Uncle Vic and the Gurkha

In the War, my Uncle Vic fought in the Italian Campaign. He came home with his medals and his stories. One such story which most caught my fancy was that of his encounter with one of the legendary Gurkhas who fought alongside the Allies as they fought their way up the Italian peninsula.

The Gurkhas did most of their work silently in the dark. So silently, in fact, that their victims often never knew who was taking their life. It was under such circumstances when Uncle Vic, sleeping under the stars, woke with a start to feel a hand on his boot. The fingers moved to the front of the boot, felt the laces, and released. The voice in the darkness whispered, “OK, Tommy!” and the Gurkha moved on, his dagger flashing in the moonlight. A few moments later, though, an Axis soldier would not be so lucky.

As we know, the Axis soldiers wore laceless jackboots, the Allied wore laced-up boots, and “Tommy” was the nickname applied generally to Allied soldiers in Italy. That night, Uncle Vic was very glad to be a Tommy with laced boots.

There are perhaps no soldiers more professional than the Gurkhas, and every other profession can take a lesson from them. You see, it’s not the glory or the razzle-dazzle that they seek, it’s the effective result.

As professionals it’s so easy to let our status go to our heads, to strut just a little (or a lot). As a lawyer fully gowned, striding through the halls of the courthouse, you do feel a little special, and I’ve observed more than one doctor wearing the stethoscope not as a medical instrument but as a glistening badge of office. We can all do it, one way or another.

But great professionals don’t strut. They don’t need to. They’re satisfied in knowing that they are accomplishing something that few others can, something of high value and importance to society. The very best professionals are usually the most modest. They know that the achievement is its own reward.