Robert Bickle:  

with a smile on everything I have helped bring to life. My current role is in optical engineering, business improvement, and strategy, meaning that I am trying to make things better, faster, and cheaper while figuring out how the company should do it. I also get to visit proposed acquisitions or target mergers and see the new technology we may want to add to our portfolio. On top of it all, I have a great team and work for a great company. If I sound happy in my work, it is because I am! Military The military...what can I say that won't sound cliche...not a whole lot. I grew up in the military and had a lot of great mentors. Now that I am retired, it is hard to believe that 25 years went by so fast. It is hard to believe that my former peers, be they fellow Officers, Commanding Officers, subordinates, or friends are mostly retired or nearing retirement. Most will never know how much I respected them and miss them. I still see them as fathers, brothers, sisters, mentors, friends, and comrades. Many have already left this life and many have faded into the backdrops of the world. Some are still in the fight, and those I think of the most. The day I was commissioned my commanding officer pinned on my bars. I will never forget what he said to me. That to him, he felt like he was "commissioning his own son." Being part of a close-knit community, part of a mission that was truly unique and "Special", and having been raised by this band of brothers (no sisters in Combat Units at this time), I regret that I did not tell them all how much they shaped me. Even in my current job, I owe everything to the military, the training, the mentorship, and leadership development. I sometimes say I am a self-made person. This is not really true. I am a military-made person. Yes, I had a hand in it, but those who expected nothing but the best from me, would not tolerate failure, trusted me, and drove me to always be better than I was yesterday are the real sculptors. Now that each year my comrades head for that final deployment, I realize more than ever that these were great people. I hope each day that I can live up to the examples they set for me and that when I finally end my tour of duty on this earth, those left behind will say "He was a good person." I know that the military is not for everyone and I know that some of my friends from my youth never really understood why I joined and I do not think I could explain it to them. It was what I needed, and I am better for it. The risks I took were worth the outcome and I could not imagine myself without the experiences. Even my marriage (met my wife in the military) and family are all intertwined into this one life experience. I have body aches, regrets, and sorrows. They are all small in comparison to the family that I had/have. I still look back on those days of working with the SEALs off San Clemente Island, helicopter flights at dawn in a Huey, days of shooting at the range, the sound of a Blackhawk on final, the sky over the desert, the taste of sand in your mouth, the green glow on the world under NVGs, the sound and feel of a GAU as it spins up to the rate of fire, crouching in a slit trench waiting for the all-clear, sounds of incoming fire, the sound of outgoing fire, the flashes of an air raid on the horizon, the armed boarding of a ship underway, bounding across open terrain in a Humvee, cleaning a M4, M16, or M60 as you retell the stories of the day with friends, a cigar after a good day, the quiet sorrow of a bad day, empty cots that were filled the night before, waiting for that letter from home, tacking my combat insignia to the box of someone who has left, living in a MOP suit, mornings in the pool or ocean training, tracers going downrange in the darkness, helicopter rescues, the weirdness of the DMZ, the beaches of the Red Sea, the smell of kimchee and ROK SEALs, NOE flights on a C-130's back ramp so low it felt like you could drag your feet across the sand, C-5 flights into combat areas, C-5 flights home, the tears of a disabled Vietnam Vet welcoming you home, San Diego, Survival Schools, learning to be an Officer, night patrols through the brush, my friends at ONI, the Cold War, Korea, Desert Storm, the War on Terror, and my service to my nation and fellow citizens. I have walked every continent on this planet less one and I have seen and done what many just dream of doing. When people say "thank you for your service" I always want to thank them for letting me serve. I am a lucky person; So what can I say here to make someone understand me and the military's impact on who I am? Unless you have been in the military, probably not much. To those of you that have, I don't need to say anything, you already know.