I wanted to reach out today on Remembrance Day to wish all our veteran friends for their service and at some point in life writing the blank cheque to uphold the values of our respective countries. I know many of you have been deployed in front line combat zones and come back as different people. I have gotten sooooo many cool stories of peers training on the front line just to keep their sanity around exploding bombs and IED's in confined quarters, with no equipment, in the middle of nowhere, far from home and family.
I was one of the lucky ones who never had to serve in an active combat zone. I joined the Royal Canadian Air Force as a 17 year old boy just short of my 18th birthday, with no clue what I was getting into other than knowing I would get a free engineering degree and get trained working on really cool fighter jets to play around with engines and radar systems. I was tweaked by the toys and the technical challenge, not by the challenge of leadership and service. Eventually the Air Force made me an Airman for life, (yeah, I know you Army, Navy and Marines guys count this as being in the Marriott, but hey we have to have fun between us) and I grew into the higher calling of the service to the values of my country.
The army tried to recruit me to become a paratrooper because I was a reasonably competent athlete and I told them, "I am studying all this engineering to help design aircraft that that are perfectly serviceable and land with the rubber side DOWN...you will NEVER EVER get me to jump out of an airplane unless we screwed up our engineering work".
Through the military and this sport, I got to see a lot of this world too even though I was in a really technical field. My first "startup" was going to the general at Royal Military College of Canada and pitching to him in 1986 that we should have a Varsity Triathlon Team when there were no universities to race against. Nevertheless, I walked out of there with the approvals and a big budget. The general was my first Venture Capitalist.
Later in the early 90's in parallel to working on CF-18 software (our F-18), I got a spot on our first Armed Forces Triathlon Team. That really was an experience of a lifetime, mainly because I got exposed to soldiers who were former East Block Communist "enemies". In Canada, our womens' team was pretty strong, but the guys, we had no chance with the Euros racing with pro athletes on mandatory military service, but it was awesome. We lived for a week in a barracks in Italy with triathletes from all nations eating in the same mess all nations doing the same workouts at the same time (as you would imagine in the military).
I had a really great time in my 13 years in the RCAF. We made friends for life. People who will jump in front of us and take a bullet or schrapnel and still get up and check if we are OK and offer to haul us off the battlefield to safety under enemy fire if they are more functional than we are. I really can't find that anywhere else in my post service life in the corporate world. Honestly some of the friend I have made through triathlon are closer to the orginal military "life form" that I thought all humans are.
And to my Servicewomen and Servicemen ST peers, thanks to your families. It is one thing being a triathlon family. It's a completely different level being triathlon service family. Chapeau to them.
If you care to read about what I wrote to my high tech industry network its is here. https://www.linkedin.com/...6467133400238080000/ and I am guessing its not totally indifferent for many. We enter the service when we have no money and need an education, and end up seeing the opportunity to serve. Others enter for the higher calling of serving alone. You girls and guys are rock stars.
Capt. Devashish Paul
Royal Canadian Air Force 1983-1996
I was one of the lucky ones who never had to serve in an active combat zone. I joined the Royal Canadian Air Force as a 17 year old boy just short of my 18th birthday, with no clue what I was getting into other than knowing I would get a free engineering degree and get trained working on really cool fighter jets to play around with engines and radar systems. I was tweaked by the toys and the technical challenge, not by the challenge of leadership and service. Eventually the Air Force made me an Airman for life, (yeah, I know you Army, Navy and Marines guys count this as being in the Marriott, but hey we have to have fun between us) and I grew into the higher calling of the service to the values of my country.
The army tried to recruit me to become a paratrooper because I was a reasonably competent athlete and I told them, "I am studying all this engineering to help design aircraft that that are perfectly serviceable and land with the rubber side DOWN...you will NEVER EVER get me to jump out of an airplane unless we screwed up our engineering work".
Through the military and this sport, I got to see a lot of this world too even though I was in a really technical field. My first "startup" was going to the general at Royal Military College of Canada and pitching to him in 1986 that we should have a Varsity Triathlon Team when there were no universities to race against. Nevertheless, I walked out of there with the approvals and a big budget. The general was my first Venture Capitalist.
Later in the early 90's in parallel to working on CF-18 software (our F-18), I got a spot on our first Armed Forces Triathlon Team. That really was an experience of a lifetime, mainly because I got exposed to soldiers who were former East Block Communist "enemies". In Canada, our womens' team was pretty strong, but the guys, we had no chance with the Euros racing with pro athletes on mandatory military service, but it was awesome. We lived for a week in a barracks in Italy with triathletes from all nations eating in the same mess all nations doing the same workouts at the same time (as you would imagine in the military).
I had a really great time in my 13 years in the RCAF. We made friends for life. People who will jump in front of us and take a bullet or schrapnel and still get up and check if we are OK and offer to haul us off the battlefield to safety under enemy fire if they are more functional than we are. I really can't find that anywhere else in my post service life in the corporate world. Honestly some of the friend I have made through triathlon are closer to the orginal military "life form" that I thought all humans are.
And to my Servicewomen and Servicemen ST peers, thanks to your families. It is one thing being a triathlon family. It's a completely different level being triathlon service family. Chapeau to them.
If you care to read about what I wrote to my high tech industry network its is here. https://www.linkedin.com/...6467133400238080000/ and I am guessing its not totally indifferent for many. We enter the service when we have no money and need an education, and end up seeing the opportunity to serve. Others enter for the higher calling of serving alone. You girls and guys are rock stars.
Capt. Devashish Paul
Royal Canadian Air Force 1983-1996