Lean Forward Into Your Life. Mary Anne Radmacher

of what's left.” He purposed to leave his chosen field and accept a position, which would travel him all over the globe. Ultimately he even set aside those structures in order to construct a life based upon his rediscovered dreams.

      This man, who had featured the text of my writing on his site, did indeed seem to live out the tenets of that writing with enthusiasm. He announced to the world that he supposed the woman who wrote “Live with Intention” was probably 106 and her idea of walking to the edge might be passing on her Metamucil for a day. I told him I would not let him forget that assessment. Ever. And now, it's there in black and white. Again. I did immediately inform him that while I thought there was nothing wrong with being 106 (I hope I get to find out!) and that I'd never actually had Metamucil, I could lay claim to having written the words he'd featured on his blog. This began a delightful and challenging communication with a person who has the courage to question the assumptions of his life, ask himself the real heart of his dreams, and act on them. It turns out Michael R. Wigal inspires a lot of people to live with intention, including me. He shares this story from his life experience called, “Leaning Forward into Your Foxhole.”

      In a previous life I was a young second lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division. (I'm a pacifist now, but life is about transition.) Field Artillery to be exact, a Forward Observer. My battalion commander was a hard-driving, up-from-the-ranks guy by the name of Bobby J. Godwin. We called him the “Godfather.” He was a man who drove his troops through a combination of fear and respect. I was afraid of him. (And people said I was one of his favorites!) But, he would always urge us to do better. One of his constant sayings was, “I want you leaning forward in the foxhole.” Those words stuck with me through the years. I have taken a “leaning forward in the foxhole” approach to life.

      This is not a combat story. I never saw combat (thankfully!). It was a training thing at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. The year must have been 1974. There was a battalion-wide contest to determine who was the best Forward Observer (F.O.). That would be one of three guys, as there were three Firing Batteries (six guns each) in the battalion. (While this information is not necessarily germane to the story, it's interesting background, especially for guys.)

      Even though the F.O. operates pretty much by himself in terms of identifying targets, determining the target's location as accurately as possible, and calling that location (via radio) back to the guns, in those days it took a fairly complex system to actually fire a round that had any chance of getting near the target. Once the F.O. had what he thought was a fairly good read on the target's location (using map and compass back then), he called the estimated coordinates to the Fire Direction Center. There, in a tent, maybe six other guys worked to plot those coordinates on a kind of map. The map showed the surveyed location of the guns and the perceived location of the target. Through a series of calculations the direction and distance of the target from the guns was calculated. The settings for the guns were then called to the Executive Officer (X.O.), who was directly responsible for relaying the settings and insuring they were set correctly on the guns. The gunners and assistant gunners and others in the team did that. They also prepared the rounds for firing and loaded the piece.

      Once satisfied, the X.O. would fire one round from one gun (the base piece). Everyone would wait to see where the round landed. If it was a little off, the F.O. “adjusted fire” until a round hit within a certain area of the target (usually a junked tank or truck or something). Important note, the howitzer is an “area weapon.” You don't have to actually hit the thing directly. You just have to get near it. Within ten yards was considered successful. A Fire Mission would be pretty quick if you could make the adjustments and “hit” the target within two moves from the original call.

      You can see how hard it was to do all this quickly. Of course, quickly was what it was all about. And accurately. A lot depended upon the responses of others. Like so much else in life, the results were not entirely in our individual control.