“When the going gets tough…” Published Sept. 23, 2009 By Lt. Col. Tom Davison 436th Civil Engineer Squadron commander DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. -- "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." This phrase popped into my head last week when our Air Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal family lost a member in Afghanistan to an enemy attack. His wife and 8-month-old son came to Dover to witness the dignified transfer, and I couldn't help but realize that life just got a lot tougher for them. Having lost my own little brother, little sister and son over the years, I have my personal perspectives on how tough life can get when bad things happen. In that light, I'd like to share with you my thoughts on what I think it means when "the tough get going." I used to have trouble with the "going gets tough" slogan because it didn't explain how, why or where to "get going." My little brother died suddenly a month before I left home to start college, and I had some really tough moments in school when I didn't know how I was going to graduate. When we lost my son unexpectedly at 34 weeks of pregnancy for reasons unknown, I found myself asking God why this happened to us. As my sister was progressing through her six-year battle with brain cancer, there were many times when I didn't know where to turn for answers. Over the years, however, I've learned that the tough "get going" by getting the right perspective first. The right perspective can come from many sources, and is something I think we each need to figure out for ourselves. I developed my views on how the "tough get going" by reading about others, talking with those who have "been there/done that," and watching how people live their lives with issues that seem similar to mine. I've had moments when the right perspective comes in a flash of inspiration, and other times where the right way to proceed dawns on me in a long, slow and gradual realization. Sometimes perspective is about doing the right thing, but sometimes it means to stop doing the wrong thing. The bottom line is there are no neat formulas or sure-fire tricks for getting through tough times, and often it's our values and beliefs that help us to either sink or swim. One source of inspiration and perspective that enriched my values and beliefs was given to me after my brother died 23 years ago. A friend of our family gave me the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold Kushner. In it he told his story of how he lost his son to a condition called progeria or "rapid aging." In essence Rabbi Kushner's son died of old age at fourteen, and the book was the rabbi sharing his perspectives of God and suffering. The stories Rabbi Kushner shared were his lessons on how the "tough get going" by addressing the hows and whys of dealing with tough times. The book talked about Holocaust survivors who had shared that sometimes it's not so much "the tough get going" as "the tough KEEP going." The rabbi also shared his views on the "why" behind suffering: bad things don't necessarily happen for a reason, so rather than fuss about why tough times happen we should focus our perspective on how we can serve God and others through our experiences. While life has developed and honed my perspective in countless ways, this book definitely helped me tremendously in getting through the many other tough times I've experienced. The lessons on right perspectives I learned over the years from various sources definitely served me well in my military career, even last week when we got the news of our EOD brother in arms. The military life is a tough one indeed, and there is no shortage of tough times for those who live it. In closing I'd like to suggest changing the maxim to this: "When the going gets tough, the tough get the right perspective and then get going!"