Commentary: A message to Garcia
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan -- With over two decades in the Air Force, I have come to several conclusions...one of which is that not everyone has the same work ethic and loyalty to our Service. It is easy to understand why, given that we all come from different walks of life. I, in fact, evolved mine over the years. It was not until I had two assignments under my belt that I really comprehended what it meant to put "Service before Self" and had the initiative, motivation, and tenacity to take the projects my superiors gave me and see them through to fruition.
A successful career is built one project at a time, from job to job and assignment to assignment. Excellence in everything you...repeated time and again, is based upon the attitude with which you approach the Air Force and life. A positive, can-do attitude will take you to greater heights than you can imagine. Success is based upon a work ethic that drives you to seek out the problems, find the pros and cons to the different courses of action, and then overcome the hurdles efficiently to achieve correct results the first time. This is not as easy as it sounds and requires effort...sometimes a great deal of effort. But in the end, success is not just yours, but also the Air Force's. We need exceptional Airmen who have the work ethic and loyalty to keep our Air Force at the top of all the air forces around the world. Our Nation depends upon that!
A former boss once passed on a story to me that conveys the intent of my message here today. Read it with eye to yourself and ask yourself if you could deliver a message to Garcia. I challenge you all to put forth the effort, excellence, and tenacity to be the best! Thank you for what you do!
Excerpts from "A Message to Garcia" by Elbert Hubbard (1899)
"In all this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain & the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba- no one knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly."
"What to do!"
"Someone said to the President, 'There's a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.'"
"Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How 'the fellow by the name of Rowan' took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, & in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail."
"The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, 'Where is he at?' By the Eternal! There is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing- 'Carry a message to Garcia!'"
"General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias."
"No man, who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been well nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man- the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slip-shod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, & half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or God in His goodness performs a miracle, & sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant. You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office- six clerks are within call."
"Summon any one and make this request: 'Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio.' Will the clerk quietly say, 'Yes, sir,' and go do the task?"
"On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions: Who was he? Which encyclopedia? Where is the encyclopedia? Was I hired for that? Don't you mean Bismarck? What's the matter with Charlie doing it? Is he dead? Is there any hurry? Shan't I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself? What do you want to know for?"
"And I will lay you ten-to-one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him try to find Garcia- and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not."
"And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first-mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting 'the bounce' Saturday night, holds many a worker to his place."
"We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the 'downtrodden denizen of the sweat-shop' and the 'homeless wanderer searching for honest employment,' & with it all often go many hard words for the men in power."
"Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne'er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long patient striving with 'help' that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away 'help' that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done finer- but out and forever out, the incompetent and unworthy go."
"It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best- those who can carry a message to Garcia."
"I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to anyone else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him. He cannot give orders; and he will not receive them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, 'Take it yourself.'"
"Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot."
"Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy indifference, slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry & homeless."
"Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds- the man who, against great odds has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there's nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes."
"My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the 'boss' is away, as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly take the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets 'laid off,' nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town and village- in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such: he is needed, & needed badly- the man who can carry a message to Garcia."