Command Sgt. Maj. Brings Motivational Message To Local Students
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By David [email protected]
But after being asked to give two more years, Rivera agreed in order to help kids. He is taking his motivational message to area high schools this week, and speaks at the Warsaw Community Public Library tonight from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tonight's forum is in Room C, open to the public, and geared toward adults and teens.[[In-content Ad]]"My main focus is two-fold," Rivera said during an interview Monday afternoon. "No. 1 is to motivate kids to stay in school, and help them also to develop a career plan. No. 2, also helping the Recruiting Command to bring young men and women to the Armed Forces, especially the Army."
Rivera said, because of the school drop-out rate in America, "we have to do something to motivate the kids to stay in school." While teachers may tell their students all along to stay in school, sometimes it may take someone like Rivera with combat experience to motivate the students, he said.
"You have to understand, right now, 45 to 48 percent of the high school (students) across the nation are not graduating from high school. That for me is an epidemic."
With time, if the drop-out rate continues, Rivera said, the U.S. won't have the professionals it has now.
"As you know, when we don't have that many educated people, then crime goes up," Rivera said. Young men and women need to be encouraged to graduate from high school and then given choices.
Keeping that in mind, Rivera also is promoting the U.S. Army's Planning for Life program. The program works to help students stay in high school and graduate.
"For example, right now, only two out of every 10 teenagers actually qualify into the Army. A lot of things have to do with not graduating from high school, felony charges, dealing with drugs, gangs, alcoholism, problems at home. For 17-24 (year olds), the No. 1 death is suicide. We realize they don't have hope in life."
As a spokesman for the Army, Rivera said he's trying to bring that hope and let them know there are options, not just with the military.
"There are many opportunities out there that were not afforded to me when I was a young man," Rivera said. "I am bringing at least some type of hope to that young generation, not just to Warsaw but across the nation."
At the forum at WCPL tonight, Rivera said, "We'll be talking about Planning For Life, which is basically talking about mind, body and soul."
For the mind, Rivera said he will harp on education "to explain to the audience, as long as you graduate from school, they can take your dignity away, they can put you in prison for life, but no one can ever take your education away."
On the body, Rivera said obesity in America is growing every day. For example, he said, he looked at the statistics for Indiana from 1958 to 1998. Obesity only changed from 1 to 2 percent. Looking at 1998 to 2010, that percentage changes 20 to 30 percent. There are states in America where 60 percent of the people are obese.
In the Army, Rivera said, they combat stress by dealing first with physical fitness so the soldiers can do their job. "Then we train the soldiers to standard, to make sure they know their job to be able to survive combat, in any situation, whether they're in a hostile situation or not," he said.
"Then the next thing we do, the next two biggest things we do, to make sure they say stress-free, is civilian education. We do that in combat. I've had six soldiers of mine finish an associate's degree while they were in combat, and they had no college credit whatsoever.
"And the last thing we have is chapel, we deal with spirit readiness.
"So a combination of learning their job to standards, physical fitness, spiritual fitness and civil education is what (helps) the guys not feel so stressful.
"I believe, if more Americans would take that approach, learn their jobs to the best of their abilities, maintain some level of fitness - physically and spiritually - and they continue their education, then I believe we'd have less stressed people."
The Army has evolved a lot since the Vietnam War and the Cold War with Russia, Rivera said. During the Cold War, soldiers used to be trained with the mindset that they could go to war in the next two hours.
"Now, we know where the enemy is at. Now, soldiers know 18 months out when they are going to deploy. They know exactly when they are leaving and how they are leaving, so that threat of going to combat, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't exist," Rivera said.
Soldiers and their families are prepared in advance of what is to be expected.
Rivera said, "For me, the biggest challenge you have as a soldier is the individual soldier that has never been to combat, and he doesn't know the unknown. In other words, he doesn't know what he's going to face in combat. So that soldier puts a stress on himself because he doesn't know what's going to happen across the water. But once they get there, they realize it's not as bad as they thought."
Most soldiers, Rivera said, will tell you they had a great time in combat. War is war, he said, but there are places in the U.S. where even he's afraid to go out at night time. At least in combat, he said, he has a gun and he's trained to do the job that he has to do.
"My point is, when we go to combat, we are trained, we are prepared, and we have the equipment necessary to survive in combat. War is war. Casualties are going to happen, it's something we can't prevent, but it's just like we can't prevent a drunk driver from hitting a guy in the United States. It happens all the time," Rivera said.
Rivera's most recent deployment was to Afghanistan, where he served 16 consecutive months.
"I believe what I did in Afghanistan was good. I went to Afghanistan, spent 16 months in Afghanistan. We built roads, we built hospitals, we built clinics. We provided medical care to the locals. We trained the police officers, we trained the border police, we trained the Army. Their economy is basically non-existent because their dollar, when we got there, was from Pakistan. Now they've got their own dollar, they've got their own Afghani way of dollar. I was there and I would do it again because we do a lot of good in a country that needs it," Rivera said.
Now, Rivera and the Army are working to change the U.S. for the better through the Planning For Life program.
The U.S., as a nation, he said, talking about the doctors, police officers, lawyers, judges, politicians, needs to donate some of its time to its own community to mentor high school or middle school students. Help them develop a career plan.
"I believe if America comes together, and help us in that cause, I believe the drop out rate would go down just for the fact that kids will see some hope in their lives, especially when we come together as a nation," Rivera said.
But after being asked to give two more years, Rivera agreed in order to help kids. He is taking his motivational message to area high schools this week, and speaks at the Warsaw Community Public Library tonight from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tonight's forum is in Room C, open to the public, and geared toward adults and teens.[[In-content Ad]]"My main focus is two-fold," Rivera said during an interview Monday afternoon. "No. 1 is to motivate kids to stay in school, and help them also to develop a career plan. No. 2, also helping the Recruiting Command to bring young men and women to the Armed Forces, especially the Army."
Rivera said, because of the school drop-out rate in America, "we have to do something to motivate the kids to stay in school." While teachers may tell their students all along to stay in school, sometimes it may take someone like Rivera with combat experience to motivate the students, he said.
"You have to understand, right now, 45 to 48 percent of the high school (students) across the nation are not graduating from high school. That for me is an epidemic."
With time, if the drop-out rate continues, Rivera said, the U.S. won't have the professionals it has now.
"As you know, when we don't have that many educated people, then crime goes up," Rivera said. Young men and women need to be encouraged to graduate from high school and then given choices.
Keeping that in mind, Rivera also is promoting the U.S. Army's Planning for Life program. The program works to help students stay in high school and graduate.
"For example, right now, only two out of every 10 teenagers actually qualify into the Army. A lot of things have to do with not graduating from high school, felony charges, dealing with drugs, gangs, alcoholism, problems at home. For 17-24 (year olds), the No. 1 death is suicide. We realize they don't have hope in life."
As a spokesman for the Army, Rivera said he's trying to bring that hope and let them know there are options, not just with the military.
"There are many opportunities out there that were not afforded to me when I was a young man," Rivera said. "I am bringing at least some type of hope to that young generation, not just to Warsaw but across the nation."
At the forum at WCPL tonight, Rivera said, "We'll be talking about Planning For Life, which is basically talking about mind, body and soul."
For the mind, Rivera said he will harp on education "to explain to the audience, as long as you graduate from school, they can take your dignity away, they can put you in prison for life, but no one can ever take your education away."
On the body, Rivera said obesity in America is growing every day. For example, he said, he looked at the statistics for Indiana from 1958 to 1998. Obesity only changed from 1 to 2 percent. Looking at 1998 to 2010, that percentage changes 20 to 30 percent. There are states in America where 60 percent of the people are obese.
In the Army, Rivera said, they combat stress by dealing first with physical fitness so the soldiers can do their job. "Then we train the soldiers to standard, to make sure they know their job to be able to survive combat, in any situation, whether they're in a hostile situation or not," he said.
"Then the next thing we do, the next two biggest things we do, to make sure they say stress-free, is civilian education. We do that in combat. I've had six soldiers of mine finish an associate's degree while they were in combat, and they had no college credit whatsoever.
"And the last thing we have is chapel, we deal with spirit readiness.
"So a combination of learning their job to standards, physical fitness, spiritual fitness and civil education is what (helps) the guys not feel so stressful.
"I believe, if more Americans would take that approach, learn their jobs to the best of their abilities, maintain some level of fitness - physically and spiritually - and they continue their education, then I believe we'd have less stressed people."
The Army has evolved a lot since the Vietnam War and the Cold War with Russia, Rivera said. During the Cold War, soldiers used to be trained with the mindset that they could go to war in the next two hours.
"Now, we know where the enemy is at. Now, soldiers know 18 months out when they are going to deploy. They know exactly when they are leaving and how they are leaving, so that threat of going to combat, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't exist," Rivera said.
Soldiers and their families are prepared in advance of what is to be expected.
Rivera said, "For me, the biggest challenge you have as a soldier is the individual soldier that has never been to combat, and he doesn't know the unknown. In other words, he doesn't know what he's going to face in combat. So that soldier puts a stress on himself because he doesn't know what's going to happen across the water. But once they get there, they realize it's not as bad as they thought."
Most soldiers, Rivera said, will tell you they had a great time in combat. War is war, he said, but there are places in the U.S. where even he's afraid to go out at night time. At least in combat, he said, he has a gun and he's trained to do the job that he has to do.
"My point is, when we go to combat, we are trained, we are prepared, and we have the equipment necessary to survive in combat. War is war. Casualties are going to happen, it's something we can't prevent, but it's just like we can't prevent a drunk driver from hitting a guy in the United States. It happens all the time," Rivera said.
Rivera's most recent deployment was to Afghanistan, where he served 16 consecutive months.
"I believe what I did in Afghanistan was good. I went to Afghanistan, spent 16 months in Afghanistan. We built roads, we built hospitals, we built clinics. We provided medical care to the locals. We trained the police officers, we trained the border police, we trained the Army. Their economy is basically non-existent because their dollar, when we got there, was from Pakistan. Now they've got their own dollar, they've got their own Afghani way of dollar. I was there and I would do it again because we do a lot of good in a country that needs it," Rivera said.
Now, Rivera and the Army are working to change the U.S. for the better through the Planning For Life program.
The U.S., as a nation, he said, talking about the doctors, police officers, lawyers, judges, politicians, needs to donate some of its time to its own community to mentor high school or middle school students. Help them develop a career plan.
"I believe if America comes together, and help us in that cause, I believe the drop out rate would go down just for the fact that kids will see some hope in their lives, especially when we come together as a nation," Rivera said.
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