The Voice of Reason: A V.I.P. Pass to Enlightenment by Chael Sonnen Read Free Book Online Page B

they became declawed kittens lying on their bellies whenever anyone in the world raised the slightest stink about what we do to defend ourselves.
    But once it was done, once that serial killer was sent to hell, where he belongs, the liberals used his justified death as a way to give President Obama a big “attaboy,” while bypassing questions about his other atrocious policy decisions. And let’s be real here for a minute. It’s not like the president fast-roped out of a chopper with the SEALs team himself, with a knife in his teeth and a SIG P226 on his hip. And it’s not even like it was his idea. (It might have been, had President Bush not already bravely instituted the policy of our nation as it applies to terrorists by saying, “We will bring you to justice, or we will bring justice to you.”) But to be perfectly fair and honest, when the time came, when the question was put to President Obama about what do when Bin Laden’s whereabouts were discovered, when the moral weight was on his shoulders and his shoulders alone, President Obama did the right thing .
    Let me go on record here and say:
    “President Obama: When they told you they had Bin Laden pegged, trapped in that filthy rat hole of a house, and they asked you to make a decision about what to do with him, you stepped up . You ordered the Navy SEALs to kill him. You did the right thing. You showed the courage, resolution, and conviction of the leader of the free world. I was proud of you, and proud to be an American with you as my president. I don’t agree with many of the things you do or believe in, but you are my president and I want you to succeed for the sake of my country. I would prefer you to succeed and for me to be wrong for the sake of this nation. But I reserve the right to disagree with you, and feel safe, and comfortable, and free from the fear of reprisal should I publicly or privately support different candidates with different ideas in the future.”
    I love my country.

 

Greatness
     
    hen I was young I needed great people to help me realize my own potential. These people often came in the form of wrestling coaches. My first coach, Dave Sanville, did more than train me; he beat any shreds of indifference I might have had into submission. Don’t forget that I coach wrestling on a daily basis, and I can say from personal experience that a lot of the kids who appear, to the untrained eye, to be mediocre actually have truckloads of talent. The reason they seem so average is that they don’t care, and more to the point, they don’t see a reason to care. The moment you give a kid a reason to give a darn, you have opened the door to his infinite potential. Dave went a step further; he opened the door, put up a welcome banner and gave me a set of keys, and then kicked me straight through the doorway before apathy could set in.
    My college wrestling coaches, the great Ron Finley and Roy Pittman, built on that solid foundation and inspired me to know no limits.
    Let me share a short anecdote about the sort of man who has the vision to shape a future generation into greatness. Awhile ago I was informed that Coach Finley was in the hospital, and his condition looked pretty grave. I dropped everything I was doing and drove hundreds of miles to his bedside. I brought him some cookies the size of Frisbees as a “don’t die on me” incentive, and I walked into his room expecting to see my frail coach, mentor, and early adulthood hero for the last time.
    I expected him to be a wreck, but Coach looked like Coach always did, aside from the silly hospital gown that showed more of him than I really cared to see. He also sounded like he always did. Between bites of the chocolate-chip supercookie, he reminisced about the training misery that he put us through, and he told me to go run two miles in twelve minutes on the hospital grounds because it was “easy.”

     
    A man in a hospital gown with a wrinkly butt and a potentially fatal condition was