There are a great many factors that collectively — to one degree or another — shape the person we ultimately become: good, bad or otherwise. These obvious factors include, but are not limited to, our upbringing, family influences, education, relationships, experiences and myriad others that help shape our character and personalities. In this article, I have chosen to focus on what I refer to as defining experiences, which I define as single events that were so impactful and significant that they immediately changed the trajectory of my life.

To illustrate my definition of defining experiences, I am going to share several personal experiences that absolutely had a major impact on my actions at the moment the situation occurred. A brief glance at my resume will suggest that I have had several significant experiences, but the three that I will discuss continue to stand out in my mind as the most impactful. I hope readers will learn from my candor, reflect on their own defining moments and perhaps even enjoy a couple of my painful experiences on the road (good or bad!) that led to who I have become. For my friends and acquaintances, maybe this will help explain a few things!

There are a great many factors that collectively shape the person we ultimately become.

Mosquitos and potential insanity

On a beautiful California Friday afternoon, as a 17-year-old Marine at Camp Pendleton, I was in the process of departing the base for what I believed was going to be a hot date with a hot chick when the first sergeant told me, and about a thousand of my closest friends, to get back to the barracks and start assembling our gear. By Saturday afternoon the following day, I was sitting in a foxhole with live ammunition along a remote jungle perimeter that separated the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay from Cuban soil, which was about 50 meters to my front. That was the day the rest of the world learned of the Cuban missile crisis, when President John F. Kennedy made it clear that the U.S. would not tolerate the Soviet nuclear missiles being placed on Cuban soil. As I sat in the foxhole, I began thinking that perhaps I should have stayed in high school!

I had never previously seen such an assemblage of weapons — from grenades to machine guns and everything in between — but my greatest enemy was the millions (at least!) of mosquitos that decided to feast on me, and the gnats that instantly converged on and covered every morsel of food in the field rations we were issued. After several hours of continuous slapping, enduring the nonstop barrage of mosquitos that had converged on every uncovered part of me, and battling the gnats that swarmed every morsel of ration I tried to eat, I was absolutely on the verge of hysteria. Then, in an instant, something within me snapped, and I realized that I had to either go crazy or ignore the mosquitos and focus my energy on my responsibilities. I can remember it as if it were yesterday when I held out my arms and said to the mosquitos and gnats, “F—k it, take all you want (my blood), and we’ll enjoy the rations together!” At that moment, I discovered some type of inner peace. To this day, including after spending time in some truly nasty places, I am able to tolerate all manner of bugs, spiders, reptiles and other creatures that seem to conspire to make my life miserable. I don’t like them, but they do not interfere with the accomplishment of whatever endeavor I am pursuing.

The truth really does hurt

To comprehend the totality of circumstances surrounding this defining moment, it is necessary to forget today’s intelligence-gathering standards and revert back to the 1960s, when the practices and environment were completely different. As a deep undercover LAPD intelligence officer, my job was to go anywhere in the nation and infiltrate any subversive or un-American organization whose activities might eventually impact the city of Los Angeles. I carried no gun or badge, had altered identification and false vehicle registration, could not go to a police facility and got my pay in cash from a Taco Bell managed by a person friendly to the department. During this assignment, I traveled extensively throughout the nation, typically in junk cars with the subjects I was investigating, whose actions included bombings, planned assassinations and various crimes “to fund the revolution.”

This defining moment occurred somewhere in southern Missouri, as two radical traveling companions and I were en route to a Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) convention at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. During a rambling conversation, I mistakenly perceived that my two pals had discovered I was a cop and were dropping little hints about it, leading me to believe my life was in danger. Of note is the fact that, at the time, I had no contact with my police superiors, they had no way of knowing my location and I had no backup whatsoever. I could have easily been killed and dumped in a ditch along the road — a crime that likely would never have been solved. I thought that I had been “outed” as a cop and that I was in imminent danger, so I foolishly felt I had to address the issue in some manner. I grabbed one of them by the collar, told him that I was tired of his accusations and threatened to beat the s—t out of him. Both guys apologized profusely for whatever they might have mistakenly said and assured me that they knew I was not a cop. It was then that I realized I had made a horrible mistake, letting my paranoia cloud my judgment and cause me to overreact. That moment also drove home the adage that “the truth hurts.” Fortunately, my two pals did not come to the same realization! From that moment in southern Missouri to this day, my suspicions would rise whenever I encountered someone overreacting to a situation — because, as I learned that day, the truth does indeed hurt!

The greatest satisfaction must come from within

The final defining moment occurred when I was an LAPD captain in Hollywood Area, which had just been rocked to its core by the discovery that two of our police officers had been committing burglaries while on duty and in uniform. Ugly is too kind a word to describe the consternation and heartbreak we all felt, which led to the forced retirement of my boss, who was a good man but not up to the challenges of the assignment. I believed that I was up to the challenges of the assignment and that I was going to be promoted into his position. I had worked very hard on the investigation and in providing the leadership deemed essential to get the command back on track, and was just waiting for the congratulatory call regarding my advancement.

The call came alright, but it was not what I had expected. Instead of being promoted in place, I was being transferred to a much less challenging assignment, which could only be interpreted as an indication that I was not suitable for the advancement. Worse yet, my boss told me that my transfer would be among the items reported on the following day in the L.A. Times. I was humiliated beyond description and could not fathom how I would face my fellow command officers, including at a meeting the following morning, which my boss excused me from attending. Shortly after hanging up the phone, I experienced another defining moment that, from that point forward, has shaped a major part of my performance as a command officer. The reality that politics and perceptions are not always fair or accurate, and that it is essential to derive satisfaction primarily from knowing internally that you have done your best, keeping your head held high and not faltering when things do not work out as hoped. At the following day’s meeting, I was the first to arrive and the last to leave! I remain deeply grateful for this defining moment and feel that it has contributed to the several successes I have achieved during my civilian and military careers.

A question for readers

I hope this article helps in identifying the extraordinary defining moments in your life — the ones that, from that moment on, shaped your character and potentially altered the trajectory of your life. What were your truly defining moments?