“And you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go.” He raised his hand and pointed. “If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments.” Then Boyd raised his other hand and pointed another direction. “Or you can go that way and you can do something — something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won’t have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?” , Boyd understood this, and said that “if a man can reduce his needs to zero, he is truly free: there is nothing that can be taken from him and nothing anyone can do to hurt him.” His extreme frugality earned him the nickname “The Ghetto Colonel,” and throughout his life he lived in a tiny apartment and ran his clunker cars into the ground. This Spartan lifestyle was tough on Boyd’s family; when it comes to risking one’s career in order to rock the boat, fathers admittedly have a tougher line to walk. Yet plenty of the children of history’s greatest firebrands are, despite the sacrifices their dads’ stances involved, extremely proud of the legacy and name they left them. There will be moments when your entire career is at risk – where you will face Boyd’s proverbial fork in the road. To be or to do. To be ready for that moment, you must have the discipline to cultivate integrity and moral courage from here at the Academy, and then from your earliest days as a commissioned officer. Those qualities do not suddenly emerge fully developed overnight or as a revelation after you have assumed important responsibilities. These qualities have their roots in the small decisions you will make here and early in your career and must be strengthened all along the way to allow you to resist the temptation of self before service. And you must always ensure that your moral courage serves the greater good: that it serves what is best for the nation and our highest values – not a particular program nor pride nor parochialism.”