, "I've heard this song a million times, but I never paid attention to the lyrics. For a love song, it has a pretty existential message."

"Yes, it does."

So for just six dollars I got a nice, sharp edge on my old beat-up ax, plus a gift I hadn't bargained for.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Surviving Adversity - 17 Basic Truths

"Contrary to popular belief, there are no victims in this world – only willing participants. You can't always control your circumstances, but you can control how you respond to them. And everyone has the power to change at any time."

Dr. Edith Eva Eger

The quote is from Dr. Edith Eva Eger, clinical psychologist. She came from a Hungarian Jewish family, which was taken to Auschwitz death camp in 1944. She survived when after the camps were liberated in the spring of 1945, an American soldier found her nearly lifeless body with other dead bodies. In 1949 she and her husband moved to the United States. She earned her Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Texas, El Paso in 1969.

Today, Dr. Eger is a sought-after clinical psychologist and lecturer, helping individuals discard their limitations, discover their powers of self-renewal, and achieve things they previous thought unattainable. Here's a sampling of fundamental truths she encourages people to reflect upon:

• 1. Every problem is temporary.
• 2. The quality of your decisions determines the quality of your life.
• 3. Dire conditions allow opportunities for inner growth.
• 4. Adversity is what life is all about. You have the power to use adversity to your advantage!
• 5. Blame and condemnation seldom produce positive change and almost always make things worse.
• 6. Others only have as much power over you as you let them!
• 7. The most obnoxious person in your life is often your best teacher.
• 8. Aggression and passivity are two of the least effective behaviors to effect a solution.
• 9. To find freedom we need to forgive.
• 10. Forgiving is a selfish act to free yourself from being controlled by your past.
• 11. Cooperation requires a lot less energy than competition or domination.
• 12. Every situation can be viewed from many perspectives. Is there a pattern to the way you view most situations?
• 13. Focus on seeing the world the way it could be, not the way it is.
• 14. Take responsibility for the responses you make.
• 15. Turn problems into challenges and crises into transitions!
• 16. You may walk through the Valley of Death but don't set up camp there.
• 17. To lead full lives we need to get in touch with ourselves, discard our limiting beliefs, and shed our prejudices.

Using her past as a powerful analogy, she inspires people to tap their full potential and shape their best destinies. It's a message of healing, personal growth, and freedom from self-imposed limitations  - a message that helps people build character, deal effectively with life's events, and enrich the lives of others. For more information about Dr. Eger, check her website...

An inspiring story about another Auschwitz survivor and her message of forgiveness...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Eva Kor and Josef Mengele - Forgiving the Angel of Death

Dr. Josef Mengele

Dr. Josef Mengele was the evil German SS officer and physician known as the "Angel of Death" at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. The purpose of the camp was to implement Hitler's "Final Solution." Jews and other people deemed undesirable were brought there by trains, and thousands were killed each day.

Mengele was a cold-blooded mass murderer. He met the trains and selected people for his grisly experiments. One of his pet projects was doing experimental medical procedures on sets of twins. He tested the effects of germ and chemical warfare agents. At the conclusion of each experiment, he killed the children and performed comparative autopsies on them. He tortured about 1,500 sets of twins. Only about 100 pairs of twins survived.

Eva Kor at Navarro H.S.

I recently met one of the survivors, 77-year-old Eva Mozes Kor. Eva, not quite five feet tall, is a highly energetic, articulate and straightforward woman with a rich sense of humor. She spoke in front of a group of middle school and high school students in the Navarro High School gymnasium about 25 miles south of Austin, Texas. She has made it her life's work to spread a message of peace and humanity to the world.

Her presentation had two parts. The second part was her story of how she came to forgive Mengele, the man who tortured and abandoned her to die, and all the other Nazis.

But first she described what happened to her at the camp, which helps people understand the magnitude of what she forgave. No doubt you've heard the stories and seen the films about the horror of the death camps. The reality was much worse than that. If you want to know about it, I encourage you to get a copy of Eva Kor's book, Surviving the Angel of Death: The Story of a Mengele Twin in Auschwitz (Tanglewood, 2009). By her account, she survived simply because she refused to die.

How she came to forgive Mengele and her other tormentors is an interesting story. About 20 years ago she was asked to speak to a group of doctors at Boston College. They asked her if she could bring one of the Nazi doctors with her. She didn't even know if any of them were still alive, but the request intrigued her. So she checked and found one living in Germany. In 1993 she visited him. To her surprise, the man treated her with humility, kindness and respect. When she asked him if he knew what was happening at Auschwitz, he said, "This is the nightmare I live with," and described how the Jews were killed. He didn't want to go with her to speak, but he agreed to sign a document.

Eva wanted to thank the doctor, but she didn't know how. Ultimately, she decided that she would give him a letter of forgiveness. It took her four months to write it, and in it she forgave everyone who ever hurt her. She even forgave herself for her hard feelings toward her parents. She even forgave Hitler.

It wasn't easy to do this. For one thing, the other surviving twins were angry with her. They misunderstood, thinking that Eva's gesture put a favorable light on the Nazis. But Eva experienced a surprising personal benefit. This is what she says on her website:

I believe with every fiber of my being that every person has the human right to live with or without the pain of the past, and that it is a personal choice. My question is, "How many people would choose to live with pain, when they could heal from it?"

I do believe that this healing is possible through the act of FORGIVENESS, and I believe in FORGIVENESS as the ultimate act of self healing, and self-empowerment. once a person decides to forgive, there is a tremendous feeling of wholeness in thought, spirit and action all moving in the same direction creating a powerful force for healing and freedom.

My forgiving the Nazis is a gift of freedom I gave myself, a gift of peace for myself. It is also a gift of peace for everybody who wants it. Both peace and war begin in the heart and mind of one person. Pain and anger are the SEEDS for WAR. FORGIVENESS is the SEED for PEACE!

When one human being harms another, the perpetrator lives with the burden of guilt. To atone, he or she can admit responsibility, resolve never to do it again, make restitution, apologize and ask for forgiveness. When the victim expresses forgiveness, some of that burden may be lifted.

Whether the guilty one does any of these things, however, the victim experiences a burden as well. It's the burden of pain and anger. The only thing that can lift this burden is forgiveness. "Forgiveness is something you do for yourself. It's an act of self-healing, self liberation, and self-empowerment," Eva explained to the students. "What was done no longer defines who I am. I let go of anger and bitterness."

It takes strength to forgive. You decide to stop nurturing hate, resentment, bitterness and other bad feelings about what happened. When you do, the burden is lifted from your heart and mind. What happened in the past stops being a part of your present and your future. You walk away from the incident, leaving it in the past.

Eva Kor - "I have no more nightmares. I can talk about it and I can joke about it, and it doesn't bother me."

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength . (Photo of Mengele in public domain. 2011 photo of Eva Kor by Kathleen Scott, used with permission.)

Some Personal History - My Teen Journey

I was thinking today about how little my parents knew about my life as a teenager.

My parents, Willy and Bea, were good people. In 1953, when I was 8 years old, the Mormon missionaries visited our house and converted my parents. That put an abrupt end to the smoking and drinking. The LDS church would become a big deal during my growing-up years. Willy and Bea had eight kids, and I was the oldest. They loved the children and as far as I know there was never a single instance of psychological or physical abuse.

Willy was a career warrant officer in the Army. He was an avid sports fan, an enthusiasm he passed on to me. He introduced me to baseball and golf, the latter of which I played avidly during my teen years. I no longer play, but my four brothers still enjoy a round of golf with each other.

Dad was a sergeant when he married Bea in 1943. But according to my mom, she threatened to divorce Willy if he was ever sent overseas to serve in a combat zone. This ultimatum seemed extreme to me, and I never understood why she'd take a stand like that. Maybe she understood herself well enough to know that she wouldn't do well living alone.

So that's what happened. Dad served during three wars - World War II, Korea and Vietnam - and he never saw combat. Officially, he was colorblind, a disqualifying defect. On the other hand, he drove a car all the time. I sometimes wondered what he saw when he looked at a stoplight. Also, he volunteered for unaccompanied noncombat overseas tours, which kept him out of the rotation for combat tours. I learned later that these tours exacted a heavy price. Mom had to take care of a large family by herself, and both had to deal with loneliness. Dad was killed in a car accident on the way to work in 1968, while I was serving in an air defense artillery unit in Germany.

During my school years, I was intensely motivated to be the top student in my class. To this day, I'm not sure what inspired that motivation. I assume it had something to do with my mother. I like giving her credit for that. However, the main thing she gave me was freedom. She was always so busy caring for my younger brothers and sisters that I was on a very long leash. Actually, no leash at all. I had my first date with a girl named Sharon when I was six years old. At age eight I'd hop on my bike and without telling my mom I'd ride it all around the town of Neosho, Missouri, where we lived for five years.

When I scan all my memories of my teen years, I can't think of much that my parents knew about. Of course there were some shared experiences, such as touring around Germany as a family. But the time I spent with friends, what happened to me at school, my part-time jobs, my time on the golf course, my fascination with early rock music, my thoughts and feelings - the aspects of my life that contributed to my development were unknown to my parents. To put it another way, Willy and Bea had no clue what was happening on my teen journey.

Ideally, they would have been more involved. It would have been nice if they could have shared some of their wisdom with me; but honestly, that never happened. As I said, they were good people, but neither had a college education, and I don't think they had much of what I'd call wisdom. Also, I can think of very few life skills that were passed on to me during my teen years. My folks didn't have good communication skills, and they didn't know how to stimulate me to think critically. The bottom line - I had an awful lot of catching up to do. I was over 30 before I felt that I stood on solid ground, even though I had accomplished a lot by that time. To this day I'm learning things that I wish I had known as a teen. 

My parents were who they were. Like everyone else, I didn't get to choose them. I could only choose what kind of son I would be. I feel lucky that they loved me and gave me so much freedom. Even though I pretty much raised myself, I am who I am in large part because of my family background. The challenges and adversity in my life have made me stronger.

Still, I believe that parents who want the best for their teenagers need to be more aware of what's going on than my parents were and take a thoughtful, strategic role in preparing their kids for their adult future. It's why I write most of my blog posts these days.

And why I wrote these books...

Conversations with the Wise Uncle (for boys)

Conversations with the Wise Aunt (for girls)

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Martin Seligman, Resilience and PTSD - Further Conclusions Based on My Experience

A couple years ago I spent some time working with psychologist Martin Seligman on a DOD project. I had met him and heard him speak numerous times, and he was bringing his expertise in the area of optimism to help the military deal with the problem of service members returning from combat with PTSD - post-traumatic stress disorder. Dr. Seligman, a former president of the American Psychological Association and "father of positive psychology," is the well-known author of Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness.

His theory is that there's a strong connection between a pessimistic mindset and susceptibility to PTSD. He claims that not everyone is adversely affected by the stress and horrors of war. He talks about a phenomenon he calls "post-traumatic growth," in which most service members return from war made stronger by their experience. This recalls Friedrich Nietzsche's famous quote, "What does not kill me, makes me stronger." He implies that optimistic people are more resilient and will fare better.

My own experience supports Seligman's view. After I returned from my tour in Vietnam in 1970, I experienced no nightmares, no flashbacks, and no psychological difficulties that I was aware of. It may sound odd, but to this day I've never had a dream about Vietnam. I've wondered about that, because so many veterans were severely disturbed by their experiences. Not that my experiences were tame. I commanded a mobile advisor team during my tour, and I participated in over a hundred combat missions, including night ambushes, airmobile assaults and search and destroy missions. I encountered death on many of those missions. I made it back safely, but the captain who replaced me lost a leg on one of his missions.

My theory was that my West Point education and my Ranger training prepared me for combat so well that I understood what was happening over there. At the end, I was plenty eager to return home; but I wasn't bewildered by what happened, and I didn't agonize over it.

Still, the fact that I didn't suffer PTSD didn't mean that my experiences in combat had a purely positive impact on me. When I landed in San Francisco I was quite tense, and it took me a couple days to relax. I also remember that I was a little more edgy and irritable than usual, as if I was suppressing anger, and I didn't completely calm down for about five years. I think at some level I disagreed with the war, even though I was a professional and did my job as well as I could.

Still, I believe my tour in Vietnam made me stronger. Today, I have amazing composure. Nothing rattles me.

Yes, I was optimistic before I went over, and that may have helped. I've always been optimistic. Also, my training strengthened my composure and perseverance, both of which served me well in Vietnam.

So, my two cents...

1. When understanding resilience, consider more than optimism. Add composure and perseverance. And critical thinking skills. If warriors can make sense of what's going on, they are less likely to panic and feel bewildered by their experience.

2. Even those who benefit from post-traumatic growth may have to work through some emotional difficulties. War really is hell. Nobody who endures it gets a free pass.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

In Honor of Wallace Stevens, A Poem - "At the Battle of Yorktown"

Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown. Painting by John Trumbull (1820)

My wife Kathleen is planning a trip to Yorktown, Virginia, to research a travel article for the San Antonio Express-News. I used to live in that area and enjoyed jogging around the Yorktown battlefield. About 30 years ago, the monument celebrated the 200th anniversary of the battle. The newspaper hosted a competition for poets to write about the battle. I submitted the poem below, and they selected it as the first place entry.

The poem was inspired by Wallace Stevens' "Domination of Black," a great poem that uses language to create hypnotic rhythms, a demonstration of poetic art you don't see very often these days. So with a respectful nod to Stevens, here is "At the Battle of Yorktown" (1981)...

By day, by the York,
The colors of spent trees
And of the falling leaves
Repeating themselves,
Dying across the field,
Waving in the wind.
Yes. And the color of old ranks
Came striding.
And I remembered the crack of the flintlocks.

The colors of the ranks
Blended with the leaves themselves,
Turning in the wind,
In the sunlit wind.
They swept over the the field,
Moving as rows and ranks
Toward walls of earth.
I thought I heard them crack - the flintlocks.
Was it a crack for the sunlight
Or for the leaves themselves,
Turning in the wind,
Turning as flames
Turn in fire,
Turning as the rows of flintlocks
Turned toward the burning earth,
Echoing the steps of the ranks,
Beating with the cracking of the flintlocks?
Or was it for the heartbeat of our ranks?

Across the field
I saw humanity gathered
Like the leaves themselves,
Moving in the wind.
Then I saw how the sun moved,
Burned over the colors of the ranks,
Far above the flashing of the flintlocks.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Parents - Do Kids Need Adversity to Make Them Stronger?

A friend of mine and I were swapping stories about our experiences in the Army. Most of them had to do with the amazing challenges we faced. We had some good laughs.

But the theme of these stories was a serious one. The adversities helped shape us. They made us strong to deal with the problems and crises we face in our businesses today. My friend related this familiar quote from Friedrich Nietzsche: "What does not destroy me, makes me stronger."

"But that isn't true for everyone. Sometimes adversity breaks people. Look at the guys coming back from the Middle East with PSTD. A lot of them are committing suicide," I said.

"Right. It doesn't make everyone stronger. Some of my buddies from Vietnam still have problems after all these years. But not everyone is ruined by the stress of combat. I wasn't. You weren't. It made us stronger. I think you have to already be strong when you go to war to be stronger coming back from it."

That too was confirmed by our stories. We had already faced a lot of adversity before going in to combat. We were ready.

And then my friend said something surprising. "One way to take the measure of a person is to imagine this scenario. Say a person was taken away from his life, stripped naked, all his belongings taken away, including his name and his identity. And say he was deposited in the middle of a foreign country on the other side of the world. What do you think would happen to him?"

I thought about it, and then I said. "I guess it would depend on who he was, how strong he was as a person. Depending on whatever personal strengths he had, he might eventually thrive. Or he might be crushed."

"Exactly."

"If they dropped you in a strange land, they better watch out," I laughed. "In five years, you'd own several businesses and be running for office."

"You got that right," he said.

We talked more about personal strength, about how kids need to start getting strong early on if they want to be strong as adults. And about how parents aren't doing their kids any favors by giving them everything they want and protecting them from adversity.

"Kids need a chance learn about getting knocked down and getting back up. Parents these days think they have to shelter their kids from that. It's a mistake," he said.

"I think if parents want to prepare their kids for life, then they need to expose them to how the real world works early and often. Put them in situations that parallel what will happen to them as adults."

"Team sports are good. Getting a job is good. Earning money to pay for what you want is good. That's how life works."

Useful insights?

Or just a couple of old farts sitting on the front porch telling war stories?

I had the thought that most parents these days just want to keep the peace, believing that success is keeping their kids out of trouble, safe and happy. And if you want to be a super-parent, you save up for their college education. I don't think many parents are asking this question: What am I doing to give my kids practice for what they'll have to do when they're grown up?

Another thing they could do - give their teens these books...

Conversations with the Wise Aunt (for girls)





Conversations with the Wise Uncle (for boys)

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Why I Write About Personal Strengths

Forty-five years ago, when I was a young lieutenant, I attended three months of training at the Army Ranger School, where I learned a lot of difficult combat skills. I learned how to navigate for miles in cold rain at night through dense underbrush up and down mountains in order to reach a distant objective before dawn. I learned how to lead an infantry attack while coordinating medical evacuations, artillery fire and air strikes—all at the same time. You get the picture.

I got good at it. And when I arrived in Vietnam, I was glad I had these skills. But I learned something important. Performing in combat is so adverse that none of these combat skills are worth much if you can’t be bold, keep your cool, manage your awareness, be flexible, give maximum effort, exercise judgment and yes, even show compassion. The biggest challenge was exercising these personal strengths, not the combat skills.

I’ve been intensely interested in these core strengths ever since. In April 1999 I published an article in Performance Improvement, "Strengths of Character: A New Dimension of Human Performance." The paradigm in the human resource development world at the time held that competence consisted of skills and knowledge. I made a case that a third element, which at the time I referred to as "character strength," was also a factor.

You know I’m right about this. You can have abundant knowledge, a high level of skill and strong motivation. But what if conditions turn against you? What if you encounter opposition? What if things go wrong? What if the stakes are raised and the cost of failure is multiplied? What if you’re getting pressure from stakeholders? What if office politics gets in your way? What if customers are angry about problems? What if the competition has introduced something new and powerful? What if three members of your team have left for other opportunities? What if your child is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer?

The answer is, you’ll have to do some hard things. And what you actually do will be a manifestation of who you are, at the core.

To capitalize on their personal strengths, I recommend that people do two things.

1. Consider which personal strengths are your strongest, and look for ways to use these more often in your life and work.
2. Work on making the weak areas stronger, one personal strength at a time.

I admit that even though doing these two things is crucial to personal success, following this advice is more difficult that it sounds. That's the real reason my company spent 10 years developing ProStar Coach, an online virtual coaching system to help success-oriented people work on personal strengths and people skills. It makes the behavior change process a lot like working out in a gym. But instead of building physical strength, over time people get stronger at the core of who they are. In ProStar, they do the reps! And they get behavior models, coaching, encouragement, feedback and accountability. If you're interested, right now the website is letting people try out ProStar Coach free.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Fortunate Son - John C. Fogerty's Vietnam War Classic

I first heard "Fortunate Son" when it came out in 1969. I was sitting in my bunker north of Cu Chi, writing a letter and listening to Armed Forces Network radio. It was a passionate, angry protest song, and the lyrics were hard to make out. But the phrase, "I ain't no millionaire's son, no," struck a chord. I later learned that back then Julie Nixon was dating David Eisenhower, and Fogerty knew that privileged kids like these would not be the ones sent to fight the war.

Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they're red, white and blue.
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief",
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord,

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no,

Yeah!
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh.
But when the taxman comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes,

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no.

Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer More! more! more! yoh,

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no military son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, one.

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, no no no,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate son, no no no,

The rock songs of that era are the only ones that move me anymore. It was some pretty powerful stuff. Fogerty also wrote "Born on the Bayou" and "Proud Mary." Creedance Clearwater Revival broke up in 1972, but I understand Fogerty is still going strong, still rocking.

Other favorites...

"Woodstock" - Crosby, Stills and Nash

"Hotel California" - The Eagles

"Imagine" - John Lennon

"Taking Care of Business - Bachmann Turner Overdrive

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength . (Photo used in accordance with terms of Wikimedia free use)

Fear and Courage - Memories of Vietnam

I was watching the gritty documentary Restrepo, the story of American soldiers serving in an outpost in Afghanistan, and it caused me to remember some of my combat experiences in Vietnam. During my year there, I was involved in over 200 ground combat missions. As the memories came back to me, I realized that many of them involved incidents that happened on the front end of my tour, before I actually had my first combat experience.

I remember the first time I thought seriously about what might happen to me in Vietnam. I was still a cadet at West Point, sitting in a class on military history. In 1966, American soldiers had already seen some serious action, but most of the history of that war hadn't happened yet. At the time, it was politically incorrect to call it a war. They called it a "conflict."

So they found this instructor who had been there and asked him to talk to us about it. He was a tough-talking colonel. Back then, colonels and generals talked tough about Vietnam because the worst hadn't happened yet, and because they experienced the war mostly from inside of Tactical Operation Center bunkers inside the perimeter of a base camp - far from where the action was actually taking place. Whenever they wanted to get closer to the action, they'd do it in a helicopter at 2,000 feet. Anyway, this tough-talking bozo said this: "Y'all are going to get your chance soon enough. It isn't much of a war, but it's all we've got."

My West Point class was small - only 583 graduated in 1967. Three years later, over 30 of them had been killed in Vietnam.

My first memory of Vietnam was of a peculiar smell. The plane that brought me there landed at Tan Son Nhut airport outside of Saigon. As I stepped out of the plane, I was hit by a blast of hot air. I looked into the blinding sunlight and saw several Vietnamese men squatting next to some shack-like buildings. A darkish smoke rose from behind the building, and it had a harsh, unnatural petroleum smell to it. It was pretty strange. Men weren't supposed to squat in a row in the heat, and air wasn't supposed to smell like that. I later learned that the smell was the result of disposing of human feces by mixing it with diesel fuel and burning it.

My first duty was to attend a school for advisors. But I would stay in a barracks in Saigon for a couple days before reporting. At night, I heard the sound of helicopters coming and going and the loud thunk of artillery. The war sounded close and my untrained ear didn't know if it was incoming or outgoing. This uncertainty, plus the humidity, made it hard to sleep that first night.

The advisor school lasted a month. I learned a little Vietnamese, and I thought fine, time in school is time I won't have to spend in combat. During my last week there, they explained how to properly fortify a bunker. As an illustration, they told the story of Mobile Advisory Team 84, which had recently come under attack. An RPG (rocket propelled grenade) had blown into the team's bunker in the middle of the night, killing two of them and injuring two others.

On the last day, we got our assignments. I would be the new team leader for guess what - Mobile Advisory Team 84.

I was transported from the school to my assignment aboard a small, single-engine Air America plane. I sat next to the pilot, a tanned fellow who wore aviator sunglasses. He was all business. I watched the terrain below as we flew above 2,000 feet. About 20 minutes into the flight, he said, "We're here." Then he banked the aircraft hard and headed straight downward towards the ground. At the last minute, he pulled out of the dive and we landed in an open field out in the middle of nowhere.

"This is it," he said. I got out of the plane and he quickly took off. I wondered if there had been some mistake. I was a little nervous, because there were no buildings and no one was there to meet me. I looked around in all directions. It was quiet, but I wondered what might happen next. A half hour later, a jeep showed up to collect me.

Before going on to Team 84, I met the District Senior Advisor, an infantry major. He had some bandages wrapped around his left arm. "You're replacing Lieutenant Silliman. The captain was killed and he's standing in. He's a good man. I'm putting him in for a Silver Star for his actions a couple days ago. Bravest thing I ever saw. You're here just in time." He grinned. "It's Saturday, and your team has a party every Saturday night."

After introducing myself to my team members, I asked them about this Saturday night party. Both my sergeants had been in Vietnam continuously for over two years. "Yeah, that's right," one of them said. "We come under attack every Saturday night. It's a real blast, all right."

And that's what happened. About ten o'clock that night, mortar rounds started landing around our small compound. I didn't know what was appropriate. Were we supposed to take cover? I decided to watch and learn. My team members started hooting and hollering and grabbing weapons. "The party is starting," one of them said, and they all ran out of the bunker. I grabbed a grenade launcher and followed them. They were all firing in one direction into a tree-line about 300 meters away. They continued firing even after the incoming mortar rounds stopped. Not to be left out of the festivities, I let loose a couple grenade rounds into the darkness.

The next day I would accompany one of the sergeants on my first combat mission. There was a firefight and three Vietnamese solders were wounded. My sergeant took charge of the battle, walking around exposed as if he were invincible. In retrospect, I think he wanted to show me how brave he was, and his behavior was tacit coaching that I was expected to bring a similar level of courage.

It was an interesting year. To me, the most amazing thing about it was that I returned home without a scratch.

But those first few weeks must have made an impression on me. I was introduced to fear, and the message was that I would have to learn how to deal with it.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Tip Clip #6 - How to Develop Mental Toughness

Life certainly does dish up plenty of adversity. An interesting thing about that - it can beat you down and unravel you, or it can make you mentally tough. The good news is, you can make that call. You can choose how to react.

As a young man, I had plenty of mental toughness learning opportunities. My freshman year at West Point was so stressful that over 100 of my classmates dropped out. The rest of us learned mental toughness. After graduation came the Army Ranger School, command of an air defense battery on a snowy hill in Germany, and a year of combat operations in Vietnam.

I've given a lot of thought to these experiences, and to mental toughness. One conclusion: whether you're a boss, a parent, a coach, a soldier, a nurse, a fireman - anyone who has to deal with emergencies, calamities, unexpected problems or stressful situations - you'll need mental toughness.

How can you get more mental toughness? In this brief video, I share the one thing that I feel is the key to developing this important aspect of personal strength...



By the way, this may be my last Tip Clip video for a while, maybe for good. I really have enjoyed making them, mainly because I love learning experiences and video is an engaging medium. But I'm first and foremost a writer, and I've decided that I'll be more productive if I stick to my knitting. Focus!

If you think you missed any of these gems, you can check all eight Tip Clip videos here.

My friend and business partner, Meredith Bell, also has two excellent videos about composure...

John Wooden on Managing Your Emotions

Composure - Control Your Emotions in Stressful Situations

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

USAF Captain Ed Freeman - Vietnam War Medal of Honor Winner

You know how people forward you inspiring stories through email? I have a lot of friends, and I get my share of them. Sometimes I read them and sometimes I don't. I never forward them on.

But this one caught my eye and I read it all the way through. It struck a chord, because it was about one of the many courageous MedEvac chopper pilots that I remember from my time in Vietnam.

Back in 1969 I was an adviser to Vietnamese soldiers, and my team lived on the edge of a village. Our job was to train and encourage these soldiers to protect their village and the surrounding countryside from the Viet Cong.

One night, the village and our bunker came under mortar attack. At one point, the villagers brought two badly wounded soldiers to us. One had a bullet wound near his collar bone. The other's body was covered with countless shrapnel wounds. We called for MedEvac. The 5th Mechanized Infantry Division's base camp was not far from us, and the chopper arrived ten minutes later. The village that night was what was known as a "hot LZ," but when the pilot saw our flare he came right in, landing his Huey at a crossroads in the village. It was a tough landing, because his rotor blades missed the surrounding buildings by only a few feet. We loaded the wounded and he lifted off.

I was amazed at the pilot's skill and courage. These men performed similar acts of valor several times a day, mission after mission with little or no recognition. But I honored the pilot in my heart, and I've never forgotten these unsung heroes. 

As I read this email, I recognized that it had been making the email rounds for a couple of years. I got a lump in my throat. So this time I'm forwarding one on...

You're a 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded and dying in the jungle somewhere in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam. It's November 11, 1967. LZ (landing zone) X-ray. Your unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 yards away, that your CO (commanding officer) has ordered the MedEvac helicopters to stop coming in.

You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns and you know you're not getting out. Your family is half way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.

Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter. You look up to see a Huey coming in. But it doesn't seem real because there are no MedEvac markings on it.

Captain Ed Freeman is coming in for you.

He's not MedEvac so it's not his job. But he heard the radio call and decided he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire anyway. Even after the MedEvacs were ordered not to come, he's coming anyway.

And he drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 3 of you at a time on board. Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses and safety.

And, he kept coming back! 13 more times, until all the wounded were out. No one knew until the mission was over that Captain Freeman had been hit 4 times in the legs and left arm.

He took 29 of you and your buddies out that day. Some would not have made it without the Captain and his Huey.

Medal of Honor recipient, Captain Ed Freeman, United States Air Force, died last Wednesday at the age of 80, in Boise, Idaho. May God bless and rest his soul.

I bet you didn't hear about this hero's passing, but we've sure seen a whole bunch about Michael Jackson, Tiger Woods, Lindsay Lohan and the bickering of congress over health reform. Shame on the American media!

Now ... YOU pass this along to YOUR mailing list. Honor this real American hero.

Please.

Ed Freeman was not an urban legend. And his heroism was unsung until several years ago when President Bush awarded him the Medal of Honor.

Whether you agree with the war or not, the young men and women who go and serve make a sacrifice that's hard for most people to comprehend. So the next time you see people in uniform, approach them and give them your sincere thanks for what they do.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

"Imagine" - Remembering John Lennon

I had just begun graduate school at Duke University when John Lennon's ballad "Imagine" came out. I was still a little raw from my combat tour in Vietnam, and the words of the song moved me, made me long for the world he envisioned: "Imagine all the people living life in peace." It was a poignant thought.

Forty years later it still moves me, every time I hear it. It's probably my favorite rock song, one of the few songs ever written that had the power move people in the right direction to change things. If it were a requirement of adult life to "have your song," this would be mine.

On this day, today, Lennon would have been 70 years old. I listen to him sing, and I'm reminded of the loss. It reminds me that we should relentlessly imagine such a world, even though it's more ruined and more in danger than it was in his lifetime.



"Imagine" lyrics by John Lennon (1971)

Imagine there's no heaven.
It's easy if you try.
No hell below us,
Above us only sky.
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries.
It isn't hard to do.
Nothing to kill or die for,
And no religion too.
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us,
And the world will be as one.

Imagine no possessions.
I wonder if you can.
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

The Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln - Top 10 Quotes

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), the 16th President of the United States, is revered for leading the nation during its most troubled period, the American Civil War. He was successful in preserving the Union and ending slavery.

In my opinion, he was the most quotable of all the presidents. He had a grounded sense of humor and a kind of commonsense wisdom, which comes through in his speeches and writings. I've been collecting quotes by Lincoln for a long time, and in my opinion they are yet another reason we have such affection for him today.

Here are my Top 10 favorites:

On ATTITUDE - "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."

On CHARACTER - “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

On FAIRNESS - "If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance."

On FRIENDSHIP - “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”

On HONESTY - “No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar.”

On PASSIONS - “Nothing in this world is impossible to a willing heart.”

On RESPONSIBILITY - "You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."

On SELF-DEVELOPMENT - “The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.”

On SERVICE - "I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow."

On VISION - "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it."

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (The image of Lincoln is in the public domain, available from the U. S. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)