Doc Discussions with Dr. Jason Edwards
THIS is the podcast you have been looking for! "Doc Discussions" are just what the title says they are: physicians from a wide range of specialties, talking about relevant, up-to-date medical topics, not to mention tips on habits to help you live your best life. Your host, Jason Edwards, MD, is a board-certified radiation oncologist with a PhD in cellular and integrative physiology at St. Luke's Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Edwards explores not only diseases but also suggests techniques to optimize mental and physical health for a long and good life. Real people. Real advice. Real good. This is Doc Discussions, with Dr. Jason Edwards!
Doc Discussions with Dr. Jason Edwards
From Army Camaraderie to Educational Leadership
After growing up in a working-class neighborhood in South St. Louis, Dave McMillan's journey led him to the United States Army during the Vietnam War. Today, he joins us to discuss how this pivotal chapter in his life not only expanded his worldview but also set the stage for his future career in education. Listen as Dave shares how the diverse bonds formed at Fort Leonard Wood and his deployment experiences in Northern Italy played a crucial role in shaping his approach to life and work.
Discipline and resilience are more than just military buzzwords; they're crucial life skills that Dave argues have universal applications. We unpack stories of rigorous training, personal transformations, and the intense camaraderie that comes with military service. Amid the trials and tribulations, Dave reflects on how understanding one's role within a team—whether in the Army or elsewhere—can foster both personal growth and collective success.
The journey doesn't stop with military service. Dave's rich tapestry of experiences reminds us of the ongoing influence that mentors and educators have, even when it's not immediately visible. As we explore themes of gratitude and growth, Dave's tales underscore the power of viewing life's challenges as opportunities for personal development. This episode celebrates a life of resilience and optimism, offering valuable insights for anyone looking to navigate their own journey with a sense of purpose and gratitude.
Welcome to Doc Discussions. This is Jason Edwards, and I'm here today with a local celebrity of sorts, Mr Dave McMillan. Dave, you're a principal here in town at one of the Parkway schools, is that?
Speaker 2:right At Parkway West High School. Yes, from 87 through 95.
Speaker 1:87 through 95, so you may recognize the voice. And then you were the West Area Superintendent of Parkway schools as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So I had all the elementary schools, the middle school, obviously, the high school and human resources, a few other things that were in my portfolio. So, yeah, it was an interesting job.
Speaker 1:I would assume when you're in that role you're kind of the hub of the wheel of the community where you kind of know a lot of people and that can be good and bad.
Speaker 2:But probably more good than bad. It's probably good to get to know as many of them as you can. You know, and especially students, yeah, and you want to know the name of every senior.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very cool, but you know Veterans Day is coming up and you and I had had a discussion offline about your time in the service, and so we know where you ended up. But tell me how it started out for you and your experience, where you grew up and how you got into the service.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I grew up in a working class neighborhood in South St Louis, went to Roosevelt High School and my parents had saved. They wanted me to get a good education. So I went to Washington University and completed my bachelor's degree there. But the war was raging at that time the Vietnam War and so the handwriting was on the wall that I better be thinking about how I was going to handle this if indeed I was called up. So I tried different, looked at different options, if you will. You know, national Guard, other kind of things like that but nothing came up. So I knew that I was going to get drafted other kind of things like that but nothing came up. So I knew that I was going to get drafted, and so I tried to make a decision about what might be the best military to go in.
Speaker 2:I picked the United States Army because I had my. You know, I could make a couple of choices right there. I could go into infantry or I could go to artillery. So artillery was the less lethal of the two, and so I took that one and ended up doing that and spent four years in the army and it turned out to be, you know, a grand experiment in my life and I learned so much and grew so much from that.
Speaker 2:First of all, you know, I didn't know precisely what I wanted to do when I graduated, and a lot of people just you know, they either take a job or they go on to grad school or whatever like that. So it was a time for me to kind of figure things out too. So that four-year interlude in there was very helpful, and so I did it the hard way, though. I went through basic training for two months, then went through advanced individual training for two months, went to officer candidate school for almost seven months, went to ballistic missile officer school, got my commission and ended up with a nuclear missile battalion over in Vicenza, italy. And that was really kind of my first time away from home, really away from my parents.
Speaker 1:Is that?
Speaker 2:Northern Italy. It is Northern Italy, it is close to Venice in that area, and so that was very interesting. And I'll go back to basic, though. The other good thing about that basic in AIT was that you know you walk in there and you're running into people from all walks of life rural, urban, rich, middle class, poor folks, black and white, all kinds of you know, ethnicities, whatever and so that's your first wake up call that it's a big world out there.
Speaker 1:Where did you do your basic training at?
Speaker 2:I did it at Fort Leonard Wood. Fort Leonard Wood yeah.
Speaker 1:The boot camp, you have this identity shift that occurs when you're going through where you're not exactly the same person coming out that you were going in. Can you talk to me a little bit about that and the experience you had in bootcamp?
Speaker 2:And I think it was interesting because I talked about all these different people that are going at the same time and I saw some amazing transformations take place just in a few short weeks, you know two months there, because we had kids that came in motivated, unmotivated, you know, in shape, out of shape, disciplined, undisciplined, you know, overweight, blah, blah, blah, all this kind of thing. And so, talking about the health part of it, just the physical part, I saw this was the nutrition program. They had the drill sergeants and for those young men that were overweight by a good deal like that, they followed them through the chow line and they just talked to the, you know, the cooks back there and they said do not put any potatoes on this guy's plate.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Do not put any rice on this plate, don't put any bread on that and certainly don't give them, you know, a piece of pie at the end, like that. And that went on, you know. And then there was so much physical activity going on between walking and marching, and running, and all of this People got in good shape.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you saw a physical transformation of certain people when they came in.
Speaker 1:And that transcends to the mind. Now, this is the OG Ozempic right. This is, you know, what they had back in the day OG Ozempic right. This is you know what they had back in the day. But you can't. When you go through a physical change like that, it has to change your mind too. I think it does?
Speaker 2:I think it does, and the same with discipline and undiscipline. I didn't have any problem getting up in the morning, but a lot of the young people that were coming in and went through there, they couldn't get up in the morning. You know, when Reveille called or whatever, they learned to get up because they were dragged out of the bunk. If they had to be, whatever happened. And then it was all the discipline. You know. They began to learn about how to dress right, how to have your boots polished and your belt buckle polished, how to dress so that your gig line was straight. And all of a sudden, you know, people get a little bit into that.
Speaker 2:They're looking good, they're feeling better about themselves, they're more disciplined. So you saw that going on, and the instruction in the Army was good too. You know, I ended up being an educator, but I was kind of amazed at these young people that came in. Some of them weren't particularly good students, but they had kind of a program learning approach and artillery there's a lot of calculations that have to be made. Sure, even at slide rules back then they were able to teach them step by step by step and they got better and better and they learned how to do their job, and so I think there was some pride in that too. I mean, the ones that I've talked to, they felt better about themselves.
Speaker 1:For sure, yeah, and you know.
Speaker 2:A part of you dies and a new part of you is reborn, that's exactly right, that's exact, and the other part of it is that the drill sergeants were very good about molding a lot of disparate individuals into effective units and the effective units, the platoons that you had, began to work more cooperatively, and there was a certain amount of pride in that that. You took pride in your unit, yeah, and all of a sudden you were beginning to become a part of something a little bit bigger than you, and so all of that, that's good stuff, emotionally, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think and you see this on sports teams too you realize that your teammates, whether it's your platoon or your basketball team, they're counting on you and you're counting on them. Right, and without everybody kind of pulling their way, nothing gets done.
Speaker 2:And people were. They were better at different things. For example, the best marksmen were the people from the farms Sure, the rural people. They were good shots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a lousy marksman, so I'm glad, but at any rate, yeah, and I and you know, to take it one step further when I went to OCS that's Officer Candidate School, yeah, the Officer Candidate School in Fort Sill, oklahoma, and that's a program that they kind of distill a four-year program at West Point into about seven months and it's pretty grueling and you know the first eight weeks of it are really grueling and a lot of harassment. Yeah, you know you're supposed to have your foot lockers completely organized and you're a lot of things that you're supposed to do and they're going to always find fault with what you're doing and so they're dragging you out at night and you know, screaming at you and hollering at you and they can really kind of beat you down by doing that. And then you think you did something right and they say it's not right. Drop and give me 20 push-ups. Drop and give me 20 push-ups. Anytime.
Speaker 2:We were outside we had to run and it was a trot, you know, a jog in formation and everything, but the only time we could walk was four hours in the morning on Sunday. The rest of the time, if we were outside, we had to be on a run. I had cardiovascular endurance like I'd never had before. I mean I must have run, you know, 12, 15 miles a day doing that.
Speaker 1:So what was the point of when you did something pretty good of breaking you down? I mean, I know it wasn't by accident, it was. Everything they do is by design.
Speaker 2:What do you think the point of that was? Well and I don't know if I agreed with it completely, but there's certain things I do believe in. I think the idea was to say if you think this is hard, wait till you get to Vietnam and you know shells start coming in and everything starts happening like that. You know you've got to remain composed, you can't get scattered all of that and so, and if you wanted to get a commission, you learn to kind of be able to handle that resilience, I guess, is what they call it today, a certain resilience that you had that I can deal with this and all these people that are screaming at me, and sometimes you just wanted to slap them. Yeah, you know, and they, you know.
Speaker 2:Can't do that. No, I can't do that. Well, I guess you could, but it's not good for your future, the military but I think there was a certain resilience there. Now, the thing that I it was like fraternity hazing, it's the same kind of thing. Okay, that wasn't my. When you became an upperclassman you were able to kind of instill that discipline and do that with the underclassmen. I never did really partake in that. It wasn't my thing to do, so I treated them more respectfully, whatever. That's just me. But I learned to deal with it, yeah, that's for sure. I mean, I remember breaking out in kind of hives and you know, nerves and stuff like that were getting to me. The first it was bothersome.
Speaker 1:But when you went over to Vietnam and you found yourself in tense situations, did you feel like, hey, I've been here before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's different, obviously yeah it's different and you know when the moment comes, unless it's just horrific and I wasn't, I must say I wasn't in that. The infantrymen that are going out on night, platoons and everything and getting ambushed, that's one thing. Yeah, I was in artillery units, but nevertheless we've got big guns and they're going off at all times of the night, harassing and interdicting fires, or we're actually firing at something. Yeah, and it gets your attention. And what gets your attention more is when you're not hearing those but you hear small arms fire, because that means they must be close enough to see you. But for some reason it seems like you could get a hold of yourself and remain composed enough to be able to do what you had to do. So I think it might have helped, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean you know you think, why are the details of my footlocker? Why does this matter? But the details of you know getting your coordinates um the angle of your uh artillery. You know you have to be right on with that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:And, and you know, there's habits that we develop as humans, but there are also standards that you have and I, you know, I look back on my life and I'm thankful for the people who took the time to. I look back and I realized that I mattered to them and that they were willing to put myself out, put themselves out and give me a hard time about something, when the easier thing for them to do would be to keep walking. But they took the time to give me a hard time and bust my chops over something. But it was out of love. I mean they wanted me to be better. At least they saw that I had the potential to be better and I look back on that with gratitude. And so you know, if you're in high school and your coach is yelling at you, I mean maybe they care about you. It doesn't feel like it at the time.
Speaker 2:Well, I was thinking like for you to be a doctor, you know you'd have to be highly disciplined. You only have a certain amount of hours in the day and they're all the studies you've got to do. Do you feel like that you? Did you develop that kind of discipline in the course of your study, or did you had it?
Speaker 1:You know that's a good question for me. I ran a lot in high school and so I was a state champion in track and cross country and my dad really would not let me let laziness win.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, and so he would. He would say and I've probably said this before on the podcast, but he would say put your shoes on, put your gear on, walk outside. If you don't feel like running, come back in. But the hardest part is getting started. And so I was very religious, you know, in my training never missed a day day.
Speaker 1:Um, if, even if I was sick, I would still try to run some. Even if I had pneumonia, I would still try to run, which is not a great idea, but I wanted to keep my positive habits down. And so, for me, when I would study in medical school, um, I would actually keep a stopwatch on my table and if I got up to urinate, I would stop the stopwatch and I would start it again. And I would hear people say, oh, I studied 12 hours a day. And I'd say there's no way, because I could develop enough endurance to study for about three hours, and then your brain's just fried. I mean three real hours, you know, not talking to people, oh, yeah, you know. And then take a couple hours off, do three more, and and then later on in the day I could do two more, but that was about it, you know.
Speaker 2:I had an interesting one. I lived in a four-family flat over on Grand and Magnolia by Tower Grove Park. Yeah, it was one of the shotgun homes. Yeah, sure, and I was really busy during high school. I took good courses and studied hard and then I always played football, basketball or baseball after school.
Speaker 2:So by the time I got home it was like 5.30, 6 o'clock at night and I'd have dinner and then after that I knew that my job was to stay in the kitchen that's where my desk was, the kitchen table right there, and my parents went three rooms up to the living room and that's where the television was, and I learned this early on. So after about 45 minutes of studying I'd walk out and go walk in there and see them, which was fine, and I'd do that again. And about the third time I did that they said you know, you need to go back there and study like that, and they didn't yell at me. But the next time I came out they just turned the TV off and we all sat there just looking at one another, which was really uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:So you just learn to stay back in the kitchen and study for about three hours. So you developed some discipline with that early on. I think not after, but after you had been through boot camp and you were in Vietnam. Could you talk to me about the brotherhood that you developed with your fellow soldiers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to talk about let's see probably two of them in particular. I really didn't hang out with a lot of people in St Louis, not because we were from all over the United States or whatever.
Speaker 2:But there were two people that I met that had been important mates of mine for the last 60 years, and one of them was Henry Von Cohorn. I told you I lived in a four-family flat. This guy lived in Scarsdale, new York. They had a nanny and a butler and all this. He went to Hotchkiss Prep School and to Princeton and then you know Columbia and all this.
Speaker 2:But we became fast friends over in Italy, and mainly because we had similar value systems and we both loved sports and we loved skiing and we were in a foreign country and we just hung out together. And we loved skiing and we were in a foreign country and we just hung out together. And it's been, I guess, almost 55 years or so that we've been good friends. And I've said before, there's no way in the world that a person from his station in life and a person from my station become fast friends unless it's the Army that brings people together from all walks of life and you become part of a bigger mission.
Speaker 2:We were part of the Southern European Task Force, ctaf, which would prevent the Russians from coming through the soft underbelly of Europe. Churchill said to attack on the southern flank, and so it was a pretty important mission and so. But we became fast friends and the other guy I met on a leave he was an Australian MP and I met him on a plane going to Taiwan, and so we spent a week together in Taiwan. When I got ready to leave I went down to Saigon. Flying out of Saigon he took me to the Intercontinental Hotel. We had a big French dinner. I remember the meal. As a matter of fact, we had lobster thermidor.
Speaker 1:This is in Saigon this is in. Saigon and the history of it is French Indochina. Was Vietnam before Vietnam?
Speaker 2:tried to break away.
Speaker 1:And so there's a French element there.
Speaker 2:And I had a grand marnier souffle.
Speaker 2:I could just remember this meal and I had a grand Marnier souffle, for I could just remember this meal. And so we came back and but at that time there was no internet or whatever. So we would send letters to one another and you know, and maybe call at Christmas time or some other kind of important day or whatever. And then, with the advent of internet and everything, get all that going on. Now FaceTime got that, yeah, but I've since seen him twice. He came over to visit me one time in 74. He was also a great runner and they had the International Police Officers Association Games and Olympic Games, Very cool and so he did that and he was here for a few days and then I didn't see him again for about 30 years. And then we met up to go on a trip to Italy and he married a girl in Tieny, Italy, which was about 10 miles from where I was stationed in Vicenza.
Speaker 1:So what are the odds of that happening?
Speaker 2:So we had that connection and had this great trip and we did Rome, down the Amalfi Coast and Sicily and back up. So we did that. And then there was another 10 years and then we met up with them, my wife and I and his wife and uh and mark mark thompson, and we went to, we went back to visit vietnam, in cambodia, and, uh, that was a great trip too and they were just we're just mates yeah, he'd do anything for me and vice versa.
Speaker 2:And uh, so, and once again I get the Aussie point of view about the world and the United States role in the world. You know, and Henry and I used to have close relations with a lot of the Italians. The problem with that was that nobody, they didn't speak any English, so I relied on my primitive Italian. But I learned how to speak Italian enough to go on vacations with them and do things with them. But after a while your ear you get rusty and they talk very quickly. Okay, so it became letter writing.
Speaker 2:But I did see them on that trip back to Italy with Mark after this must've been 35 years or whatever and the tour guide found out their addresses and phone numbers and we met up, found out their addresses and phone numbers and we met up with my two friends and we spent two days. It was like time stood still. That's beautiful. They took me in when I was in Italy, cause I lived out in the economy and you know when, in when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and I was just with them all the time. So a wonderful experience.
Speaker 1:Now, what were the? You know the, when the United States military takes in soldiers, they do it for the immediate purpose of having, you know, a civil defense Right. But there's a secondary gain from society because, for one, it can pull people out of poverty, absolutely, it can teach some technical skills that they can take over to the civil sector. It gives you leadership experience, like you say, personal pride in yourself, so you carry yourself a little bit differently. And then the GI Bill, which put a lot of guys through college and still guys and girls through college.
Speaker 2:Four years for me. It took care of all my graduate studies.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you use the GI Bill to do your graduate studies.
Speaker 2:To include using the VA medical and dental system. When I came back, you know, I'd been away from the States for three years, and so I really did. I relied on them for that and I deal, and I do, to this day. There are certain things that I get from the VA hearing aids, you know, and other kind of things. I have a physician in Jefferson Barracks in the VA and I see this person and they've taken good care of me too.
Speaker 1:So what do you think are the? You know, you went on to have, you know, a very nice career in education.
Speaker 2:Did I tell you that segue how that happened.
Speaker 1:No, go ahead, Go ahead. I don't know if I should now. Yeah, please do.
Speaker 2:Please do. That's the other thing about the Army. When I reported for duty as a young second lieutenant over in Vicenza, italy, captain Borneo brought me in. He said we got to fill out your portfolio and going through all the things You're going to have the motor pool You're going to have and he said you're going to teach this current events class on Wednesday morning. And I said I don't teach, I've never taught before. And he said well, you will on Wednesday morning. Yeah, that's kind of the thing. And so I prepared for that, that class, and I remember doing it and standing in front of those 120 people that were in the battery and actually it went pretty well and I felt good about it. Yeah, and I had a couple soldiers that you know they were lifers that came up to me afterwards and said you know what? That was pretty interesting, more so than most, and so I got a little full of myself, yeah, and I remember within the second or third class, I was going to teach something on race relations. Okay, yeah, it didn't go so well this.
Speaker 1:This would have been, you know, uh 73, 74, something like that.
Speaker 2:No, this would have been 19, uh, all of 1970, 69 and 70, 69, 70. But you know we had a lot, a lot of racial tension in the arts.
Speaker 2:But I thought this would be my chance to really kind of set them straight yeah and uh, what I found out is that I needed more training, obviously, and so, but there was a spark that went off in my mind about I kind of enjoy this and maybe this could lead to something, and if I got more training and everything it would teach. And there it is, and that was my ended up being my calling in life.
Speaker 1:So you came home, you took advantage of the GI Bill, which was a buy-in back then. Right, you had to pay. Did you have to pay some of your education or not?
Speaker 2:I don't think I paid hardly anything but I ended up going through the master's program at UMSL and got all of my graduate you know programs done and you know certified teacher, administrator, superintendent certification, the whole thing. And yeah, the army took care of that. So I and that that would have never happened, I don't think, without the army because, I would have never had that experience.
Speaker 1:So I was. I was reading a little bit about the GI Bill and in 1947, about half of college students were in through the GI Bill. You know which is amazing, the bills evolved over time. But the Vietnam era bill, which started in about 1966, if you were married you got about $125 a month and my dad told me that tuition at Missouri State at that time was $120 a semester, which rounds out to about $1,300 a semester in today's dollars. But that's not the current price. So you have inflation but that's a whole different story. But it was a pretty good deal. It was enough to get by and actually have a little bit extra to support yourself as you went through school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I say for a lot of young people, even those that graduate from college, but especially high school, they're not precisely sure what they want to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so it gives them it's an incubation period. You can go in there and all of a sudden things start happening. You can take different courses or whatever, and all of a sudden you know you, you come up with something that when you get out you can apply some of those skills, or you have an idea of what you might want to do.
Speaker 1:So you know the, the Mormons, you know a lot of them will go on a two year. What is it A pilgrimage?
Speaker 2:or mission.
Speaker 1:Right and so, and some of them will be in the united states and some of them will be abroad, um, but I I've often I think boys mature a little bit slower than girls I think so there's some pretty good data on that and that's been my. You know, for me I probably kind of matured at like 26 or something like that.
Speaker 2:I understand that. No, I understand that 100%.
Speaker 1:And you know, I often thought that's probably actually, even though it sets them back a couple of years, it's probably a real advantage to those guys, because they go out and get this perspective of the world. And then they come back and they feel like they're behind and feeling like you're behind is like a superpower, right. And so they come back and they feel like they're behind and a lot of them will graduate a four-year university in two or three years and they take it very seriously because they realize that they're kind of fortunate to be where they are compared to their mission and a lot of them do great in school Absolutely, and I think having that time to mature can be really good for you.
Speaker 2:I think so and you know I've talked uh with some people about this and uh in western europe, other places. They have a compulsory military service for 18 months or whatever.
Speaker 2:When I was in italy and israel yeah, israel is another example of that and I believe, I know they got an all-volunteer army and the professional soldiers and everything at the very top like that. I'm not as convinced of that as they are, because I think, I almost believe, that there ought to be some kind of required public service or military service for all young people when they get out of high school for like a year. Yeah, to figure things out, to go out into the world, to help people, to get to know that there's a bigger world than just you, and that whole idea of helping people out. It's a good feeling. You know that's your service body, that's, you've earned your right to become a US citizen when you do this kind of stuff, yeah, so yeah, I do think serving others, being selfless, leads to a happier life.
Speaker 1:By nature, you know they could say, well, I'll take kind of a sacrificial view of life and say I will, you know, sacrifice of myself to raise my children or help my community or, you know, or whatever. And if you can find that kind of purpose in your being, I do think it leads to a happier life.
Speaker 2:I think so, and we'll talk about the purpose in just a second. But I just think that whole idea, when I say public service, it could be the Peace Corps. The purpose in just a second. But I just think that whole idea when I say public service, it could be the Peace Corps, vista could be any one of a number of things, but the whole idea is that you're giving back to your country, or at least you're paying your dues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't have to carry a rifle.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right, exactly right. And the thing that and it started with the military I felt a great sense of mission, being in the military and having to take care of my soldiers and them taking care of me or whatever. And the whole thing with education, it was a purpose-driven life. I always had a sense of purpose and what was I doing? I was helping, you know, nurture and educate and develop the young people of America, and that's a great feeling to do that. And, as I was saying, I was just writing this letter of recommendation for a young woman who's she's not she's middle-aged now, but applying for the circuit court position.
Speaker 2:And I get these kind of things all the time. It makes you feel good, yeah, that you've helped somebody along the way in their journey. And so I never had any problems with just it being about money. Where I was working, I mean, I made a good living, whatever but there was a. You know teaching and learning are why we're here. That was the West Mission, right there. Teaching and learning are why we're here. You know Lifelong learning, being of service, you know Personal responsibility, all those kind of character traits that you kind of work on every day with students and teachable moments, yeah, that you kind of work on every day with students and teachable moments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, there's evolution. There's biological evolution, but I think there's also evolution of ideas, and it's through teaching people and working with younger people is the way we kind of help ideas propagate and evolve. Ideas, um, propagate and evolve and um and so, um, you know, I want to thank you for not only your service to the country, um, but also to our community, and I know that you've made a much bigger difference in the lives of the students in the community, along with a lot of other teachers out there, than you'll ever know. I know that personally I've had plenty of teachers that have made a huge difference in my life that, to be honest, like life moved on and I moved away and I've never gotten to fully thank, and even if I thank them, they wouldn't be able to feel the full weight of what it means to me. And so I know you'll never know the weight, but it does feel so good when your life path crosses somebody else's life path and you make a positive difference. So thanks, dave.
Speaker 2:And I've had. I've had many of them and I feel blessed for it and have led a rich life and with all these different experiences, with different people from all over the world, and I'm a lucky guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:All worked out for me, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you're an optimist too. I know you choose to to look at things through a positive light and and, and you know, being in the military and Vietnam is not an easy thing, but I think you've chosen to kind of frame it as this is something that helped me become a better person and I think that's a true gift that you can have to yourself to kind of view light through the best life possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, I got out of it physically and emotionally unscathed and ended up with a profession that was meaningful to me, and so I've got nothing but gratitude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for your service, sir.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, doc, I appreciate it.