The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - My Adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's "If" for U.S. Military Veterans | PPP #58
Episode Date: November 11, 2020Another of my versions of Rudyard Kipling's "If" with appreciation and focus on U.S. Military Veterans....
Transcript
Discussion (0)
This is my version of Rudyard Kipling's If for United States Veterans.
Thank you so much for all that served, my brothers and sisters that I served with in the Navy,
the Marines we took care of, and everybody else.
If you've shown no emotion when the DI is in front of you,
while others have wilted under the pressure next to you.
If you believed in your country when others doubted,
but understood that you served even for the doubters.
If you've been awakened to revelry at zero dark thirty, or slept in a tent or sleeping
bag in the field, or tossed and turned on the ocean through rough seas and yet reported
for duty even with tired eyes.
If you've rucked and shot and protected others.
If you've gone to the heights in helos, planes, or jets, if you've
been away from home for long periods of time and returned and reconnected with loved ones
in your life, if you followed lawful orders and give them to and became a leader and seen
life and death hanging over you, or been assigned the toughest tasks endangering your people
and accepted the risks, the outcomes, and let go of the past.
If you've passed the screening, school, and indoctrination,
and became the less than 1% who served,
and saw death and combat and accepted being unnerved,
and cleaned, stood duty, and ate chow with one and all,
if you did the push-ups, pull-ups, and negative dips
long after you thought your strength was gone
and were always ready to defend and serve,
then you are a veteran who signed the dotted line.
If you earned the title Leatherneck or Marine
or were part of the Army Infantry or cleaned a latrine
or enlisted in the Navy and sailed, swam, or flew across the seas, or flew into the wild blue yonder with the Air Force flight teams, or joined
the Coast Guard and protected our domestic shores, you stood the watch and held true
to your word.
Yours is honor, courage, and commitment.
And we thank you for your United States veteran that served.
Stay safe, everyone.
Wash those hands.
Godspeed.