Before he joined the First National Technology Solutions team as an architect in sales engineering, Phil Janulewicz served his country in the Navy. Janulewicz served for four years, and was a stationed in San Diego for two and a half years, and was in Japan for his final year. He was a part of two different cruises, one in the Persian Gulf, the other in the South Pacific. With Veterans day approaching, Janulewicz reflects on his time of service to his country.
You get to work on time, do your job and go home. That’s one of the things that has stuck with me from my time serving. You learn very quickly that you don’t have any excuses, and that you need to get the job done. Carrying that over into my work life, I’ve realized there a lot of things that aren’t exactly exciting in the working world, but you have a job to do, and so it has to get done.
Other than working, what stood out to me most to me was all the different countries we pulled into, and the friendships that were made. You don’t really dwell on the crappy times because you worked a lot. But the travel and the friendships you made through those four years were pretty important.
First National has done a really good job in recognizing veterans, and there’s a lot of appreciation for that. There’s a lot of unspoken thankfulness from people, and on Veterans Day it’s a kind of weird feeling. I think it’s a humbling experience, and honor to serve your country. The thing about it is that you don’t really focus on that until later on down the road in your life, at least, that’s how it was for me.
Personally, Veterans day celebrations never really set in for me until one of my children wrote a story about me for Veterans day which was featured in a program at her school. To get recognized like that was pretty awesome. It was kind of eye opening because you took all of that stuff for granted, and you just did it. You didn’t really think about it. But when you do, you realize you accomplished something of value.
A lot of us were able to come home, but there’s a lot of those who weren’t as fortunate. It reminds me a lot of the phrase:
'Everybody gave some, but some gave all.'
It’s important to remember that, especially on Veterans Day.
