The Three Steps to Ensure Action

    It is better to make a decision and act than to remain indecisive. Being indecisive gets people killed Ranger. This phrase was crafted into the very fiber of our minds over the long days and nights of Ranger School. Ranger School is billed as the Army’s elite leadership school. A crucible, of sorts, were young men and women are stressed to the points of exhaustion. Along the way they learn how to lead others through the same stress and also how to operate for long periods of time behind enemy lines. In a nutshell, Ranger School is kind of like doing a Tough Mudder for 60 days straight. It sucks. There is no other way to phrase it. Ranger School is meant to replicate actual combat and is based upon the experiences of graduates who have endured combat from Korea to Afghanistan. Combat is stressful and therefore Ranger School must be just as stressful.

    Now there are limitations that are within the confines of common sense such as no live bullets, small explosions only, no total starvation or depriving of water, and other safety mechanism. For example, during the swamp phase of Ranger School at Eglin Air Force Base, instructors conduct dives to ensure that areas of training are free of alligators or other large reptiles but pushing through a snowstorm with other two hours of sleep in three days is ok. Like I said, a sliding scale of what is deemed “ok”. Regardless, Ranger School wanted to push people to their extremes. I went to school in the winter of 2008 and had never really pushed my body and mind to its extreme. I grew up an only child in eastern Tennessee who never went hungry and didn’t know or was never exposed to the reality of his situation, that his family was lower middle class. Now that isn’t a bad thing at all but it did provide some difficulties. None of these difficulties resulted in me experiencing the first tier of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I was fed, I was clothed, and I had a place to sleep. 

    The difficulties arose when attempting to find my place in society after high school, A white male from a lower middle class family still didn’t qualify for any free rides. I wasn’t overly smart, I didn’t do amazing on my standardized testing, and I wasn’t a member of some money-making sport such as football. Instead I was a guy who swam, played water polo, and liked art class. None of these resulted in a scholarship so at the ripe age of 18 I was facing my first true test; what to do with myself. Following the advice from my parents and, after visiting a few schools, it became apparent that I could go to a nice school but I would pay for it later through student loans. My interest at this point was zero.

    Luckily another option arose in the form of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Most of you are going to stop there and question did I have a relative that attended or whose campaign did my parents contribute to or what strings were pulled. Seriously, nothing was done to get me looking and then finally attending West Point. All I did was send an email to the swim coach expressing my interest, did a visit, interned with the local Congressman, and then I was offered admission to West Point. In reality it was kind of a world wind.One moment I was coaching kids during the summer for swimming and the next moment I was dig trenches around my tent to keeping the late summer Hudson Valley downpour from washing me away. 

    West Point proved to be a reality I wasn’t quite in store for at the time. I struggled in the beginning. Between the culture shock of being someone who embraced art, poems, and writing to being quizzed about plebe knowledge. See, the upperclassmen required that freshmen or plebes memorize random knowledge that had to be repeated at a moments notice. Things like how many lights are in Cullem Hall or how is the Cow. Schofields definition of discipline was always a favorite due to the words that proved difficult to pronounce, especially those from the South, and also due to its length. Besides these random stressors, the first year academics were, at times, seemingly beyond my grasp. Discreet Dynamic Equations was a class that didn’t interest me beyond the fact that, if I failed it, I would spend that summer on the Hudson. 

    The most difficult thing, though, was balancing the schedule. Between classes and satisfying the requests of upperclassmen, I had my obligations to the swim team that beckoned twice a day. Once at 5 AM and the other right after school at 330 PM. The schedule was the hardest part to adapt to at the time. Any misstep or miscalculation on how long a task might take proved to be disastrous. Disaster usually took the form of staying up after light out by either the illumination of a small handheld light or putting our wool blankets over the windows to block out light. Along the way and after the hours became days then weeks and then months I realize that I had adapted to where this was just the way it was to me. It was almost like I couldn’t remember what it was like without the constant, demanding schedule. Had I come to this realization through long thought? No, it was just an epiphany one day walking through the blowing Hudson wind. In reality I had committed to act, constantly, for days on end until my reality changed. In essence, I had willed my reality to change through deliberate action. 

    I found myself in a similar situation during Ranger School. Ranger School demanded constant action. If you remained in one spot too long, the “enemy” would spot you and “artillery fire” would descend upon you until you acted. It didn’t matter if you were tired, hungry, exhausted, or exchange any synonym here for ready to fall asleep on your feet. The reason for this action goes back to combat. The combat veterans who advised on the creation of Ranger School had seen, during World War II and then the Korean War, that those who acted usually had a more positive outcome than those that froze due to their inaction. As we were always told, any decision, even if its a wrong one in hindsight, is better than no decision. The entire ethos of being a Ranger rested upon action. Rarely were you ever just sitting somewhere and not doing something. Each moment had a purpose and an objective. If we were staying in one place, it was to accomplish some task like pulling security, creating a new plan, conducting maintenance, or refitting for the next mission. Basically our whole lives were based on deliberate, conscious action.

    Besides allowing us to constantly move towards our objective, what did this bias for action do for us in Ranger School; did it change our view or perspective on reality? Due to the constant stress placed upon us, it was common for periods of depression to occur. We were given a low calorie diet of less than 2,000 calories a day, pushed to our physical limits through repeated patrols sometimes covering more than five miles a way with almost 100 lbs of additional gear on your back, allowed, at times, less than four hours of sleep a night, and, for no gain at all, except to maybe hear you did “Ok” from your instructor. Praise didn’t happen often and stressful situation were plenty. Many would get lost in their thoughts or get lost in the emotions of a bad report, a girl friend breaking up with them, or question if they made the right decision in trying to earn the Ranger Tab. I came to realize that action solved all of these problems. If I was hungry, I would just do something. If I was exhausted, I found something to do. If I was sleepy, I would do some push ups. If I was depressed, I would make sure my gear was ready for the next mission. 

    The constant action allowed my mind to not focus and dwell on the depressing situation I may have been in at the time. Trust me, I didn’t get there overnight. It took the pain of long, boring ruck marches to get me there. To be honest, I was horrible at ruck marching. My body just didn’t seem to be built to carry heavy loads for long periods of time at a quick pace. I could do it and I could do it better than average but it didn’t mean that I actually enjoyed it. How often are you acting or are you dwelling on your thoughts too much? Make a decision to act today and think less. Don’t give yourself time to pause and feel the pain of the situation. There is a time for that, trust me. Rather, keep moving forward and acting. You might be surprised where you end up. 

    In reality, this idea to act is a three step process. The first step is to set your mindset to act. Too often we evaluate all options before we move. This can be healthy but, in other times, this can cause paralysis by analysis. You do not want to become paralyzed in life because others will continue to act around you. Step two is to realize that no answer is perfect, no answer is 100% correct, and mistakes are ok. Once you accept this as fact then you are free to make the decisions that are needed to act. The last step is to act. it is really that simple. Put your mindset to one of action, accept that no decision is perfect, and then act. Operating within these three steps is freeing and opens up all kinds of possibilities. Did you feel that tug at the meeting to speak up but decided not to and remained quiet? Use these three steps and see where it gets you. 

Resiliency in ACTION

    The landscape just whipped by like the video was on fast-forward. The greens and browns of the South Georgia scenery mixed into a constant blur, kind of like the moments that would soon follow. The air around us was a hot, humid mix of swamp air, perspiration, and a mix of emotions that ranged from fear to excitement to anxiety to tepid anticipation. Never the less, the aircraft held about 64 of us all in different stages in our lives. Some were here to prove to themselves that they could achieve more than they thought, others were fulfilling an obligation, and some stood there due to a sense of romanticized adventure. 

    All 64 stood there not because the aircraft lacked seats but, rather, that the seats were collapsed in anticipation for the moment of truth, the jump. Each paratrooper, even though they were not formally called this until after the completion of their fifth jump, stood, riding some steel-surfboard going around 130 knots. All of them understood what would happen next. The jump master would begin a countdown stating minutes and seconds remaining until their exit. They would pass the information back so that the individual in the rear of the line would understand. Each person would check the person’s gear in front of them one last time to ensure that there were not any tears or rips in the static line thus ensuring a safe jump. Finally, they would slap the individual before them let them know that their gear was “ok” and the jump could continue. This process was repeated from front to back and then back to front until the jump master was finally informed “All ok jump master!”. At this point, the paratroopers all waited for one thing: the green light.

    In some simplistic fashion, which bordered on genius, some decided that all paratroopers needed to know that it was time to go was a green light. During a nighttime exit, this green light cast an eerie glow throughout the belly of the C130. Details and faces were blurred together as the green light hid certain features except for height; everyone looked the same. After the final checks had been completed, everyone waited until the green light ushered them out into the open air. Sometimes this took minutes and other times it took hours. It all depending on the circumstances going on outside of the planes. If the weather was clear, the wind speed was minimal, and the drop zone was clear; then the exit was pretty quick. Otherwise, if one of these conditions was poor, the exit could take awhile. In some situation, this resulted in nausea from the constant turbulence or anxiety bordering on a panic attack from the anticipation. In each instance, these moments were drawn out like hours causing each paratrooper to face their own fears within their own minds. 

    It was inevitable when faced with a situation in which one could die, if the moment did not come quickly, everyone would go deep within themselves and play a horrible game of “What if”. What if my parachute didn’t open? What if I hit the ground too hard? What if someone was immediately below me preventing a proper landing? What if I became wrapped up in another jumper? What if I became snagged on the aircraft? As one can see, the mind is a wonderful; yet, terrible organ. At one point we can be fantasizing about wearing our jump wings while in the next breath seeing our deaths. Luckily, to a point, the Army had prepared all of those involved with Airborne training how to handle most of these situations. It required clear, logical thinking. You had to separate the emotion from the situation and respond accordingly.

    If your parachute failed, then you did not panic because you had practiced numerous times how to respond, you pulled the reserve parachute. If you became entangled with another jumper, then you pulled the risers that controlled the parachute, bicycled, and attempted to untangle yourself. The landing should never frighten you because the landing was practiced for two weeks before even attempting to jump out of a plane. The Army prepared all of the jumpers for each possibility but that didn’t mean their minds wouldn’t stop wondering “what if”. Some became paralyzed by the fear associated with these scenarios. You could hear it in how they breathed. No longer were their breaths controlled but instead became ones bordering hyperventilating messes. 

    This was the situation I found myself in during one summer at Ft. Benning, Georgia. I had come to this school, the United States Army Airborne School, out of a sense of pride and obligation to my family. My father had been an Airborne soldier and one of my great uncles had been an Airborne soldier. From a young age, I was told it was just what we did in life. Other people became doctors, lawyers, or something fancy; we became soldiers and specifically soldiers that jumped out of planes. Regardless, it was my decision to follow in this family tradition of sorts which is funny because we didn’t have any true family traditions like other people. We put up Christmas trees and decorations more as an obligation and we engaged in a Thanksgiving dinner more because my grandmother wanted it than because we enjoyed it. So, for whatever reason, this was the only tradition that mattered; jumping out of planes. 

    I had already been here for two weeks at this point. It was July. It was South Georgia. It was humid. I was miserable. I was getting ready to jump out of a plane for the first time. Did I mention that I was getting ready to jump for the first time? No, ok well, I was and it was exactly as most people would describe it which is a mix of excitement, anxiety, feeling like your going to pee your pants, and just outright fear of what was going to happen in the next minutes. The peeing your pants, I came to find out, was actually quite normal in that, once you got into your jumping harness, you wouldn’t be able to use the bathroom. So soldiers would typically go without a bathroom break for hours meanwhile facing anxiety and panic. Have you ever been anxious about something? You know what happens? Your bladder becomes a leaky faucet and you visit the porcelain throne about every five minutes or less. It's you and that individual with the urinary tract infection making that odd eye contact each time you go to relieve the physical symptoms of your anticipation. 

    Back to the story. So there I was, standing in line to exit this well-made aircraft that was doing an excellent job of maintaining flight, wasn’t crashing, and would soon return to earth safely. In other words, there wasn’t a true reason, in the survival sense, to exit in the manner I would soon. The fight or flight response actually works against you in this situation because both are telling you to stay put. Nothing in your mind is agreeing with you to exit and every system in your body is letting you know this fact. You sweat more than usual. Your heartbeat is racing. Everything is on overload. 

    What I was experiencing and what everyone jumping for the first time experiences is fear. Fear is ok. Fear is what kept our cavemen ancestors alive as they moved through the forests at night. Fear is a powerful weapon when focused on an appropriate goal. In this example, the fear of dying, which was very real in the case of trying to float down to the ground on a thermal updraft, ensured that I was hyper-focused about all of my actions. I ensured that my gear was checked properly. I checked my friend's gear properly. I went through all of my preventive actions in my mind. I went through scenarios that would be problematic and ensured that I knew the proper solutions to ensure I landed on the ground properly. In the end, if I came to a roadblock and didn’t know the answer, I asked or relied on what I was told which was “Trust your equipment”. It became almost like a mantra of sorts. 

“Does this look safe to you?”

“ I don’t know, just trust your equipment; it will be ok.”

    When fear took over someone, it manifested as anxiety. This anxiety crippled someone in every sense imaginable. Some people couldn’t physically bring themselves to exit the plane and would collapse next to the door to which the jump master would berate them hoping to snap them out of their paralyzing condition. Others couldn’t control their bowels and the air became awash with the strong smells of urine and, sometimes, feces. Anxiety causes us to confront the inner demons. Basically, fear unlocks a door within our minds and causes us to spiral. Literally, we become consumed with our thoughts such that when given options, we always seem to pick the worse outcome. We all feared jumping out of the plane. Who wouldn’t fear it? Death was a potential outcome but so was walking away just fine. So why did some people dive into anxiety while others understood the fear, embraced it the best that they could, and then moved past it?

    First off, it may be of use to differentiate between fear and anxiety. Fear, as defined by Webster, is an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by expectation or awareness of danger.  Meanwhile, Webster defines anxiety as an apprehensive uneasiness or nervousness usually over an impending or anticipated ill. The easiest way to distinguish the two is through our bodily experiences. Fear causes us to have that pit in our stomachs. It doesn’t impede our actions it just makes us more aware that something is wrong. Think of it like a mild-primitive superpower kind of like a spider-sense. Anxiety, on the other hand, causes mild nausea, dizziness, and a sense of apprehension. You may have the small moment of fear associated with the snake you just saw while hiking but twenty minutes later you have moved past the event. Fear no longer holds a grip on you. Anxiety, though, wakes you up at 3 AM and consumes you. Maybe you have insomnia or maybe you have anxiety. You can’t tell the difference because your mind is constantly going and you can’t slow down. Fear and anxiety can be caused by the same moment. Back to Airborne School, one jumper may have fear about exiting the plane while another is suddenly anxious about the impending action. The reason this occurs is due to how each individual copes with the situation. 

    The Army condition us to cope quite well with most situations. This was accomplished through deliberate, stressing events that made it so that when fear struck, it wasn’t the first time we had faced it. The chaos of Basic Training was purposeful in that it was attempting to “jar” a young soldier out of their previous, civilian life. I ran a Basic Training company for a year and we would pile stressing events on young soldiers just to try and get them to crack. They would face their fears in the form of land navigation at night, rappelling off of a 75-foot tower, or having to run five miles. The events weren’t designed to be some carnival funhouse of stress but rather a series of events that would stress some and not stress other. To one person the rifle range was exhilarating and to another, it was frightening. See stress is in the eye of the beholder and these varieties of events allowed you, as a soldier, to understand what sent you from fear to anxiety. Once you understand that, then you can reverse course and bring your mind back to sanity. 

    For Airborne School, this was accomplished through repeated exercises mimicking jumping from a plane. We all knew that the actual event of jumping from a plane could never truly be replicated but the instructors sure did try. We did hundreds of landings to condition our bodies to the response. We exercised our bodies to prepare for the loads we carried and the impact. Finally, we practiced for every bad scenario “just in case” it might happen. These repeated exposures allowed us to cope correctly when the situation surfaced. Most of us were able to recognize the fear, embrace it, and then move on. Those that didn’t or couldn’t, embraced anxiety and didn’t jump. It was that simple. One jumper in front of me faced such a dilemma. 

    The doors were open, the light was green, and the paratroopers were out into the open air. The static lines that pulled the chutes from our backpacks were hung tightly out the door due to the turbulence just a few inches from our bodies. We shuffled up to the door dragging our static lines on a cable to give to the jump master, turn, and then exit. Except for one individual, a young enlisted man, decided that his anxiety had gotten the best of him. He paused and froze. The jump master instructed him to jump once, twice, and then after the third time, the jump master threw him to the front of the plane as the rest of us continued to exit. The anxiety had gotten the best of him. He had become paralyzed by analysis.He went down the rabbit hole with Alice and got lost in his own mind. By the time he had come back to reality, all of us were most likely gone from the plane and his moment had passed. By refusing to jump, the soldier had elected to quit Airborne School. I’m sure, in a calm moment, he wouldn’t have made such a decision but, when faced with fear, his anxiety had won out. 

    We all face fear and anxiety on a daily basis. It’s funny and sad that the Army could prepare soldiers how to cope with death and bodily harm; yet, most of us suffer some form of anxiety upon leaving the military. I was no exception. A few months after leaving the military, I found myself in a job that pushed me in ways that were foreign and I didn’t understand so, when my boss called me to his office, I immediately followed the rabbit into Wonderland. I knew how to cope but that didn’t make the situation any better. I was still nauseous, heart was racing, and mind spiraling. How did I cope? I went and cut the grass. For a little context here, I cut the grass in the middle of summer, in Orlando, during the middle of the day. It wasn’t the safest thing to do but, I knew, it was healthier than letting my mind wander into fiction. What I am trying to say is that I am by no means perfect when it comes to coping. I can actually cope quite well but, instead of coping, maybe we should be calling it resilience. 

    The American Psychological Association (2014) defines resilience as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, threats or even significant sources of stress” A simple way to see this is that resiliency is how healthy we function after a stressing event. A stressing event can be up to interpretation and, in reality, most of us face a stressing event more frequently than we would like to admit. Whether it is a child that doesn’t respond to our parenting techniques, the mounting debt, the self-doubt that creeps in, the traffic coming home from work, and I could continue to go on and on. In reality, our modern society is just as stressful as less civilized ones from our history books. Replaced are the famines, diseases, and invading armies; now we have technology outages, disparities in standards of living, and the constant competition to succeed. For this reason, everyone needs to figure out some ways to become more resilient. 

    Now most of us don’t have the limitless resources to be funneled through a training program like Basic Training that could stress us and equip us with ways to cope. Part of the training is getting to know yourself. Know what it is to be tired, hungry, and exhausted. These are all important baselines to know about ourselves but most of us cannot afford the time or cost to engage in these activities. Instead, we need more practical steps to assist us in our daily lives. A small practice of resiliency that can become habits and therefore a way to cope when the stressful event surfaces. I call these the six realities of resiliency and they are action, communication, time, introspection, opportunity, and being nimble or adaptability. Confidently these realities spell out ACTION which is the first rule for a reason. Being resilient means moving forward, rebounding in a sense. Those that embrace anxiety become sucked into the situation and never progress. Action is therefore key. 

    The other five realities are ways to further cope with the events that transpire around us. Proper communication is key in order to inform others of how we feel and get our emotions across. If the message is misinterpreted, then the Calvary won’t come to the resource and the proper resources won't be given. Having a proper view of time puts the event into perspective. Ever heard that President’s become more popular the further removed from office they become? Kind of the same effect. Introspection speaks to figuring ourselves out. The Army forced this upon us through nights of silent marching and it was inevitable that you would have to figure yourself out. As Socrates said, “ Know Thyself”. Opportunity address the reality that the event closed one door but may have opened others. Once again, like time, this really is trying to put things in perspective. Finally, adaptability. To be resilient we must be adaptable. Without this flexibility, we would be rigid and unable to adapt to the circumstances. In essence, we would never learn and therefore never progress forward.