GCU Today Magazine - November 2017

GCU MAGAZ I NE • 25 serving as a firefighter in the Army, where he served for 21 years, responding to hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and mass casualties. “I really enjoyed the camaraderie among the firefighters. … I loved it. I loved the fact that people always saw you as welcoming.” And he spent some time in Mogadishu, Somalia, too. “I saw how horrible and poor the world was,” Lewis said. “When I see on TV some of the things people are protesting …” He finished up his military career as an instructor at the Louis F. Garland Fighting Academy at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas. He supervised up to 10 instructors and was responsible for all the training in his section. Not that retiring from the Army meant Lewis has ever stopped. Not even close. He delved into a resident training course to become a police officer while holding down a full-time job. Until recently, he volunteered as a reserve sheriff’s deputy. He now works for the Army as a government employee. He is chief of the Directorate of Training and Leadership Development’s Compliance Department at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. As if that weren’t enough, Lewis has been reaching for even more. “My current wife (Tammy) said I had a lot of potential. So I started going back to school.” He was 39, an age when most people have settled into that one career and have started looking toward retirement. In 2001, Lewis returned to school and, a few years later, had completed not one but three associate’s degrees – in arts, fire science and instructor of technology and military science from the Community College of the Air Force. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Public Safety Management and two master’s degrees from GCU, in Executive Fire Service Leadership and Leadership with an Emphasis on Disaster Preparedness and Crisis Management. Now he’s back at GCU as an online student to earn his doctorate. Looking at his life as an Army firefighter, reserve sheriff’s deputy and Marine, he said the common thread he has noticed is that, much like one of the core beliefs of GCU – to serve – he indeed knows his purpose. “I guess I’ve been a public servant in so many ways. … I enjoy giving back,” he said. “Had it not been for people helping me in my life, I don’t know where I would have been.” No one in his family has a degree, he said, though one brother is in college now. “I will say one thing. The women in my life have had the biggest influence on me. … I just didn’t want to let them down.” But more than that, the 54-year-old father of five, grandfather of six and great-grandfather of one said he remembers those biting words from his youth. “I was always the kid you didn’t want to go out with your daughter. … School was one of the things I pushed myself to do,” he said. “There is one more motive. As I was growing up, my brother and I were always looked at as those kids that would never do anything with themselves. … They’re never going to be nothing.” They were wrong. David Lewis knows what it’s like to serve -- he has been an Army firefighter, reserve sheriff’s deputy andMarine Corps Reserve. “I guess I’ve been a public servant in so many ways. … I enjoy giving back. Had it not been for people helping me in my life, I don’t know where I would have been.” —David Lewis, GCU online student