Now that I am faced with the end of my military career, I would like to share a few things that I've learned...

1. Sleep is in fact optional. Many a days have gone by with little to no sleep and I have managed fine with the right attitude. Attitude over aptitude!

2. The same goes for Food. The human body is far more physically resilient than we realize or experience in our sheltered modern life

3. Pain does not have to be shown. However this does reap the consequence of disbelief once serious injury results from such cover up.

4. A plan does no have to make sense to be effective; all it requires is belief and/or obedience, preferably both. Efficiency is another story all together.

5. Artificial enthusiasm goes a long way in some cases, both professionally and personally.

6. Though not the optimal circumstance; the greatest lessons we learn are most often by witnessing the wrong way.

7. Most often, the right example goes unnoticed and unrewarded and is poorly substituted for what is easy. Doing right needs to be internally motivated and not based on reward.

8. Discomfort is acceptable, and sometimes even necessary for growth.

9. There's the right way, the logical way, and then there's the military way (which frequently makes most people go, "huh?").

...last and certainly not least...

10. No matter how thick an institution's doctrine, people need a reason outside themselves, and outside the institution for that matter, which causes them not to be the butt-heads they are naturally.