COL James “Nick” Rowe talks about resilience in an interview he did with the JFK Special Warfare Center and School staff chaplain in the mid 1980s.
Day 12: We Fight for a Cause
If he hadn’t tried that fourth time, he might not have gotten another chance. Because he did, and eventually returned to the Army to design the Special Forces SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) course, service members who came after him had the training they needed to withstand the pressures they faced as prisoners of war. The first thing they needed to develop was a respect for and understanding of the enemy. The Viet Cong were pragmatic in a way Americans are not; they think in terms of decades rather than the next election cycle. They also weren’t afraid of self-assessment; they didn’t hide their mistakes. They reviewed what they did right, wrong, or indifferent on each mission. Although we have the After Action Review system, the openness with which the Vietnamese communists approached it left an impression on then-Lieutenant Rowe.
One of the cadre told him that the reason the VC fought so well and the South Vietnamese didn’t was because they fought for a cause, not money. He found that notable since most people can explain in depth what they don’t want but can’t articulate what they do want what they stand for. It’s easy to say you’re against communism, but do you even remember what our government is supposed to look like? COL Rowe and those from his generation received a solid education that included how our country was founded and how it was supposed to operate, so he could counter the mind manipulation confidently.
Links below become active as each segment is published.
The 12 Days of Resilience with COL Nick Rowe: Day 1
The 12 Days of Resilience with COL Nick Rowe: Day 2 Skills and The Code
The 12 Days of Resilience with COL Nick Rowe: Day 3-Being Scared
The 12 Days of Resilience with COL Nick Rowe: Day 4 Rewriting the Rambo Narrative
The 12 Days of Resilience with COL Nick Rowe: Day 5 Religeon and Faith
The 12 Days of Resilience with COL Nick Rowe: Day 6, Personal Coping
The 12 Days of Resilience with COL Nick Rowe: Day 7, Isolation and Keeping Faith with Others
The 12 Days of Resilience with COL Nick Rowe: Day 8, Maintaining Identity
The 12 Days of Resilience with COL Nick Rowe: Day 9, Defining What’s Right
The 12 Days of Resilience with COL Nick Rowe: Day 10 Dissent vs. Disloyalty
The 12 Days of Resilience with COL Nick Rowe: Day 11, Government, Its People
The 12 Days of Resilience with COL Nick Rowe: Day 12, We Fight for a Cause
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