I grew up in Lakeland, Louisiana, one of 7 children. We all lived on my parents' farm. At 12, I got a part-time job--milking cows to help support the family. I milked cows at five in the morning and again at two in the afternoon, seven days a week. In the kitchen one Saturday before daytime, I remember complaining  to my father and grandfather about having to go milk those cows. My father said, "You know, boy, to work is a blessing ." Going to college was rare for a kid from Lakeland, Louisiana. "Pick something that you like doing to study, and you will always look forward to your work," my father told me. But he also added, "Even having a job you hate is better than not having a job at all." I wanted to be a farmer, but I joined the ROTC program to help pay for college. And what started out as an obligation to the army became a way of life that I was devoted to for 37 years. In the late 1980s, during a visit to Bangladesh, I saw a woman with a baby on her back, breaking bricks with a hammer. I asked a Bangladesh military officer why they weren't using a machine. He told me a machine would make that lady unemployed . Breaking those bricks meant she could earn enough money to feed herself and her baby that day. He told me bad as that woman's job was, it was enough to keep a small family alive, which reminded me of my father's words. I'm retired from the army, but I'm still working to help people be prepared for disaster. I'm not going to stop. I believe in my father's words. I believe in the blessing of work. What can we learn about the writer's first part-time job?
He felt proud of supporting his family. He hated having to work so hard. It offered him the money to go to school. It made him independent.