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Back to Basics

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Craig Johnson
  • 375th Civil Engineer Squadron Commander
SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. --  So much of what we need to learn about how to live a successful life we learn at a very early age. Yes, there are great influential books on self-improvement, leadership and life by people such as Machiavelli, Anthony Robbins, and retired Gen. H. Norman Schwartzkopf. However, perhaps one of the most influential authors was not a war hero, world leader or business mogul, but instead a cowboy, folk singer and parish minister. His name is Robert Fulghum. 

Mr. Fulghum's genius was writing about simple observations in life. He writes the kind of stories that really make us look at ourselves ... to take life serious, but not too serious ... and to maybe laugh a little along the way. Stuff that is good for the soul. 

I want to share a short piece from the first part of Fulghum's book entitled "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." It really summed up some basic lessons we all learn in life very early, and if we all abided by them the world would be a better place. Mr. Fulghum wrote: "I realized that I already know most of what's necessary to live a meaningful life--that it isn't all that complicated. All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. These are the things I learned: 

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life--learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned--the biggest word of all--LOOK. 

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm." 

See what I mean? Simple principles. You might say "Back to Basics" principles...like Integrity, Service Before Self and Excellence in all we do. Yep, they're in there. And that's what makes our Air Force so strong. It's why I believe so many stick around for so long. Recruit the individual but retain the family. We have all chosen to voluntarily serve our nation. To sacrifice for the greater good of all. And we do so proudly in a culture grounded in the basic principles we learned long ago.