<p>Eagle, I love the fact that you are living here and now with the right amount of attention being placed on your future.</p>
<p>I think for cadets and parents of cadets it is important to absorb what eagle has stated through these pages.</p>
<p>Every military member at one time or another, and sometimes multiple times, will have to sit down and address which way they should go at the fork in the road. This is not about UPT at Columbus or Laughlin or 15 or 16. This is about a decision that directly will change their future and what is needed to obtain the entire dream.</p>
<p>I would say to cadets that when you take your summer tours, use the time wisely to search out someone there that has lived through what you want to attain. That might be Flight Surgeon. WIC, TPS, PME in residence. They love to talk about themselves, give opinions and war stories of how they got to where they are at currently. Friday night at the squadron hooch playing 4,5,6 is the time you will get unfiltered opinions. Use that wisely. </p>
<p>Actually LUKE is nothing like undergrad, it is more like BCT. You will show up thinking you are the best of the best and they can do no harm to you. Within hours your arse is sitting in a room questioning your abilities. All of the sudden you are crap, and that ring knocker means squat! Think about it, did anyone at the academy care that a cadet was the Valedictorian or Captain of the state football championship team? NO! Did they laugh at the C4C who said they were the JROTC cadet commander when that cadet thought they knew it all? Don’t the majority of you say don’t brag about CAP? The same should be stated to you if you brag about soaring. Hold onto how you processed mentally getting through BCT and C4C because that will help.</p>
<p>Before you open your mouth, make sure you speak wisely. Think about that C4C defending his position at BCT and you all laughing at him at the end of the night. You don’t want to be them!</p>
<p>The one commonality I have seen with true leaders is they have the perfect blend. They are like many on this site. They listen to others, but make the final decision. They are not quick to judge. They have an attitude, but yet they have humanity. They have a goal, but accept that the competition is stiff. They look towards the future from a big pic so they are one step ahead, regardless if others think they are wrong. In other words they are risk takers, but have made a conscious decision on the rate of return they want.</p>