Retired Sgt. 1st Class Greg Stube shared his story of resilience and love once again with the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, this time as the guest speaker on the second day of the Express Seminar in Orlando.
Stube, a Green Beret who trained as a Special Forces medical sergeant, was wounded in Afghanistan during the Battle of Sperwan Ghar, which lasted more than week. He spent a year and a half in Army hospitals recovering from injuries received from a detonated improvised explosive device (IED) and from enemy fire. He retired in 2011 after 23 years of service.
“In my life, you’re my team,” Stube told the audience of Exchange senior leaders and Express managers. “I love you. I do. I don’t have to know you. I know who you are. I know what you do. And you will never have to wonder if you made a difference in your life.”
The Exchange was there for him and his troops, Stube said, providing a taste of home and small ways to celebrate.
“Morale doesn’t come easy when you’re tired, you’re hungry, you’re sore, you’re hurting, you miss your family,” Stube said. “You might miss your country. You might miss relative safety. You miss the friends you’ve lost lately. And then to be able to walk into an Exchange … and an Express and see parts of your culture—to taste a Snickers bar and to be able to share those things in a place that seems so forbidding is an amazing step toward sanity.”
Of all the goods Expresses provide, familiar sweets bring back memories of simpler times to many service members.
“Grown men and women who have been hardened by their experiences line up, and we are all drawn to the certain colors, certain brands, certain flavors that we grew up with,” he said. “And maybe we haven’t eaten candy in a long time, but now, we have an opportunity to taste something that reminds us of our childhood and is part of the fabric of freedom to us and part of what makes it all worth fighting for.”
After he was severely injured on the battlefield in Afghanistan, Stube took stock of his attitude toward others and reconsidered how he had been treating people.
“We are born selfish,” he said. “We think about ourselves. We give ourselves full credit. We look down on others and judge them harshly.”
For Exchange associates, Stube hopes they remember to work as a team and see the good in people, even when it’s difficult.
“You have hand-carried lifelines to people who keep America and freedom intact,” he said. “Don’t wait for a teammate to get hurt to realize the full value of someone. Let’s be accountable to each other and live with our freedom the way the ones we’ve lost would hope we would.”
Associates can learn more about Stube and hear his remarks from March’s Retail, Food and Services Managers Conference here.
Check out all the coverage from the seminar:
Express Seminar 2024: Convenience, Connections Deliver Taste of Home
Express Seminar 2024: Express Teams Take Home Rock Your Sales Prizes
Express Seminar 2024: Hunt Brothers Pizza Awards Expresses for Exceptional Sales
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