Thursday, July 2, 2009

The Unforgiving Minute

In tenth grade I memorized Rudyard Kipling’s poem If; so, when I heard the title of Craig Mullaney’s book The Unforgiving Minute I immediately understood the reference and the feeling he was trying invoke. The Unforgiving Minute is a window into a world that I’ve only seen portrayed in movies. Mullaney covers his life from the time he entered West Point, through his years in Oxford, his deployment to Afghanistan and then his return to the US.

I am impressed by his willingness to serve and his desire to do it well. It is a gripping book and at the end I respect those serving in the military even more as I understand now more about their training and military service. Reading this book is well worth the time!

If
by Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

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