"At the high point of a soaring career in the U.S. Army, Lt. Col. Mark Weber was tapped by General David Petraeus to serve in a high profile job within the Afghan Parliament as a military advisor. Within weeks, a routine physical revealed stage IV intestinal cancer in the thirty-eight-year-old father of three ... When [he] realized that he was not going to survive this final tour of combat, he began to write a letter to his boys, so that as they grew up without him, they would know what his life-and-death story had taught him--about courage and fear, challenge and comfort, words and actions, pride and humility, seriousness and humor, and a never-ending search for new ideas and inspiration"--Dust jacket flap.

"Originally published by Beaver's Pond Press, Inc., in 2012 in slightly different form"--Title page verso. "Each of these titles comes from a farewell speech General Douglas Macarthur delivered in 1962 to the corps of cadets at the U.S. Army Military Academy at West Point."---page xvii.

Introduction ... To be strong enough to know when you are weak, brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid -- Chapter One ... Not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge -- Chapter Two ... Not to substitute words for actions -- Chapter Three ... To be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success -- Chapter Four ... To seek out and experience a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of lift, an appetite for adventure over love of ease -- Chapter Five ... To seek a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, and to exercise a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity -- Chapter SIx ... To be modest so that you will appreciate the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength -- Chapter Seven ... To be serious, yet never to take yourself too seriously; to cry, but also to laugh -- Chapter Eight ... To discover the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what is next, and the joy and inspiration of life -- Epilogue: "How are you doing?"