By Michael D.
Former Clandestine Officer, CIA, DIA, NSA
My friends and I were out on a short adventure.
We found an old utility trailer with flat tires and rusted rails, but to us, kids between 9 and 11 years old, it was a treasure!
We moved that little trailer under a tree.
And we planned for one of us to jump off a limb, onto the tongue of the trailer, so the three riders would be lofted into the air, do a mid-air roll, and land safely on their feet.
We had seen it work dozens of times by almost every one of our cartoon mentors.
I volunteered to climb the tree and provide a ride to my buddies.
So, I chose a limb that allowed me to drop about ten feet to the tongue of the trailer – I wanted to make sure they got high enough in the air to safely do their flips.
As I fell, I felt this exhilaration and a true sense of pride knowing what I was doing for my friends.
As my left foot impacted the trailer, my ankle broke, and I crumbled to the ground in excruciating pain.
My friends were still on the back of the trailer awaiting their promised reward.
My buddies helped me home (it was about a three-mile walk).
My mom was not surprised. This is the kind of thing we did all of the time.
Bike wrecks, shocked by electric fences, falling from trees, stung by everything with wings or legs, burned by campfires, bloody noses from fights, and the list goes on.
After one fight I had with Mike B., I had to carry him home to his mom because when I punched him in the face his nose was bleeding badly, his eyes swelled closed, and he could not see to walk.
For reference, his mom once chased me home while swinging a broom at me for something I did.
When I got to my house and got in the door, my mom started spanking me before she even heard my side of the story.
That’s just the way it was. Every mother in the neighborhood had the right, and responsibility, of supervising and punishing any child at any time for anything.
It was those kinds of raw experiences that helped me be better prepared for a career as an international espionage operative.
Fear has always had less influence on me than has my spirit of adventure and unreasonable sense of self-confidence.
My choices and decisions continued to advance my path along a very esoteric niche and rarely traveled route.
I would not have overcome the challenges of my later years had I not already borne the challenges, failures, injuries, and disappointments of my formative years.
Sadly, I see nine-year-old boys wearing face masks to school and sports teams short of players because people don’t want their kids hurt.
It worries me, deeply.
How are we going to prepare these boys to become men and to be ready for the challenges they will definitely face in the coming years?
How are we going to prepare girls to become women who can function in this chaotic world?
Strong, responsible, capable children are made, not born.
Each of us owes it to ourselves, our children, and our civilization to be better prepared for a darker, more dangerous world.
