Author: Brian O’Day

  • Consider Your Second Career

    Military service is for the young. I’ve heard people in the military who are 31 years old refer to themselves as old. That’s ridiculous… well, it would be ridiculous almost anywhere else, but not in the military. The military is for the young. That means that the reality is: you will either die young or…

  • Pick up where you left off…

    Have you ever started something that you were really excited about? It was your idea! It was going to be great! You ran into it with the exuberance of a kid running to the presents under the tree on Christmas morning. And then you stopped… At some point the excitement of the new thing wore…

  • Moving Towards Personal Racial Reconciliation

    Racial reconciliation is a big topic. Big topics feel like they need big responses. They feel like I need to do something big and drastic like Dr. King making his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, DC in front of an estimated 250,000 people. But for most of us, racial reconciliation will happen…

  • Advantages of Military Separations for Your Marriage

    Sure, there are many disadvantages of military marriage, but have you ever considered the advantages? Absence Reallly Does Make the Heart Grow Fonder. The picture above is one of the best days of my life- it’s the day I returned from my third deployment. The days I returned from my other deployments were also some…

  • You may die young…

    I’m 41 years old. Most of the funerals I have attended have been for people younger than me. While a few services have been for people a few years older than me, and even fewer have been for people in their 70s and 80s, the vast majority have been for the young. My grandmothers made…

  • It is Better to go to the House of Mourning…

    I get why people don’t like to go to funerals- many even go out of their way to avoid them. Funerals can be quite difficult on so many levels: Emotionally (Am I going to cry? Am I supposed to cry? What if I don’t cry?), Socially (How do I greet people? Can I be happy…