Service and Sacrifice

I had the privilege of attending the UNH commencement on Saturday afternoon for my College and listening to Lieutenant Colonel (ret) Scott “Kidd” Poteet give the commencement address. LTC Poteet is a remarkably accomplished individual. In addition to being a UNH graduate, he was a USAF fighter pilot who saw multiple combat tours, and most recently piloted the Polaris Dawn mission – a privately funded space flight.

Poteet gave a relatively simple message to the graduates: that a meaningful life was built on “service and sacrifice.” As you might imagine, I liked this message. Sacrifice, for Poteet, is about discipline – as you can see the line in the image above “sometimes it’s choosing the path of discipline over ease.” But it’s not about suffering for suffering’s sake. I jotted down this line from the speech – “Sacrifice is not about what you give up, it’s about what you make possible.” Sacrifice in service of something worthy - that is a good recipe for a worthy life.