Every Dealership Needs a White House

It was the beginning of August at Ft. Benning, Georgia. The feels-like temperature on that first day of Airborne school was well over a hundred degrees. For safety reasons the class had to be run through the outdoor showers every hour or so as a precaution for heat exhaustion. The first day we went over “break procedures.” It was an instructional drill on how we were to be released to break and how we were to respond when called to return from break. We quickly found out that it was really just an opportunity for the cadre to “break” us as we failed the drill practice of “break procedures,” and were punished with physical exercise and criticism that had no immediate end in sight. We were in full uniform and worn down in the sawdust pits while trying to distinguish between what was water from the outdoor showers and what was the natural sweat pouring off of us. Hot, sticky and exhausted, we were soon given our first opportunity to quit.

It was then that we learned of the White House. You see, there was a little white house at the edge of the grounds where the out-processing took place for those who quit. They would be returned to the unit that they came from or reassigned to a new non-jumping unit. The cool thing about the White House was that it was literally cool. It was also filled with coffee, doughnuts, milk, cookies and sodas.  All of those things would have fetched a premium on those grounds. There was a standing open invitation to enjoy the comfort of the White House with no judgment. In fact, it was extremely encouraged.

The class initially began with over 600 students, but a little over half of the students surrendered to the little White House over the first two weeks.  Going into the third week (jump week) we had our real company of Airborne soldiers. Everyone was exactly where they were supposed to be by design.  The paratroopers were there and the others had moved on, courtesy of the White House.

Many times over the years I wished that we had a White House at the dealership. I knew we couldn’t really build a White House in the showroom, but why not fill the conference room with coffee, doughnuts, milk, cookies and soda. There would be no judgment, just a friendly place to out-process for those who just refuse to get on the same page. After all, we all need to be where we should be by design.