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missed the opportunity to teach Stacy, Paul, and me. We saw Gettysburg, Manassas, Plymouth, Jamestown, Mount Rushmore … and Dad was our tour guide. It was no wonder I fell under the spell of some of the giantsof American history. Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln were at the top of my list for their ability to lead and for their taking of risks to decide the fate of the country. I liked their stubbornness, too. That is another O’Grady trait. If you pursue something, pursue it with all your heart.
    After I entered high school, I began to think seriously of the military as a profession. A lot of kids my age didn’t care about patriotism or serving their country, but my friends and I had a different view. We never understood why Vietnam veterans were treated so poorly by the American public or why the military had such a black eye from the Vietnam conflict. Maybe I was old-fashioned, or was modeling myself after my dad, but to me no goal was more honorable than joining the military. With my love of flying, the U.S. Air Force became my new focus.
    I was feeling very grown-up. I tried to convince my parents to let me convert our basement family room into my personal apartment. I could have my own space, I explained, and come and go freely, staying out of their hair. The idea was politely rejected, along with my suggestion—when I had my first driver’s license—that my parents buy me a Ferrari sports car. No matter. Entering high school, I let them know I was mature enough to handle any problems that came my way. They were kind enough to nod and say nothing.
    While I had many good friends, I was hardly part ofthe in crowd at Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane. Serious about my future in the military, for a while I considered transferring to a high-school military academy. In the end, I stayed at Lewis and Clark and worked toward my goals. In academics, I took home decent grades, but I was far from a whiz. In athletics, I had some skills, particularly in soccer, but I was no natural. Nothing came easily for me. I had to put in twice the effort that most kids did to achieve the same results.
    I was no star, but because I was such a big dreamer, I decided that besides soccer, I would add football to my after-school schedule. I thought the really cool guys played football. Because of my relatively small size, there weren’t too many positions I could seriously consider. But with my soccer skills and after much practice, I made the varsity football team as a placekicker.
    All season I was stranded on the bench—the coach let the starters do the kicking—until the biggest game of the year, against archrival Gonzaga Prep. It was an important game, not just for the prestige of having bragging rights for the year, but because I had briefly attended Gonzaga as a freshman and wanted to show off to my former classmates. Maybe the coach knew, because just after we had scored a touchdown, he ordered me into the game. I looked at him from the other end of the bench as if there might be a mistake.
    “O’Grady,” he repeated, “get in there and kick the extra point.” I was so nervous as I trotted onto the field that when the ball was finally snapped to the holder, I was late in my timing. My kick got blocked. This had been my chance to be a hero, and I had flubbed it. I was so embarrassed and frustrated that I did a spontaneous frontward flip right on the field, which gave my coaches a good laugh when they reviewed the game film the next day. I never got to kick again.
    My pride took longer to heal than my body, but I learned an important lesson. I didn’t have to win popularity contests to be happy. If I did what I wanted—and not what I thought the crowd wanted—and if I did it well, I would have respect for myself.
    That summer, with Dad’s encouragement, I put in the hours to earn my private pilot’s license, flying out of nearby Felts Field. I can’t boast that I was an immediate success. Like everything else I had