Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.
That statement was told to me in the fall of 1972 by a Senior Non-commissioned Officer in the United States Army. I had recently finished basic training and was posted to my first duty station in the 101stAirborne, I and other young soldiers were about to embark on an on-the-job training course as an infantryman.
Vietnam was still going on. But it was still three years until the US would be out of there. Thousands of young soldiers were pouring into the 101st Airborne to replenish its losses, and our anticipation or expectation was that we would be returning to Vietnam.
But that did not happen. We were being trained to fight a nuclear, chemical, and biological war against the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.
My posting in the 101st Airborne was in a Battalion Recon Platoon. Our job was to move forward of the Forward Edge of the Battle Area (FEBA), conduct tactical intelligence surveillance, and get the information back to our command behind us.
As a young Recon Scout, it became very apparent that anything I said or did could adversely affect the lives of up to 30,000 people behind me. It was vital to know that what I was saying was true because the people listening to my words would believe it to be so and act on it.
Today almost 50 years later, that statement is more accurate than ever.
Don't Believe Anything You Hear And Only Half Of What You See
Today we live in a world emboldened by outright liars, misinformation mongers, politicians, media personalities, and marketers who will set our emotions on fire so they can profit from it.
Today the American people and the people of the world are vastly divided. Why?
Because we believe we know better than they do
"Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them. – Peter Ustinov"
If we were to take a moment and look at our recent history. It does not matter what side of the fence you sit on. We can objectively see that some of the gravest injustices done by people are because of emotion. Not because of the truth or the facts.
For us to be effective, we need to have a plan. We need to remove the emotion from the equation.
Learn to seek the truth of what can be done, how it can be done, what needs to be done, and when it needs to be done.
Our plans should be based on facts and truth. There is no emotion involved there, though sometimes emotion will pop up. I will enjoy it at the moment, and then I will get back to the brain and follow the plan. The brain is smart the heart is stupid.
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