The Advantages of Having Discipline and Endurance

At the age of twelve, while most of my classmates were vacationing on the beach or traveling abroad for summer, I was enrolling myself in the Jr. Red Cross Cadets, with my parents’ permission. I was taught how to treat casualties, and I saw firsthand and up close how to take care of the wounded. I was trained in using c.p.r., and the correct way to put on bandages and a host of other life saving ventures.

I discovered that I also had free access to many shows and events that I had to report to. As though this was not beneficial enough, the thing that seem to leave an indelible mark on me, was the growth and development I received from spending countless hours practicing as a team, the rudiments of marching. For cadets were required to march on Independence Day for nothing less than five hours. We drilled for hours a day. We marched until the commands went from ‘left, right’ to ‘aft, ite’.

The value I gained from this experience was discipline and endurance. Discipline in following instructions and commands, and endurance, in going the distance and doing it wholeheartedly.
Of course at the end of the parade, came even more rewards, when we got to sit and enjoy a banquet of food with a spread as great as a twelve year old could imagine.
 
These were some of the virtues I was able to take into my adulthood life. For I once worked a weekend job at a banquet hall for about five years, where the manager who hired me swore that he would never work with women. To prove that he was not sexist, he hired me on a trial basis anyway.

One evening I overheard him reprimanding three male teenage workers in the hallway. He was informing them that if they didn’t shape up he would fire them, because he knew that Penny could do the job of all three of them put together. That was the longest trial job I ever had.

Penelope Ince