I endured the grueling selection process to become a United States Marine Corps infantry officer. I led long-range reconnaissance teams into the enemy occupied jungles of Vietnam. I served as a Peace Corps volunteer, living and working in a foreign country and in an alien culture. None of that prepared me for what I experienced as an inner city school principal contending with violence, guns, gangs, physical and sexual abuse while implementing court ordered desegregation. If it were a movie, it would be R rated. But it wasn't a movie. It happened. This is my story. It is an entertaining, sometimes intense, story filled with humor, idealism, adventure, and poignancy. In the words of Teddy Roosevelt, I was a man "in the arena." "....The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood....." Theodore Roosevelt. 1