While observing a class this week I was inspired by a cadet that was encouraging a classmate.  The classmate was hesitant to participate in a group activity and presentation, when his teammate said, “try, try, try, like Nike, just do it!”   My dad, a U.S. Marine, used to say to me that if I just looked at the impossible as possible, nothing could stop me.  He said as a Marine he kept thinking how “thousands went before him and thousands would go after him” so how could he fail? It isn’t that we are not unlike anyone else; it is that we each have the strength to overcome our personal challenges.  Any don’t think failure won’t be part of the equation, it always there.  As Edison said when inventing the lightbulb “I have not failed.  I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  So, as we face life’s challenges embrace our cadet’s words of wisdom and “Just do it.”  And remember the future isn’t bright because of Edison – it is bright because of our students at the New York Military Academy, and how they keep trying, trying, trying.  — Christine McDonald, Dean of Academics