When 80% just isn’t good enough

Gotta give props to my former professor Dr. Daniel Kempton for this bit of counterterrorism truth. It goes something like this: If you get an eighty percent on a exam as an undergraduate, you’d be pretty thrilled with that result. If you’re tasked with stopping terrorist attacks, and you only manage to stop eight out of ten, you absolutely blow at your job and need to find a new career. Counterterrorism is an occupation that demands absolute perfection because the stakes are so high. If you fail once, your failure can cost three thousand lives…its’ a hell of a burden that only the very best are capable of holding and I wish them well in their efforts.