WEBVTT

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- I'm a stickball playing fool.

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That's who I am.

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And I still think of myself as that little kid,

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and I go,

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"How'd I get to Wyoming?"

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Wyoming was the furthest thing from where I grew up.

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I was assigned to missiles and assigned to Cheyenne, Wyoming

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which it was a really small town when

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I first got here in 1968.

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The mission really was good to me,

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and my first crew partner was just outstanding individual,

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and second and third crew partner, same thing,

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just really good people.

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They were very similar to my dad, who was a firefighter.

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That brotherhood was so strong, and that to me was

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really, really energized me.

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You know the first job here is a missile crew member.

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That's a very tough job.

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A lot of pressure for excellence ...

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When you're a young person, a young street policeman,

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or a young maintenance person, or a missile crew member,

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I think too often you have a tendency to think,

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"Well, I'm just one small person in this big operation.

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So yeah I do my job, and that kind of thing."

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But this job is so important.

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We want to get in any adversary's head.

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Don't mess with the United States.

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They have to know that we're strong and we're capable.

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That's what stops them from being crazy.

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Well I retired on a Friday night.

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Monday morning, governor of Wyoming asked me to

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run the Department of Commerce.

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I was worried, when I was retiring because

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I go, "What skills do I have?

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Are they translatable to jobs in a civilian community?"

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And I realized that I had great skills

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that were translatable to jobs in the

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non-military environment.

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The preparation you get in the military of how to think,

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how to write, how to speak, how to present information,

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how to understand what a real problem is, and how you

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fix a real problem ...

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We just take it for granted in the military.

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I've had the opportunity to work with

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Cheyenne Frontier Days, with the state of Wyoming,

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with the U.S. House of Representatives.

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Where did it all come from?

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It was from my upbringing, son of a firefighter

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and the same kind of things, the ethic that I saw

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in the Air Force, and I was a part of.

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Great crew partners, great people I worked with at

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SAC headquarters, the air staff,

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20th Air Force, just super people ...

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I've had a blessed life.