(2/4) ‘If you don’t do your job, people will die.’ That...

(2/4) ‘If you don’t do your job, people will die.’ That message was hammered into our heads during officer training. Even if you tied your boots incorrectly, an officer might get in your face and scream: ‘You don’t care about details! Details get people killed in combat! You’re going to get people killed!’ Over and over, it was drilled into me that people would die if I messed up. And nine of my guys died. So it’s been extremely hard to forgive myself. Maybe I didn’t work hard enough. Maybe I didn’t set high enough standards. Maybe I didn’t put enough stress on the importance of details. The first guy in my company who died stepped on a bomb that was hidden under a footbridge. That was a rule. That was a detail. We were never supposed to walk over footbridges. He knew that. Maybe I didn’t tell him enough times. I can see his face right now. If he was sitting here, I’d say: ‘Mike. You weren’t supposed to do that. You know you weren’t supposed to that!’"