Team Player Apology

LRSD technically stands for “Long Range Surveillance Detachment.” However there is an unspoken code every one inside the LRSD and everyone who has ever encountered LRSD recognizes.  LRSD stands for Loyalty, Respect, Sportsmanship, and Dedication.  Luckily, I have been privileged enough to be part of this team LRSD, this… family. “Player” is what they call me, and I’ve been a member of LRSD and thus part of a family since December 2008.  Recently due to a certain series of events I have had the opportunity to write articles on… well whatever I would like really, but with one condition. That condition being I start by apologizing for betraying that unspoken code LRSD is known for.

Selfishly I have failed to represent the Loyalty, and Respect aspects of LRSD.  It was a lack of trust.  Trust is absolutely crucial to being successful an anything in life, including this game.  It’s about trusting your teammates, not trying to be superman or Mr. Clutch.  It’s knowing there’s an enemy dashing towards you from your blindside but not even wincing knowing somebody’s job is to protect you.  If you turn to your blindside out of fear you have broken that trust. You consequently made a teammate worthless by doing his job for him, while at the same time leaving the way you were originally supposed to be watching wide open for tangos to take you out and anybody else that was counting on you, just like you were supposed to be counting on them.

It’s ironic how I imagined this scenario a few weeks ago when MadDog (the greatest player to walk the face of the earth) mentioned trust.  I imagined this scenario on Derail actually as I would be in the small wooden house by the water tower looking toward the red truck.  In this scenario a teammate would be sniping my backside ensuring nobody got their hands on me.  The enemy would be spawning in that bookstore back there.  I now realize why I imagined it like this.  That’s because I wanted to be closest to the action, saving the day as I gloriously and single handedly killed the entire enemy team.  I had a mindset that my teammates would watch my back…but that’s  not the same job description I had for some reason.  That reason being selfishness.

In reality it doesn’t matter where on that map I am or how close I am to the enemy, my job is to watch out for my teammates and keep them alive too.  Now that may entail killing a thousand times in a match or it might be simply warning a teammate one time of a tango approaching from the south.  It is this mindset I will now have, one that doesn’t look out for the interest of me, or the approval of man, but one that better serves my team…my family.

This kind of mentality could have come in handy a while back when another LRSD member wasn’t being included fairly.  I was foolish enough to let my own doubles partner be excluded while looking out for personal interests rather than help out a member of the LRSD family. However, this member, quite a talented one, is now well off in the clan and all is well.  Even for me, you see for that reason for disloyally blabber mouthing I was “punished” as they called it. Sentenced to write these articles and play with a branch of LSRD that… well that… is not made of all-star gamers but all-star guys.

However there so called “punishment” is really a blessing in disguise.  It gives me the opportunity to get to know some of the LRSD members I have not been too close to in the past. And it gives me the opportunity to write about whatever I please including our adventures on LRSD Rough House, a team that is going to…. Well … it will at least be a blast! And lastly it allows me to write about why I think my team consists of men (young and … not so young) who are the coolest of the entire Xbox Live community. Loyalty…Respect…Sportsmanship…Dedication…LRSD.

Article Written By: Team Player