I had a Blog once

How did I get here?

January 12, 2008 | Categories:

I hope you enjoy my 3 part mini series on how I arrived where I am today.  So without further adoo here is part 1 The Early Years We were talking the other day here at work about what sick twist of fate roped us into the WWW (Wild Wonderful World) of car sales and it got me to reflecting on the day I went home and told my wife, "I am going to sell cars" to which she replied quite sheepishly "Oh ok honey" I am 42 years old and had 5 jobs in my life.   Worked at a golf course from the age of 12 to 18, (1977-1983) had a great time playing golf, out side all the time, and as I got into my more mischievous teen age years drank allot of beer and chased the girls.  I even occasionally caught one. In the middle of my Senior year in High School (1983) I came home one night and proclaimed while sitting at the dinner table, "Hey Mom and Dad, I joined the Army today, I just need you to sign this piece of paper".  My mom cried and said no, there is now way my baby (I am the youngest of 4 kids) is going to go fight in a war.  My Dad said, "Give me the paper and a pen" and Viola I was a soon to be US Army Paratrooper. I stayed in the Army from 1983-1992.  As time went on and a certain POTUS slashed the budget to crap for the Military I found it time to move on, little did I know if I would have stayed in for a little while longer I could have deployed with the finest fighting force ever assembled. I trained as a Paratrooper/ Infantrymen for 8 1/2 years and advanced through the ranks to the grade of E-6 but never got the opportunity to apply my training in a real world situation.  I never fired a bullet in anger.  Now to some of you it may seem morbid for me to think like that, but when you train as hard as I did for that time and never get a chance to see if you were the leader you thought you were is a bit disheartening.  

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