DGUTS!

We have been working with one particular client, “C”, for the past six weeks and the other day, as we were prepping for an upcoming TV interview, she received some news of further setbacks in her investigation.

At the time, I was writing this little note below, and the phrase “Don’t Give Up the Ship!” hit me. It is apropos for a few reasons, the first being that “C“ is an officer in the U.S. Navy, from which this slogan comes. Even more appropriately and saliently is the encouragement to not give up not only one’s hope, but perhaps more importantly (and more true to its original meaning): to see the mission through; to not allow chance to decide the fate of our “ship” (our military).

I believe it is the onus on all of us – those who have served, and those who are serving – to take the initiative in the here-and-now to effect positive change in our armed forces. In that vein, we should never “give up the ship.”

Of course, I could not pass up the opportunity to pass along a most famous quote, which is the quintessential encapsulation of the American spirit, I believe: Teddy Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena.”

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

-Teddy Roosevelt

DGUTS!