When I was a child, all I did was run and play and have a good time. But I would start several different projects and never complete any of them. And for some time it bothered me, my friends said why can’t you finish one thing that you do and go to the next one? I didn’t know the answer, but as I ask my mother, she gently told me the answer a wished for. She said “Take life one step at a time and then move on”. Finish the job that you start and do it well and then move on to the next one. If you do this in your life you will never have as many problems as you do now. I looked at her with eyes of wonder the wisdom I thought was not there, and then realized that the truth had been lay ed before me, and all I had to do was to pick it up and move on.

In my later life i used those words many times and benefited form them. Many times I faltered and fell but the words of my mother came back to me and I picked up the baton and finished the race. 

As I matured through life my chosen Field of study was that of medicine. I became an orthopedic Doctor. And as many medical students did I joined the army as a way to reduce the massive amassed debt. I thought hat I would be in a safe place doing the work that I had been trained for, but that was not the will of the enemy. One day as I and several of the hospital staff were coming back to the hospital form a lunch a (R.P.G.)rocket propelled grenade, fell in front to the Humvee I was riding in and destroyed the lives of all that were within. The diver and two combat medics were killed and I had a traumatic amputation of the left arm and right leg, and a traumatic brain injury. 

I was transferred to the States and stayed in a coma for eight weeks. Then came the arduous and painful surgeries and intense physical therapy. But throughout the pain and suffering came the words of my mother “One step at a time”. As the months went by and the preparation of my going home neared the fact faced me that I was not going to-be a Doctor again, or any thing else but a blot of useless trash, to be pitied and coddled for the rest of time. And I thought about ending my useless existence, and save the word it’s pity and shame. 

But then the word of my mother came to me, Take one job do it right and move to the next, One Step at a time. I pondered those words in my mind and wondered if I took them to hart and practiced what she preached, would it work of me?

So I began to work and thing and do what I could do. and now I work as a part time Doctor, working with wounded solders, to help them bounce back, and take there lives in there hands, I tell each one of them, only you cane take that first step, One Step at a Time and move forward. The first step is hard, the rest is just One Step at a Time.