It’s hard to
be patient in a world used to immediate results. I understand that. However,
some of the greatest victories often come about through forced patience, or through the deep analysis of past
mistakes. In brief, successes are usually
achieved when we are willing to let go of the past and reinvent ourselves.
Today, I
would like to give three examples of how endurance pays off. Disasters are often followed by eventual
victory. Two of the cases are from
history. One is from my own life experience.
Please note: If you’re a die-hard
history buff, I respect that, but I am not going to put in every single detail
of what happened. I am going only by what I learned from America: Facts vs. Fiction--and a few other credible sources.
General Douglas MacArthur
He was the
American five-star general who was over the Allied forces in the Pacific during
World War II. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7th,
1941, he was warned to evacuate all troops from the nearby Philippines. He
refused to heed the warning.
As a result,
the Japanese did invade that country.
Allied forces tried to flee at the last minute, leaving most of their supplies
behind. They didn’t make it. The result
was the catastrophic event called the Bataan Death March. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt was so embarrassed that he gave MacArthur a Congressional Medal of
Honor in order to quiet/confuse critics.
That story
changed during the Korean War. During September, 1950, the general launched an
unexpected amphibious assault against the marshy, undefended Inchon peninsula.
Seoul, the capitol, was liberated two days later. The Battle of Inchon was
considered a success, nine years after the disaster in the Philippines.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower
He was the 34th
President of the United States. However, he came to that office with decades of
military experience. During World War II, this five-star general was appointed Supreme
Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe by American President, Franklin D.
Roosevelt.
Eisenhower
was known to be a master of logistics. Naturally, he wanted a flawless “dress
rehearsal” of D-Day, the amphibious attack on German-occupied French soil. This
practice drill was dubbed Operation Tiger. It took place in April, 1944,
two months before the assault on the beaches of Normandy, France. The whole
maneuver was such a fiasco that the details weren’t declassified until the
1980’s.
The practice
run was held on a beach in England, friendly territory. Unfortunately, due to
massive miscommunication, everything that could go wrong did go awry. The
Germans attacked. Some of the participants were killed by friendly fire. The
list goes on.
One can only
imagine how stressed out Eisenhower became when planning the actual D-Day
invasion for June 6, 1944. It’s said that he got no sleep, drank 22 cups
of coffee a day, and chain smoked. Yet, all his planning worked out, including
using the perfect craft for actually bringing the soldiers up to the shallows
of the beach: the Higgins boat.
More than
9,000 Allied troops lost their lives on the beaches of Normandy that day. The
Allies were fighting entrenched German forces as they came ashore. However, the
successful maneuver allowed more than 100,000 soldiers crucial access to
continental Europe. They could finally meet Hitler’s forces head on.
Without the catastrophe
of Operation Tiger, D-Day might never have been the success that it was.
Eisenhower was given about two months to iron out the kinks in his plan, and he
used them to his full advantage.
Me
I have
edited a few books. Without fail, the
finished product (the published book) takes longer to put together than
expected. That’s nothing against the authors; it’s just a fact. Text gets
messed up for unknown reasons. Research takes longer than expected. Personal
crises arise. Miscommunication is rampant.
I always wonder how I can help
a gifted author get published, but the book always comes together in the end.
If the result isn’t absolutely perfect, please show me a book that is without flaw.
My Conclusion
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing
fulfilled is a tree of life.”—Proverbs 13:12 (NIV)
I have
participated in theater. This is a common saying: “The worse the dress
rehearsal, the better the performance.” I have seen many examples of this in my
life. I know the value of “waiting for it”. Sometimes, we can only wait and
hope, even when there seems to be no logical reason to believe in a better
tomorrow.
Please see more about persistence against the odds in my book, Accept No Trash Talk: Overcoming the Odds.
Related Posts
How has your patience paid off?
No comments:
Post a Comment