Hooah – Admiral William H. McRaven

Here is a video which kept me spellbound from beginning to end.

Talk about an inspirational speech, this is one of the great ones.

I was not a SEAL, I served in the US Army Special Forces during my enlisted career.  In ‘pre-phase’, which is now the selection course, my particular class received an inspirational speech one morning at 0500 from our 1SG who was later killed in Somalia after a storied career in Delta – “you are the top 1/2 of 1%” – “you must persevere in the face of adversity” – those words stuck with me. When Admiral McRaven says “you never ring the bell”, I couldn’t even conceive of that – that possibility just did not occur to me.  I had an unfair advantage over my peers in the SFQC, I had spent seven years in the Boy Scouts. I was more at home in the woods, fields and mountains of the SFQC than most people are in their own living rooms, so I tried to help those with less training, less ability and less confidence. …and we cheated as a class. We were so tight that those of us a bit stronger than the others helped the rest along, I got partnered with possibly the weakest guy in the class, so I must have been pretty good. We snuck beer into Camp Mackall on weekends from Southern Pines. We snuck out to find the mythical alligator in the pond and found nothing.  Then there was the Sunday we decided to do PT on our own wearing nothing but patrol caps and boots, nothing else. That was also the day the Camp Commandant and his wife decided to swing by his office.  We figured, how can they kick out an entire class?  …and they didn’t.  She got an eyeful!

So please, view this video and take his advice for life.

Hooah!

University of Texas at Austin 2014 Commencement Address – Admiral William H. McRaven