Return To Honor

In my second book, Return To Honor, I write about such topics as “Courage,” “Truth,” “Attitude,” and other core values that I draw upon to illustrate how one can liberate him or herself from the traps of moral weakness, illusion and “victim” mentalities that keep us stuck on the never-ending treadmills of life. In the first chapter, I refer to Audie Murphy, until recently considered the “most decorated hero” in U.S. military history.

Today I learned of the death of another American hero, Col. Robert Howard, the only person in history to be nominated for the Medal Of Honor three times, for three separate acts of the ultimate level of heroism. (You can only receive one per lifetime.) Bob Howard also earned eight Purple Hearts (for injuries sustained in battle),  and numerous other medals such as the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and so forth. If my count of what was listed is correct, he surpassed the total of Audie Murphie’s awards, which is almost inconceivable. To earn even a Silver Star alone takes an act of courage “above and beyond” the call of duty, and the Medal Of Honor itself is almost impossible to earn. Over 60% of those who did received theirs posthumously.

What compels me to write about Col. Howard at this point is to point out that nothing is impossible. One does not have to be a battlefield hero to be a “hero.” As the beloved “Doctor of Love,” Leo Buscaglia once wrote, “For most of us there will be no tickertape parade…no awards banquets or medals handed out for the heroic deeds we’ve done. But if we only knew the ripple effects that resulted from even the simplest acts of love and kindness we’ve done in our lives, we’d all be ‘heroes’.”

That may seem not so significant, but I can tell you for certain, and a good number of movies have portrayed it, and books have depicted it, that in fact a simple act of kindness can indeed change someone’s life. Consider the classic film, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” starring Jimmy Stewart, or the recent hit “Blindside,” starring Sandra Bullock, both of which were based on true stories. There are many more, and many that we’ll never know about…but lives have changed and have been saved over acts of kindness that may not take the courage and sacrifice of people like Col. Howard and Audie Murphy, but the long-term benefits can actually be just as great.

“If we only knew,” as Leo wrote, “the ripple effect” that our kindness and our courage to act kindly toward others has created. If we had the chance to step back and see the good that we’ve done, it would most certainly prove to have been worth all the difficulties, the challenges and heartaches that we have endured.

Never think that your life hasn’t counted for much. If you’ve done even the smallest thing to help someone else, to love someone else, or to do anything kind for someone that enabled them to change something troubling to them, then you have been a “hero.”

Don Kirchner
Sedona, Arizona

Charles Dickens wrote in A Tale Of Two Cities the classic line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” At no other time in my tumultuous life have I known that to be more true than right now. I look ahead and I look around, and I see and feel dread, fear, anger and despair, and yet in the midst of it and beyond it in truly glorious colors, shades and hues I also see and feel beauty, hope, promise and even joy.
How is that possible, and which is really true? A teacher of mine once said that everything has its balancing counterpart, and if we can step back in our minds far enough from any given event or experience, we will see the balance of all forces. Many of our great religions teach us in some form or another that “God gives us hardships in direct proportion to what we are capable of handling.” How capable we are of “handling” anything, I believe, is the degree to which we are able to “step back” and look objectively at the dilemmas of our lives. Our willingness to do that enables us to see those dilemmas for what they really are…opportunities to gain strength, insight and clarity about things we only thought we knew about before, or had learned…or perhaps resisted out of fear or discomfort or arrogance.
Whatever they are or have been for you, they are not insurmountable or as bad as they may seem, no matter how grim or awful they may look. They are only that way to the extent that you fear them, resist them or detest them. It is vital that you do not see anything or anyone as “doing something to you,” but rather that you have created the experience yourself through many different devices, beliefs and patterns of behavior and thinking for your own growth and transformation. “God” didn’t do anything to you but give you grace…which is your own spirit to draw upon for insight, inspiration and faith to accept what is before you and what you’ve left behind you in your wake, and do something positive and counterbalancing not just to make it right but to propel you out of the storms and into the bright, sunny light of day beyond them.
If you choose to see only the storms and the difficulties, you will only continue to create them as further “evidence” that life is stormy…the “worst of times,” as Dickens wrote. If you choose, however, to see the storms as merely experiences you have created to learn something or simply something to experience and gain wisdom from, then they will abate and you will see and experience what a friend of mine and I coined recently as “tangible miracles”…things that happen for no particular reason that bring new light, new friendships, unforeseen encounters and “chance” meetings with others who suddenly make life so much more meaningful, joyous and fun. Suddenly, it’s the best of times.
You and you alone have the power to change even the worst of maelstroms in your life into forces of good and decency. Call on God or Allah or the Great Spirit, if you wish, to help you through it, but know in your deepest psyche that it is you that determines by your daily choices how to view the problems in your life in such a way that you can thank them, bless them and use them so you can stop hacking and slashing your way through a jungle when there is a paved road only a few yards away.
You can keep hacking and slashing if you wish to, but at least you’ll know the road is always there. Then you can stop from time to time, raise your goblet in toast to the journey you’re on…and laugh. It’s only as bad as we think it is.
To the journey…

Don Kirchner

Sedona, AZ

In a recent broadcast by National Public Radio on the plight of men locked up before trial and held for lack of sufficient funds to make bail, the commentator said that there are now more children impacted by their fathers being incarcerated than there are from divorce. I haven’t researched that rather shocking statistic, but as one who had an opportunity to experience such a thing on a first-hand basis for two and a half years over two decades ago, I have no doubt that it’s true.

According to www.divorcerate.org, present divorce rates in America run from nearly 50% for first marriages to as high as 73% for third marriages, so if NPR’s commentator is even close to being accurate, that’s a lot of children with no father present in their lives. Add them together, and it’s clear that America is a nation of “fatherless” children. Given this nation’s justice system’s obsessiveness with locking people up for nonviolent and drug related crimes, it’s no wonder that we can’t build prisons fast enough, or that we continue to have such exorbitant crime rates. We’ve got a burgeoning population of children with no place to go and no father to help them figure things out.

Before you think to yourself, “Well, what kind of fathers would a bunch of inmates and criminals make, anyway?” consider that the majority…not the minority…of inmates in America’s prisons today are not the heinous, scarred and tattooed gladiators one sees in the movies and television programs. A full 70% of those incarcerated are for nonviolent, first and second offenses…usually drug-related crimes. Even so, I’ve watched first-hand even the “gladiators” in visiting rooms, bouncing small children on their knees, and being warm, kind and loving with them…and returning to their cell blocks fighting back the tears everyone knows are flooding their eyes.

The damage, sociologically, to this country in locking men (and women) up for interminable periods for crimes of a relatively harmless nature is far-reaching, and much more destructive in the long run than all the crimes put together that create such a rip in the fabric of our society. We’re breeding generation after generation of young criminals, at a rate that far exceeds that of radical Islamic terrorists who cultivate and train their young children to become suicide bombers…and we’re oblivious to how and why crime is so rampant in our streets.

I’m not suggesting that we do not punish law-breakers, by any means. I’m saying that we must have legislative reform in this critically important aspect of our development. We cannot continue to justify such extremes in retaliating against people who break the law, and expect that just because we remove them from our streets that we are going to be safer. There is a delusion in so thinking, because the more we do that, the more we ignore the children who are left to fend for themselves in an increasingly hostile world facing economic and political upheaval.

If we don’t take steps NOW to change the laws, and redirect those many individuals who can be trained to function more responsibly while performing community services instead of wasting away behind bars and Plexiglas cellblocks, we will soon find ourselves like I did once…facing the wrong end of a loaded gun while my car and pockets, and bank account were emptied. Thank God that at least one of those young perpetrators wasn’t quite yet so strung out on Meth that the chamber of that gun he held wasn’t emptied on me.

Don Kirchner

Sedona, Arizona

A close friend of mine and I were in a discussion today about relative terms…words and phrases like love, truth, respect…and honor…words we all tend to take for granted assuming that everyone knows what we’re talking about when we use them. I was referring to men in prison who do their time “honorably” should be acknowledged somehow…maybe with a certificate of achievement or something to give them some kind of recognition for having done the right thing.
“What does that mean?” she retorted. “You think we should give them an award for doing time for something they screwed up? How can that be ‘honorable’?”
I was a bit taken aback because she works with me and she well knows what I mean by ‘honor.’ Or so I thought. It’s about standing tall, telling the truth, being in integrity and so forth. Even men in prison know the core truth of what that means. But then again, maybe not. I’ve had audiences of inmates stand and cheer when I talk about them doing their time ‘honorably.’ They seem to know what I mean, but maybe that’s just slogans and feel-good words. But my own teammate and manager didn’t seem to get what I thought was a given. Then I realized that she was making a damn good point: We don’t always speak the same language. Honor to an inmate can, in fact, be very different from honor on the battlefield, or the corporate workplace. It’s a relative term, no matter how much we might assume everyone knows what it is.
To men in prison, it’s more than staying out of trouble while doing their time. It’s about going the extra distance to make sure you’re not even suspect by people on either side of the walls of doing something devious or not right. You don’t sidestep issues or lie or manipulate others. You reach out, even if it’s without someone knowing, and you help them in some way. It’s caring about others first and yourself second…while still keeping to yourself and not interfering with their lives. It’s being courageous without bullying or resorting to needless violence…even if courage involves walking…not running…away from trouble. It’s about not buying into the “unwritten rules” of behavior that keep men on both sides playing mind games and intimidating each other. It’s about doing kind things and doing any job well, even when no one’s watching.
It’s no different on the outside, really…just less intense and far less threatening or intimidating. Prison (and jail) are places to learn fast…albeit a bit painfully at times…how to do such things without compromising one’s character or integrity. If one can accomplish that while locked up, that’s a huge jump in maturity and self-respect…which leads instantly to outward respect. To me, that’s what ‘honor’ is about…respect. That doesn’t mean coddling or cowtowing to others, or sucking up to them. It means simply that you acknowledge each person as a human being…not an “inmate” or any other label we use all too frequently for people we don’t know or understand or run with.
Anyone who can get through any length of sentence in prison or jail without incident, hostility or negative behavior certainly deserves some credit. It’s damn hard to get through such an experience without being confronted at some point. Anyone who does, has accomplished something significant, and yes…they deserve a certificate. From some of the places I’ve seen and heard about, just getting through it alive and intact and sane is cause for a medal…and receiving some sort of credit for doing their time well should be actively monitored by prison and jail staff, and make note of when it happens, how often and by whom…and that person will come out a better man or woman because someone took the time to notice in the first place, then made an effort to acknowledge it.
Yes…give them some recognition for getting through the minefields and the cesspools of the twisted world of our present correctional system…while under constant threat of ‘enemy fire.’ Give them a medal, a stripe or a certificate or something to say they did something honorable. That will be even better than a job reference, once we do it often enough and well enough to get it started. Once it shows up in changed attitudes by released as well as present inmates, and by correctional officials themselves, and others on the outside who are exposed to continued ‘honorable’ living, it will spread like wildfire.
What an example we could set by seeing someone come out of the pits of hell, clean themselves up and get back into the workforce…or, better yet, into schools and colleges once they qualify. After all, that’s what made this country great.

Don Kirchner

January 27, 2010

We live in a time where everything seems upside down and backwards. Having just elected a U.S. President by the largest margin of popularity in recent history with slogans of positive change and “Yes, we can,” we naively assumed that significant change would be forthcoming any day now.
A lot of things have changed, all right, but not many of them appear to have been all that positive…at least not for middle-class Americans. Not being particularly political in nature, I was nonetheless hopeful that something positive would come from the millions contributed to, raised and spent on both campaigns, and I have suffered through like everyone else the billions spent on bailouts, executive bonuses and comprehensive healthcare reform that doesn’t seem to amount to anything truly beneficial for the majority of us. What sort of “positive change” has taken place so far, and how long do we wait for the pieces to fit together so that the simplest real changes might come? Is it so hard, really?
Despite some ridiculously simple solutions that have been offered by mathematicians and economists who seem to have a lot of common sense, still things keep getting more complicated and elusive, and we appear to have yet another “runaway” government out of touch with reality and with us…their true employers. Once again we find ourselves on yet another roller coaster ride, over which it feels like we have no control.
But we do have control. We just don’t realize it because we don’t understand the sheer simplicity of how control works. It’s not about opinion polls, elections or chains of command. It’s about setting higher standards for ourselves that can give us each a firm foundation in our own lives first, then by example and demonstration greater and greater impact and influence on those we deal with every day. Gradually, those standards can become immutable and non-negotiable, such that it becomes clear who does and who does not embrace those standards.
The standards I’m talking about are not philosophical, esoteric or theological. They are the core principles and values that made this country, and some past civilizations, great. Among them are moral values such as telling the truth, courage, honesty, respecting others and valuing one’s own self. There are others, but if we can get even a few of those down, we can change our lives, and influence others to change theirs. Ultimately, that will change the world, and bring sensibility and sanity back.
I know that seems a bit altruistic and far-fetched, but it’s true. We just lost touch with the common and simple values we all know in our hearts are right and true, no matter what philosophy or religion one embraces. We may not be able to change radical terrorists, but we can gradually change the people we deal with every day, and in turn they can impact more of their contacts until eventually people are treating one another respectfully. It can happen…and yes, we can…make a difference in the world, one person at a time.

Don Kirchner
Sedona, AZ

These are either the “best of times” or the “worst of times,” as Charles Dickens wrote in his Tale of Two Cities, depending upon how you choose to look at them…”choose” being the operative word. It’s all a matter of choice, really, even if you’re broke and facing a foreclosure, in how you deal with that dilemma. What will ultimately come of it depends entirely on how you choose to handle it.

If you have a bad attitude about what’s going on these days, you’re going to have some pretty bad times ahead…even if the economy should happen to turn around and real estate values go back up again. Your health and sense of well-being also will likely be affected negatively, and the worse you feel about any of that, the worse it will get.

If, on the other hand, you look for something good and decent in everything that happens…even the “bad” things…they will improve. Pollyanna was right…and now is the ideal opportunity to put her philosophy to the test. I have, and I can assure you that I’m well-qualified by now to tell you that it’s true.

A man I know fairly well runs a series of very large entrepreneurial training forums, and at one point he portrays in a very convincing way the nature of what he refers to as “fearstorms.” He uses film clips from “Jurassic Park” and a couple other very convincing movies to demonstrate how even the most seemingly menacing situations are just mental and emotional anticipation of things not always real. We make them real by fearing and resisting them. That’s not to say that what’s going on the world right now isn’t real, but rather it emphasizes the importance of taking charge of our lives and finding better, more effective ways of dealing with both real and imagined threats to our well-being.

WE get to choose how we feel about it…and our history books, movies, books and many personal stories of overcoming adversity in the world confirm over and over that we can not only get through difficult times, we can grow stronger in the process.

Find ways to feel better, love more, laugh a bit and trust yourself to make it through any challenge, and to do so with courage, honesty and integrity, and no matter what the difficulty may be that you face, you can and will get through it. Hate it, twist around it, deny it or manipulate people to help you get around it, and times will get harder for you. Accept it, deal with it, be honest about it and find ways to be kind and loving with those around you, and the best of times will surely be upon you…no matter what dark clouds may be out there.

They’re only fearstorms.

Don Kirchner
http://ReturnToHonor

A front page feature article in today’s Sunday paper described the rising interest on the part of aging Americans to join the Peace Corps and “make a difference” in the world. God knows that the staving kids in Bosnia, Bulgaria and people living less fortunately in all parts of the world need and well deserve all the help they can get. At the same time, however, so do millions of our own people right here in America.

Believe it or not, we have many “third-world” living conditions within our own borders. Some of them are Native American reservations, which to me is an ironic twist of fate for those whose ancestors were here first, and many more who are in the streets of many of our biggest cities. Of those, a huge percentage are people who have either done time in prisons and jails of America, or are destined to if their attitudes and lifestyles don’t change soon.

Then there are the families and the children of those who are or have been incarcerated. When one considers that 2.6 million people are locked up across America, and they impact at least 5 to 10 people on the outside, that number alone is staggering to consider. It exceeds the entire populations of some of those third-world countries who “need our help”.

So, what about us? What about our people? What about the children growing up in neighborhoods where the wallpaper on whatever rooms they have to sleep in are constantly illuminated with the red and blue flashing lights of the police cars outside, and whose playgrounds are streets filled with drug addicts and dealers, prostitutes and police SWAT teams and helicopters circling overhead? How do they fend for themselves, and what hope do they have for a better way to live? Who’s making a difference in their lives?

In the early 1980’s, Jerome Miller became the Director of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections. In an unprecedented move, Mr. Miller closed all but the most essential juvenile detention centers in his state, and put the money saved into pro-active programs to mentor and provide simple caring to juveniles in the form of college students paid to “hang out” with juveniles as “big brothers” and “big sisters.” The rate of juvenile crime in Massachusetts during those years dropped by over 50%.

As someone who has dedicated much of the past decade or so to “making a difference” right here at home, I commend anyone wishing to do anything that makes a difference in the lives of others, and I urge anyone wishing to do so to look into juvenile diversion programs and anything having to do with “re-entry” or “aftercare” of former felons. It’s not a bad or scary thing, because every former offender (and they are “former” until they re-offend), is really just a terrified little kid in a scarred, tattooed grown-up body who made the wrong, but often only choices, that they believed were available to them early in life.

You want to make a difference in the world? Start right here at home…and right now. All it takes is a modicum of compassion, a willingness to understand, and a little courage to overcome preconceived notions and judgments, and making an effort to learn more about it. Just that much will reduce crime in this country by as much as 10%, I can promise you.

As a noted correctional specialist once wrote to me, “For altruists who want to save lives, that’s a lot of lives. To economists who want to save money, that’s a lot of money.”

Google “Prisoner Re-entry” or “Prisoner Aftercare Programs” in your state for more information than you can likely absorb in the two years required to serve in the Peace Corps, or check out the large number of affiliates and resources appearing on this blog site, and you may just find your “next calling” in life.

Don Kirchner

www.ReturnToHonor.org

I recently saw a trailer for a new movie, “The Visitor.” I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’m certainly going to because the tag line hooked me: You can live your whole life and never know who you are…until you’ve seen the world through others’ eyes.

The trailer went on to show a man bored with his life who, by chance, is exposed to the lives of people less fortunate than him. In a few short minutes, I was swept up into his new outlook as he began to reach out to others and use his professional skills and insights to make life a little better and more meaningful for them.

Have you looked at the world through others’ eyes? I have…and now I can hardly do anything but that. I was born into a fairly respectable family…a career Army officer and mother who raised us as morally as anyone in the Midwest, where we were all from. But he bailed out early in my life for reasons known only to his soul, and I was left to make crucial decisions way too early for that busy little mind of mine to handle. As a result, what should have been a pretty decent future became for a while a series of jail and prison cells.

I was forced to discover that life was very different for a whole lot of people outside of my protected military upbringing. Those people had lived through outrageous challenges that most people can only imagine through graphic portrayals of prison life in movies, books and television programs.

What I experienced, once I got over the initial fears and posturing that goes on between ethnic groups and different cultures, was a common human thread…men who were struggling with the same fears, angers and remorse…albeit often hidden…that I was.

Once I began to use my education and communication skills to help them better understand their behavior and how to change their attitudes and their outlook, I discovered a whole world of men who could overcome anything…and many who actually wanted to. They just didn’t know how…nor had anyone on the outside willing to help them make the lasting changes needed. More often than you might believe, I had hardened criminals with tattoos and scars all over their bodies in tears as they told me stories of their childhoods and how much they wanted to be respected and cared about by society.

Whether you’re dealing with prisoners or former prisoners, or people who are merely prisoners of their own minds and negative attitudes, the willingness on your part to see the world through their eyes can and will make the biggest difference in bringing about deep and lasting changes in the way we live our lives and build toward a more meaningful future. If you will pause from time to time and be willing to see the world through others’ eyes, your world will change for the better…guaranteed.

Don Kirchner

http://ReturnToHonor.org

It’s hard to know what’s right and what’s wrong these days. So much is coming out in the news and on the Internet that seems so convincing that either all is lost or all is saved, depending on how you choose to view things. Either way, Ph.D.’s and stalwart economists and political analysts are obviously so confused and conflicted that anyone onboard this “ship” of ours has got to be terrified as to who’s at the helm and what sort of charts are they using to navigate us through the storms ahead.

Having been through some storms of my own that on a personal level make what lies ahead of us not so scary to me, I’m here to say that it’s all part of the journey we’ve all known secretly or otherwise was bound to come. “Life runs in cycles,” a very wise old mentor of mine used to say. “If we would just step back a bit and look at the patterns, we could predict the future pretty accurately.” He was 94 when he passed away with his Daytimer still in hand, and he’d run businesses as big as any that are now in various stages of bankruptcy and collapse. He’d seen it all, through World Wars, recessions and the “Great Depression,” and he said with a smile, “It’s all just an exercise in consciousness…and sometimes it’s better just to ride the horse the direction it’s running.”

Yes, there’s trouble ahead…and some people are going to get hit hard. But it doesn’t have to be all that hard. What my old friend was saying, in essence, was that once you’re moving, stay with it and enjoy the ride as best you can. How you get to the other end is a matter of your choice of attitude. Fight it and resist it, and you only make it harder on yourself. Fight it and resist it to the extreme, and you’ll most likely not ever see what’s on the other end.

At several points in my own ride through life, I’ve been at what appeared to me to be a dead end, but I always managed to take a deep breath and plunge ahead, only to find sensibility and mysteries unveiled. Recently, at one of the worst times in my life, I chose to keep a truly positive (as opposed to faking it) attitude, and the most apparently unlikely person to have any resources with which to help me showed up…and became one of my biggest supporters and newest “best friend.” That’s actually happened to varying degrees many times along the way, and I can tell you unequivocally that it’s worth every trial and every sorrow.

Show up for others in your life, no matter what, and don’t give in to the doomsayers and “analysts,” and your ride will prove memorable…even enjoyable––regardless of what it might look like right now. If enough of us do that, those storms will blow over with a whole lot less damage and destruction, and like the end of the movie, “Titantic,” we’ll all raise our goblets in toast to the ride of our lives.

Don Kirchner

ReturnToHonor.org

Next to Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day (which isn’t really an “official” holiday, I know), Independence Day was always my favorite. It was Summer at its best…picnics, frolicking in grassy parks, barbeques and watermelon, and a sense of freedom about which I only had the tiniest inkling. What a great day it was to be alive, and full of hope and great expectations for a promising future. For a kid, life was always grand come July 4th.

But I suspect that for many people this Independence Day, life’s not at all so “grand.” Even among the more affluent whose formerly tidy estates have disintegrated into worthless real estate deeds, stock certificates  and dwindling bank accounts, things are beginning to look pretty grim right now. I have a number of once optimistic friends who are beginning to believe that empty store shelves, bread lines and soup kitchens might become a reality soon. I shake my head when I hear such talk, for I well know by this point that the more of us that think that way, the more it does become a reality.

To me, they’ve lost track of who they are, and how “independence” is created and maintained. It’s not about the things we have or don’t have. It’s about who we are, what sort of attitude we have, and how strong our friendships and family ties are. It’s also about our faith in ourselves, and how willing we are to brush off adversity and appearance of gloom and doom on the horizon, and shine our lights as brightly as possible. It’s about giving back to others in any way possible, and not complaining, commiserating or giving up. It’s caring about and respecting others, no matter who they are or what their age, gender or cultural backgrounds might be. That sets us all free, sooner or later.

The bleak and gloomy prospects on that horizon are merely dark clouds, and their impact on us will be directly proportional to the degree of collective belief we have in either dispersing them or drawing them to us…just as it was for our Forefathers and veterans of many wars who went through real gloomy times to make sure that we wouldn’t have to. So, I’m urging you to embrace a more positive outlook no matter what, to see if we can re-discover our true independence…again.

Happy Fourth to you…

Don Kirchner
ReturnToHonor.org