If I would leave any thought with someone I would say never doubt yourself. No matter what people say, no matter what you may think sometimes, never doubt yourself. If you believe in yourself you will succeed far more than you will fail. He who possesses a quiet kind of faith in his ability to perform a task already has the task half completed.

Believe in yourself despite setbacks, despite the seemingly immovable obstacles, despite the cold and dark, despite the woe and pain, and eventually your faith will come to fruition, and you will find all those troubles behind you.

The simplest thing in the world is to deride ourselves because we made a mistake, to give up and say, "I'm no good", but the more difficult thing is to believe in ourselves and constructively continue our life. The greatest error in life is to downgrade ourselves. The most horrible tragedies in life have occurred from a lack of faith in one's own self, one's own ability, from a belief that one cannot succeed, but that failure is their sole lot in life.

There seems to be a self uncertainty that builds up in the mind every time one makes a mistake or fails to accomplish a task, and with every successive blunder the uncertainty grows stronger until one doubts one's ability to do anything right. Being human we are host to a number of frailties, each one of which disturbs and depresses us, and makes us doubt our worth. We are not a mechanically precise machine, we are a bundle of nerves which often tangle and get jangled, but are capable of amazing performance.

We have more strength than we believe, there is more fight within us than we know, and far more potential than we could ever call forth or even dream of being possible.

Author Unknown

As the Chalk Leader for my flight home from Afghanistan, I witnessed the following:

When we were on our way back from Afghanistan, we flew out of Baghram Air Field. We went through customs at BAF, full body scanners (no groping), had all of our bags searched, the whole nine yards.

Our first stop was Shannon, Ireland to refuel. After that, we had to stop at Indianapolis, Indiana to drop off about 100 folks from the Indiana National Guard. That's where the stupid started.

First, everyone was forced to get off the plane - even though the plane wasn't refueling again. All 330 people got off that plane, rather than let the 100 people from the ING get off. We were filed from the plane to a holding area. No vending machines, no means of escape. Only a male/female latrine.

It's probably important to mention that we were ALL carrying weapons. Everyone was carrying an M4 Carbine (rifle) and some, like me, were also carrying an M9 pistol. Oh, and our gunners had M-240B machine guns. Of course, the weapons weren't loaded. And we had been cleared of all ammo well before we even got to customs at Baghram, then AGAIN at customs.

The TSA personnel at the airport seriously considered making us unload all of the baggage from the SECURE cargo hold to have it reinspected. Keep in mind, this cargo had been unpacked, inspected piece by piece by U.S. Customs officials, resealed and had bomb-sniffing dogs give it a one-hour run through. After two hours of sitting in this holding area, the TSA decided not to reinspect our Cargo - just to inspect us again: Soldiers on the way home from war, who had already been inspected, reinspected and kept in a SECURE holding area for 2 hours. Ok, whatever. So we lined up to go through security AGAIN.

This is probably another good time to remind you all that all of us were carrying actual assault rifles, and some of us were also carrying pistols.

So we're in line, going through one at a time. One of our Soldiers had his Gerber multi-tool. TSA confiscated it. Kind of ridiculous, but it gets better. A few minutes later, a guy empties his pockets and has a pair of nail clippers. Nail clippers. TSA informs the Soldier that they're going to confiscate his nail clippers. The conversation went something like this:

TSA Guy: You can't take those on the plane.

Soldier: What? I've had them since we left country.

TSA Guy: You're not suppose to have them.

Soldier: Why?

TSA Guy: They can be used as a weapon.

Soldier: [touches butt stock of the rifle] But this actually is a weapon. And I'm allowed to take it on.

TSA Guy: Yeah but you can't use it to take over the plane. You don't have bullets.

Soldier: And I can take over the plane with nail clippers?

TSA Guy: [awkward silence]

Me: Dude, just give him your damn nail clippers so we can get the f**k out of here. I'll buy you a new set.

Soldier: [hands nail clippers to TSA guy, makes it through security]

This might be a good time to remind everyone that approximately 233 people re-boarded that plane with assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns - but nothing that could have been used as a weapon.