Sipping Poison Won't Make You Wise!
The wisest person isn't always the most experienced. I had to learn that the hard way.
I graduated from high school as an evangelical kid—innocent enough to feel at home in church, yet insecure enough in that innocence to feel I was missing out on something.
I wanted to add a layer of toughness to my skinny frame, thinking that would make me more interesting. So I joined the Marine Corps. There was a reserve unit just outside my hometown, a tank unit, so I could drive tanks on the weekends and be a college student during the week. I'd be a manly man who could strut and say things like, "Back when I was in the Corps. . . ."
I remember teargas training. As the room filled with teargas,...