Just Because I Was Uncomfortable Doesn’t Mean I’m Incapable

Following is this Veteran’s Day speech given today at Oskaloosa (Iowa) High School.

Good morning.  

First, I want to thank everyone who helped put this assembly together, and I especially want to recognize every veteran who is here with us today. 

For those of you who don’t know me, my story started right here. I graduated from Oskaloosa High School in 2019. I sat in these classrooms, walked these hallways, went to games and school events, had teachers and coaches here, and spent plenty of time wondering what I was going to do with my life after graduation. Like a lot of you, I didn’t have everything figured out. 

Two weeks after I graduated, I left Oskaloosa and headed to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for Basic Combat Training. That transition happened fast. One minute I was a high school student in Iowa, and the next I was being told when to wake up, when to eat, where to stand, what to wear, how quickly to move, and exactly what was expected of me. By October of 2019, I had completed Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training as a field artilleryman. From there, I was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, where I would spend the next four years serving with 4-27 Field Artillery. 

During my time in the Army, I received the Armed Forces Service Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, Army Service Ribbon, National Defense Service Medal, Army Achievement Medal, and a Certificate of Achievement. I eventually earned the rank of Sergeant, and I did that at just 20 years old. 

I tell you those things because they sound very different when you hear them today than they felt while I was living them. Looking back, it is easy to see the accomplishments. In the moment, I remember the uncertainty. I remember being young, inexperienced, and being trusted with responsibilities I wasn’t always sure I was ready to carry. 

That is where the message I want to give you today really comes from: just because I was uncomfortable didn’t mean I was incapable. 

There is a big difference between those two things, but when you are standing in the middle of a difficult situation, they can feel exactly the same. Something gets hard and your mind starts giving you reasons to back away. You tell yourself, “I can’t do this. I’m not ready. I’m too young. I don’t belong here. I’m not good enough.” Sometimes those thoughts are telling you something important. But other times, what you are really feeling is simply discomfort. You are doing something unfamiliar, something difficult, or something that demands more from you than you have had to give before.

 I learned that difference very quickly in the Army. 

When I became a Sergeant at 20 years old, I didn’t suddenly wake up feeling older or wiser. I was still 20. I still had questions. I still made mistakes. I still had moments where I wondered whether I knew enough to lead other soldiers. The difference was that other people were now depending on me. They needed direction. They needed decisions. They needed someone who could stay composed when things weren’t going according to plan

That responsibility forced me to change the way I thought about leadership. I had always imagined leaders as people who seemed completely confident and always knew what to do. What I learned instead was that leadership often means moving forward before you feel completely ready. 

Leadership is taking responsibility when it would be easier to point at someone else. It is asking questions when you don’t know the answer instead of pretending that you do. It is admitting when you make a mistake. It is taking care of the people around you. It is setting the standard through your actions. And sometimes it means making a decision while a part of you is still wondering whether you are the right person to make it. 

That lesson matters here because leadership does not begin when you reach a certain age. Some of you in this room are already leaders, whether you realize it or not. You may be a captain, an upperclassman, an older sibling, an employee, or somebody a younger student looks up to. Leadership might simply mean being the person who does the right thing when everyone else is waiting for somebody else to do it first. You don’t have to wait until you are 30 or 40 years old to become someone worth following. Sometimes responsibility comes first, and confidence has to catch up late.

That was another major lesson I learned in the Army. Confidence usually comes after the difficult thing, not before it.  We tend to think confident people never doubt themselves. I don’t think that is true. 

Confidence is often just evidence. It is proof you have collected from the difficult things you have already survived. 

Think about the first day you practiced a sport, started a job, walked into a weight room, stood in front of a class to give a presentation, or tried something you weren’t sure you would be good at. Before you did it, you probably felt uncomfortable. Then you made it through. Maybe you weren’t perfect, but you handled it. The next time something difficult came along, you had one more reason to believe you could handle that too. 

Over time, that changes the way you see challenges. Instead of spending your life hoping nothing difficult ever happens, you start believing that if something difficult does happen, you will figure out what to do next.

The Army gave me plenty of opportunities to build that kind of evidence. There were early mornings when I was exhausted, long days when I was frustrated, and times when I was cold, hot, hungry, sore, or completely over whatever we were doing. There were responsibilities I didn’t feel prepared for and situations where there was no perfect answer waiting for me. 

But every one of those experiences taught me something. I learned that frustration was temporary. I learned that nervousness did not automatically mean I was unprepared. I learned that being young did not prevent me from leading. Most importantly, I learned that failing at something did not make me a failure. 

That mindset followed me when I left the Army and eventually came back to this community as a coach. One of the things I try to teach athletes is that challenge has a purpose. There are going to be days when a workout is difficult, when practice goes badly, when I demand more focus, or when somebody has to take accountability for a mistake. Those moments aren’t always fun, but they can reveal things about you that comfort never will. 

You learn whether you can respond after something goes wrong. You learn whether you can keep working when the excitement wears off. You learn whether you can be a good teammate when you are frustrated. You learn whether you can take correction without taking it personally. You learn whether you can continue when quitting would be easier. 

And sometimes you discover there was more in you than you realized. That idea connects directly to another lesson military service taught me: your life cannot always be about you. 

The Army makes that clear very quickly because you become part of a team where your actions affect everyone around you. If you are late, someone else feels it. If you don’t know your job, somebody else has to compensate for it. If you are unprepared, someone else may pay the price. And when the team succeeds, you learn pretty quickly that very little is accomplished completely alone. 

That changed the way I think about service. 

A lot of the time, we naturally ask, “What do I get out of this?” But service asks a different question: “What can I contribute?” Who depends on you? Your family? Your teammates? Your classmates? Your coaches? Your coworkers? Your friends? Maybe someone younger than you who watches how you respond when things become difficult. 

Communities become stronger when people understand that they have responsibilities to one another. That is one of the reasons Veterans Day matters. 

Veterans Day gives us the opportunity to recognize men and women who made a decision to serve something beyond themselves. They gave their time, their energy, and in many cases years of their lives to something larger than their individual wants or comfort. 

But I also think it is important that we remember veterans are people.

They came from communities like Oskaloosa. They sat in classrooms like these. They played sports, joined activities, worked jobs, spent time with friends, worried about their futures, and tried to figure out what they wanted their lives to look like. They had doubts. They had fears. They made mistakes. They had families they cared about and goals they wanted to accomplish. 

And at some point, they raised their right hand and agreed to serve. 

To me, that makes their service more meaningful, not less. Courage does not require the absence of fear. Often, courage is simply deciding that something matters enough to move forward even when fear is present. 

That brings me back to discomfort. 

We spend a lot of our lives trying to avoid it. We want things to go smoothly. We want success quickly. We don’t want to be embarrassed. We don’t want to fail. We don’t want to be the beginner who doesn’t know what he or she is doing.

But almost everything worth becoming good at requires a period where you are Uncomfortable. 

Athletes do not get stronger without resistance. Teams do not improve without difficult practices. Students do not learn by only answering questions they already know. 

Leaders do not grow by only making easy decisions. And people do not become resilient by living lives where nothing ever goes wrong. 

That doesn’t mean every uncomfortable situation is good, and it doesn’t mean you should stay in situations that are harmful. It simply means discomfort by itself is not proof that you should stop. 

Sometimes you need to stay with something a little longer. Sometimes you need to learn. Sometimes you need to change your approach. Sometimes you need to ask for help. Sometimes you need to admit that you were wrong. Sometimes you need to try again. 

And when those moments come, I want you to ask yourself one question: “Am I actually incapable of doing this, or am I simply uncomfortable because this is asking something new of me?”

Maybe that question will come up in a difficult class. Maybe it will happen during a season that isn’t going the way you wanted. Maybe it will happen when you start your first real job. Maybe somebody will ask you to lead before you feel qualified. Maybe you will have to take responsibility for a mistake. Maybe you will graduate from this school and suddenly realize you have no idea what comes next. 

Those moments can make you question yourself. But uncertainty is not the same thing as inability.

When I think back to 2019, that is what stands out to me most. I went from sitting in Oskaloosa High School to Fort Sill just two weeks after graduation. Within a few months, I had finished Basic Training and AIT and moved to Fort Bliss. Not long after that, I found myself taking on more responsibility than I had ever had before, and at 20 years old, I became a Sergeant responsible for leading soldiers. 

None of those moments came with a voice telling me, “You are officially ready now.” I grew into those responsibilities by doing them. And that is probably one of the biggest things the military gave me. It taught me that I did not need to eliminate discomfort before moving forward. I needed to learn how to move through it. 

As I stand here today, looking out at the same school I graduated from seven years ago, I think about how much my life has changed. At 18 years old, I was a kid who had no idea what the future would hold. I was about to leave everything I had ever known and enter a world that would challenge me physically, mentally, and emotionally. 

And if there’s one lesson the Army taught me, it’s this: 

Just because you’re uncomfortable doesn’t mean you’re incapable. 

You’re going to face challenges in life. You’re going to experience failure. You’re going to find yourself in situations where quitting feels a whole lot easier than continuing. 

But I promise you, you are capable of more than you realize. 

And I want to leave you with something else. I believe, with every fiber of my being, that the United States of America is THE greatest country in the world. 

Not one of the greatest. THE greatest. 

Not because we’re perfect. We’re not. But because of the freedoms we enjoy, the opportunities we have, and the generations of Americans who were willing to sacrifice everything to protect them. 

I am incredibly proud to have served in the United States Army. But I’m even prouder to be an American. 

And, to every student sitting here today understand something. You do not have to wear a uniform to serve your country. 

You can serve by being a leader. By helping your neighbor. By standing up for what’s right. By making your school, your community, and your country better than you found them. That’s what service is about. It’s about understanding that your life should stand for something bigger than yourself.

So, when you walk out of this gymnasium today, I want you to remember three things. 

1. Never mistake being uncomfortable for being incapable. 

2. Never take for granted the freedoms that others sacrificed to protect. 

3. And never underestimate your ability to make a difference in the greatest country on the face of this earth. 

To the veterans here today, thank you for your service, your sacrifices, and the example you’ve set for generations like mine. 

To the students, the future of this country belongs to you. What you choose to do with that responsibility is entirely up to you. 

Be disciplined.  

Be courageous.

Be someone worth following. 

God bless every man and woman who has worn the uniform. 

God bless this community. 

And God bless the United States of America. 

Thank you. 

A 2019 graduate of Oskaloosa High School, Hunter Else served four years in the United States Army as a Field Artilleryman with 4-27 Field Artillery at Fort Bliss, Texas. During military service, he rose to the rank of Sergeant at age 20 and received multiple military honors, including the Army Achievement Medal and Army Good Conduct Medal. Drawing from experiences in leadership, service, and personal growth, Hunter writes about resilience, character development, and the lessons learned through challenge and adversity. Now serving as a manager at Pella Windows & Doors, and a coach and mentor in the local community, he is passionate about helping young people develop confidence, embrace responsibility, and discover that discomfort is often the pathway to growth. His granddaddy, Andy Oldham, is extremely proud of the man Hunter has become.