Risk Management Magazine

During a recent trip to Acadia National Park in Maine, I learned a few valuable lessons: I am not as smart as I thought I was, and following established rules and policies protects me from harm. These lessons, although embarrassing, later saved me from greater harm in a different national park and may have prevented a tragic accident in my unit a few weeks later.

Many years ago, I was a young platoon leader (PL) deployed to Mosul, Iraq. One afternoon, after completing a round of checkpoint missions, I heard about a track meet the forward operating base was hosting. As a hard-charging PL, I took my job seriously, but I also believed in personal downtime.

My friend and I had been planning all week to take his 16-foot catamaran sailing on Santa Rosa Sound, Florida. After I made the three-hour trip to his house, he greeted me in his driveway and suggested we get going soon because bad weather was forecasted. That should have been my first clue that this trip wasn’t going to end well.