Marine Corps Fire and Rescue Survival Course

90% of the week, 95% of the week, they were in gear. Practicing skills, going through evolution, really putting in work. This is probably arguably one of the hardest classes you can do as a firefighter, for real. You guys wanted to be here. You guys weren't here because somebody told you to be. You guys wanted to be here. You guys wanted to learn. You guys wanted to get better. Thanks to your focus, effort, energy this week, you guys are going to leave here as better firefighters. No doubt about that. But better men, too. No doubt about that. We're representing everybody in this room who's better than they were when they walked in. There's only one way to earn this. There's 127 of them across the DOD. So if you see somebody else with a no slack patch, you know they did it the hard way. Everything you guys did is a no slack thing. What it doesn't represent is being better than anybody else. What it does mean is it's a commitment. People are going to see you wear this, they're going to find out you've been to a force like this, and they're going to look at you a little bit differently. So you've got to live up to that standard. The rest of your career, whether it's in the Marine Corps, whether it's on the civilian side, whether it's in business somewhere else, that exact same no slack mentality of focus, energy, intensity, apply that to whatever you do. For the good things in life, apply those things to your marriage or to fatherhood. Apply them to the bad things that are going to happen in life. You guys encountered all kinds of adversities. You stayed focused. You worked to have clarity. You worked on your decision making, your communication skills. Those things apply all throughout your life. Get the hell of a commitment to wear this thing, and then you'll live up to it. I promise you, when you're an old guy one day, sitting on a park bench somewhere, you're going to look back with pride, and know that you, even though everybody that walks past you sees some old guys sitting there on a park bench, you know that you did this thing well, and that's your goal, and that's your dream.