What the Navy Taught Me About Perspective

I joined the Navy at barely 18 and got deployed to the Middle East for Desert Shield and Desert Storm right out of boot camp. I sat on ships for years, traveled the world before I was old enough to drink. That experience shaped how I think about life - and eventually, technology - more than I realized.

This isn't a story about combat heroics. It's about what happens when you're young, far from home, and suddenly exposed to a much bigger world. The Navy taught me perspective by showing me how different the world looks from outside. That early exposure became foundational to my decades-long career in technology.

Shipped Out Before I Knew Anything

Most people start their careers with some kind of preparation. School. Training. Mentorship. I got boot camp, then a deployment to the Middle East during an actual war.

There's something clarifying about being thrown into the deep end when you're 18. You learn fast that the world doesn't care how ready you feel. The ship sails whether you're prepared or not. The mission happens whether you understand it or not. You figure things out or you don't.

That lesson stuck with me through every startup, every crisis, every moment where I felt in over my head. As military career advisors note, this adaptability is why veterans transition well into tech. The ship sails anyway. You adapt.

The World Is Bigger Than You Think

Before the Navy, my world was small. Afterward, I'd been to the Middle East, crossed oceans, seen how people lived in places I couldn't have found on a map before enlisting. At an age when most people are figuring out college, I was watching the sun set over the Persian Gulf.

Travel at that age rewires how you think. You realize the way you grew up isn't the only way. Problems you thought were universal are local. Assumptions you thought were obvious are cultural. It's hard to be provincial after years on the water, seeing port after port.

When I got into technology, that perspective helped. Every market I entered, every product I worked on, every team I joined - I already knew my assumptions might be wrong. The Navy taught me that by showing me how wrong my assumptions about everything had been.

The Missouri's Last Crew

I ended up on the USS Missouri, but not for the glamorous part of its history. I was part of the decommissioning crew - the people who shut it down, preserved it, and prepared it to become a museum. We were ending something, not starting it.

There's a different kind of work in decommissioning. You're not building toward a mission. You're carefully closing things out. Making sure the records are complete. Making sure the systems are properly shut down. Making sure what gets passed on to history is accurate and preserved.

I got a commendation from the captain for that work. It wasn't combat. It wasn't heroic. But it mattered. The Missouri is a museum in Pearl Harbor now - the same ship where I once witnessed a historic drone demonstration - and the work we did during decommissioning is part of why it's preserved correctly.

That experience taught me something about endings. In tech, we're obsessed with starting things - new companies, new products, new features. But knowing how to end things well is just as important. Sunsetting products gracefully. Shutting down services without losing data. Transitioning systems to new owners. The decommissioning mindset is underrated.

Most Days Were Boring

Here's the truth that veteran stories often skip: most of my Navy service was boring. Long days on ships. Routine maintenance. Watches where nothing happened. The excitement was occasional; the monotony was constant.

That's actually good preparation for building things. Most of the work in any successful company is boring. The dramatic moments - the launches, the crises, the breakthroughs - are rare. The daily grind is what actually matters. Showing up. Doing the routine work well. Not screwing up the basics.

Software engineers romanticize the 10x moments, the brilliant insights, the heroic debugging sessions. But the engineers I respect most are the ones who do the boring work consistently. They write tests. They update documentation. They review PRs carefully. The Navy taught me to respect the boring parts.

You're Part of Something Larger

On a ship, you're never the main character. The ship is the main character. You're one of hundreds of people keeping it running. Your job matters, but it matters because it connects to everyone else's job. No one is individually essential; everyone is collectively essential.

That's a useful mindset for startups. Founders like to think they're the main character. But the company is the main character. The product is the main character. Your job is to serve something larger than yourself. Harvard Business Review found veterans bring this mission-first mentality to entrepreneurship. If you're doing it for ego, you're doing it wrong.

The Early Out

I signed up for four years. I served one year and ten months. After Desert Shield and Desert Storm, the Navy had spent so much on the war that they offered "early outs" to reduce personnel costs. A lot of people took them. I was one of them.

I ended my Navy career on a tender - a support ship that services other vessels. Not glamorous. Not a combat role. Just the quiet work of keeping other ships operational. I got out with an honorable discharge, having done my time and done it well.

I liked the experience. It was more than enough. Some people make the military a career. For me, it was a chapter - an important one that shaped everything after, but a chapter with a clear ending.

In retrospect, that's a pretty good metaphor for a lot of what I've done since. Building tools that help other people build things. Creating infrastructure that others rely on. Supporting the people doing the visible work. Not every job is the spotlight. Some jobs are the support that makes the spotlight possible.

The Travel Bug That Never Left

The Navy gave me something I didn't expect: a lifelong addiction to travel. Once you've crossed oceans, seen foreign ports, experienced how different the world looks from different places - you can't go back to staying put.

That restlessness shaped my entire career. I've worked remotely before remote was normal. I've built companies that could run from anywhere. I've chosen opportunities partly based on where they'd let me go. The Navy planted that seed at barely 18, and it never stopped growing.

Some people do travel for vacation. For me, it's more fundamental than that. It's how I learned to see the world, and I've never wanted to stop.

"At 18, I got thrown into the deep end of a much larger world than I knew existed. That early exposure to scale - geographic scale, organizational scale, the scale of history happening around you - shaped how I approach everything I've built since."