We Leave Footprints

If you are a person of faith, one who thinks the soul lives on, beyond the demise of carbon and water, you have a worldview. Yours is mine. We also have a kind of “immortality by teaching.” We leave footprints, and others follow them. 

As we watch modern leaders stumble, make poor decisions, and hear fiery arguments more than friendly, kids need a compass. We are their compass.

We all have people in our lives who influenced us, some for better, some worse, but we all followed footsteps – even we curmudgeonly, independent types.

What we forget is that, even as we wander and wonder, err and stumble, fall and get back up, correct and carry on, others watch – and learn, especially kids.

Teachers – and we are all teachers – have an outsized impact on the young if the world gets rough, if uncertainty crests and fear comes. We are on those seas now.

One blessing in my life has been good teachers, from a single mother who raised four kids with resilience and enthusiasm, expectation and accountability, to other teachers in rural Maine, who did not give up on a single child, not one.

Later, my life intersected some better-known names. I worked for Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush, later daily with Colin Powell.

Their consistency, belief in the possible, dogged refusal to lose compass was infective. They knew they were not only leading, but teaching.

Not every decision made was right, but they consistently tried to make the right decision, consulting their moral compass and what was best for America.

By doing so, they left footprints. The paths they took are discernible. We can learn from them. Reagan stepped from the private sector to lead, George HW Bush served in private and public sectors, Powell in military and civilian roles.

All three wore the uniform of this country with distinction. They all signed up, felt our country was worth dying for, did not look back. They took risks, willingly.

Reagan and GHW Bush did so in WWII, was America’s youngest naval aviator. Colin Powell – a black man in a white world – rose to Reagan’s National Security Advisor, GHW Bush’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, his son’s Secretary of State.

All loved God, their families, and this country – without reservation, limitation, or resentment, and considered service of the nation’s ideals the highest calling.

Perhaps most, and true also of my mother and many teachers, these three understood the power of teaching, the idea that how you act influences others.

They knew they were educating with their decisions. Thus, while my mother and schoolteachers delivered bushels of life lessons, those three leaders also taught.

Reagan modeled love of liberty, people, and education with unblinking consistency, even derided for his views, faith, and idea that evil must be fought.

Reagan reminded us, 40 years ago, that America has “always had a love affair with learning” because we are “a melting pot.” And “education has been a mainspring of our democracy and freedom,” “providing…knowledge and opportunity to all citizens, no matter how humble their background…”

He pulled no punches, saying government can never replace parents, grandparents, or average citizens when it comes to education.

“Our traditions…have been under siege” by “growth of a huge education bureaucracy” and “parents…reduced to outsiders…even God, source of all knowledge…expelled from the classrooms.” And that was in 1983.

While he wanted change, he knew the best teacher is example. “Can we not begin…by setting an example for children…?” he asked.

GHW Bush was on that same wave, wanted to become “the education president.” His life was a testament to education, service, and honor, his wife’s to literacy. 

In 1991, GHW Bush wrote: “For all of us…adults who think our school days are over, we’ve got to become a nation of students, recognizing learning is a lifelong process,” and keep teaching.

Colin Powell taught America every day, dropped notes to kids, encouraged those who worked for him to bring kids to work, mentor, give time, teach by example.

In a way, Powell said it best. He said what we know: We leave footsteps with what we do and how we do it, what we prioritize, and how we treat others.

Among Powell’s gems: “Always do your best because someone is watching,” “If you are going to achieve excellence in big things develop the habit in little matters,” “There is no end to the good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit,” and “do not step on enthusiasm” – especially a child’s enthusiasm. He added, “Optimism is a force multiplier.”

In short, we all leave footsteps, whether we know it or not. Someone will follow, so make them good. The universe may reclaim our carbon and water, but it cannot reclaim what we give away, leave in care of others, including lessons about caring.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.