[September 12, 2024] A small group of ragtag civilians were riding in an Army passenger bus painted a dull OD green, all strangers to one another. When the bus comes to a stop, a huge Drill Sergeant jumps onboard – in perfectly starched fatigues and Smokey the Bear hat – and starts barking commands and cussing like a runaway jackhammer. “Get the hell off my bus maggots, and line up in three ranks, and don’t think you can take your time at it, ladies.”
I was one of the scared maggots and had no idea why he was screaming. Couldn’t he simply have asked us politely? I was totally ignorant about what was about to happen, and I had plenty of clueless company with me. For failure to obey – to get off the bus fast enough – I was told to do 20 pushups. Then, “Get back down and give me 20 more pushups.” After running around our barracks carrying our footlockers on our shoulders, we were all exhausted and now numb to just about anything they could throw at us. We were wrong because there was more to come, much more.
When I signed up, the Army’s official slogan was “This is the Army.” After a few weeks of grass drills, obstacle courses, precision drill and ceremony training, and some of the best symphonic screaming and yelling I’d ever heard, even to this day. I was now in the Army and physically and mentally tired but better. That’s right, after a few weeks in boot camp, I was a better man, as I learned basic soldiering. I learned just a little about the Army and I was starting to look forward to another grueling day with my new friends. Nope. Really, I hated it. But I was better.
I was not enjoying myself. Those blisters on my hands and feet, painful shin splints, doing pushups until my DS got tired, and the KP duty of peeling potatoes without ever sitting down was an attention-getter. Yet there is something weirdly poetic about being able to hold yourself together while a Drill Sergeant screams at you from two inches away as his spittle splatters in your eyes. Someone in the back row must have thought it funny and laughed. He sent that recruit running around our formation reciting, “It’s not funny. It’s not funny. It’s not funny.” We sure had to hand it to our Drill Sergeants, as they had a kind of brutal humor.
One of the first things they did to us at Fort Polk, Louisiana, was cut our hair. The barber asked, “Do you want your hair short or long?” The barber must have thought that would make us laugh. But it didn’t matter; we all got the same buzz cuts anyway. And then we were issued our uniforms, boots, hat, and even Army underwear. The brown boxer shorts were the new style. Boxers make a difference when the crap gets scared out of you, like when the guy next to you drops a live hand grenade in the throwing pit.
After ten weeks of the hardest and most stressful time of my brief life, I graduated from boot camp. All during the training, I was driven by the concern about being recycled and forced to repeat the entire training course all over again. After Basic, I was sent for Advanced Individual Training at another post and then onward to West Germany for my first active-duty post. Whether my duty sent me to Europe, Central and South America, the Middle East, or Southeast Asia, I would serve, by the end of my service, more than twenty foreign nations.
After my required enlistment of six years, I returned to college with the G.I. Bill to finish my undergraduate work. After a mix-up at school, erroneously forcing me to pay out-of-state tuition, I joined the Texas Army National Guard. Re-enlisting in the Guard got me in-state tuition and helped out with the extra costs. Later, I decided to sign up for Army ROTC. After completing a Master’s degree, I was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Infantry. That was a good day.
All during my career, I would tell my friends that I had a love-hate relationship with the Army. I didn’t like anyone telling me what to do or ordering me around. My Mom first noticed this disagreeable personality trait as a child. “Douglas, why are you so hard-headed?” So many times I had to walk a narrow path of obedience/disobedience and be a good boy.
In the age of the all-volunteer military, I never regretted my personal decision to return to the U.S. Army as an officer. I would serve honorably and with some of the greatest people that America had to offer. I progressed through the ranks to eventually reach flag rank, and I would retire as a Brigadier General after 39 years, nine months, and 23 days, 14,543 days in total – a lifetime.
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NOTE: See all my letters here: https://www.theleadermaker.com/granddaughter-letters/
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Please read my books:
Gen. Satterfield, oh, thank you so much for this letter and for all those you have so kindly written for both your granddaughter, and, of course, for us as well. I have asked my husband if he will help me write letters to our yet unborn children, so that they may understand us better after we are long gone from this world. Such is the way of families today to not do those things necessary to help those that follow. But we will do our part and also write letters and put them into a secure and easy to find location in our home. One day, our future children will surely appreciate them becuase they are about our love of each other. 💕
Thank you, New Girl for writing what I was thinking. We need to let our future families know more about us and that we were honest, dedicated, hard working, truthful, and held on tight to our responsibilities. That is what makes us good in the eyes of everyone.
YES! Loving and beautiful — and entertaining.
Now we get to see how Gen. Satterfield moved from being an Enlisted man to an Officer and what motivated him. Great info. Thanks.
“In the age of the all-volunteer military, I never regretted my personal decision to return to the U.S. Army as an officer. I would serve honorably and with some of the greatest people that America had to offer. I progressed through the ranks to eventually reach flag rank, and I would retire as a Brigadier General after 39 years, nine months, and 23 days, 14,543 days in total – a lifetime.” – Gen. Doug Satterfield
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This is what reading this leadership website by Gen. Satterfield is all about. Learning what makes our life meaningful, not what makes us ‘happy.’ Gen. S. has addressed this many times and these letters are a confirmation of that bit of wisdom. I pray for Gen. S and his family that he may continue to live a good life and also write on his website to entertain us.
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Pastor John, thank you sir. I agree and will say these letters help me start the day with a smile.
I too pray for Gen. Satterfield and all our Veterans. Yesterday, Gen. Satterfield had a wonderfully written letter about the tragedy of 9/11 and those innocents we lost that day due to a growing worldwide evil known as radical Islam. It is a cancer on the world and yet we are ignoring it. But yesterday, we celebrated the lives of those lost by terror. Thanks to Gen. Satterfield and his family and I wish them only the best. Lovely letter!!!!!!!!
Well said, Jasmine. Cheers.
What I picked up on in this letter was Gen. Satterfield’s “love-hate” relationship with the army. Hard to imagine that. But after what he told us his mother said, “Don’t be so hardheaded, Douglas,” that should come as not surprise. And the brown boxer shorts, that got me really laughing. There is humor everywhere, you just have to find it.
BEAUTIFUL LETTER
I can’t imagine that Gen. Satterfield as a boy was “hard-headed.” Imagine that. HA HA HA HA HA HA …… that is really not that surprising. Just look at what his mother said. Great letter today, sir, keep these letters coming our way.
Yep, more letters are good and not just for us but for others like at my workplace. I print out these letters and post them on our company bulletin board for everyone to read. Sometimes, my co-workers will write comments on the printed letters and some of them are funny, some serious, but all appreciative of the letters. I hope that this series continues. One day my boss caught me putting up one of Gen. Satterfield’s letters and he asked me where I got them. Of course, I told him. He said it was okay to post the letters because he too liked to read them. he said that these letters gave him an idea of writing letters for his young kids to read when they grew up. See, these letters to Gen. S’s granddaughter are spinning off others as they follow his lead.
Good idea, Kevin.
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More love letters to Gen. Satterfield’s granddaughter and making me think back to my days of youth.
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WOW, love letter #94 and counting up to 100, just a few weeks away. The only thing I don’t like is that is the limit of what Gen. Satterfield said he would write.
I meant #93. Okay, I can’t count right. Dyslexia. And now I wait for the final letters and am sad that they are nearly at an end.
Yep, saw that too. It doesn’ t matter the number, because the issue here is that we are counting down to 100 and soon the series will end. I know that Gen. Satterfield will still, in the future, put out more articles on his upbringing, as he has done before this series started. What I like most is that these letters are funny and gives us a chance to learn.
Gen. Satterfield, you made my day with this letter. I too joined the US Army when I was rather young and immature. So many of us do it that way and use the military as a way to become better, making us grow up faster than perhaps we wanted. I just want to tell you that I’m enjoying your entire series on Letters to your granddaughter and I hope she too is enjoying them as much as I am.
Arena, let’s do hope and wish that she enjoys these letters. But while she is surely young, she will initially read them for fun, but later, she will see that these letters are much deeper in their meaning other than humor. The letters contain true advice on how to become better than you might become if not for others who help you (even when you don’t like it, and sometimes especially when you don’t like it). I look forward to the next letter and for more when Gen. Satterfield was a teenager.
She will enjoy them even if it is after she is an adult and out in the world, married, with kids, and a stable family life.
❤ Lovely letter ❤
Another great and wonderful letter from Gen. Satterfield to start my day off great.
Got that right, Wilson. Too many people just sit around watching television and vegging out on snacks and beer. Gen. Doug Satterfield is spending his time writing about what it was like growing up in the 50s and 60s (and a little into the 70s). I’m starting to get flashbacks to my time growing up – about a decade later – and about all those experiences that put me into a position that I became successful. Success meaning a good job, a family, friends, and community in my church. I thank God for my good life daily.
Talk about the “good life” then get a copy of Gen. Satterfield’s book “55 Rules for a Good Life” and enjoy his “rules” that produce good outcomes. But, more than anything, he tells us to adopt responsibility and that is what his letters to his granddaughter are also telling us. 😁😁😁😁😁😁
Truth. Thanks all. Great reading these comments. I always read those that come with this letter to his granddaughter.
Plato, while I too like the comments section, the love letter part remains the best. 💌