"In my experience, people come into this job for a few reasons, and they bring a lot of baggage, myself included," Shepard waits for him to take the shot, before continuing, "In all cases, most of what they bring is pride. Everybody's got his own idea of how things ought to be run, and what's important. But in the military, what you think, what you want, your values... Not relevant. You're not here to represent anything but your capabilities, and pride gets in the way of performance. It's painful, but it's better to break yourself of it as soon as possible."

She falls quiet again, waiting. It wasn't that she didn't take pride in her work, it was that she was willing to subsume her opinions under someone else's will, someone else's vision. Respect, you might call it, or obedience, but the word that most ended up on was Service. You could have opinions, and even express them, but what you did was not about you, unless you were the one being asked to make the call.

And even then, that wasn't about you; you'd been put in that position by someone else, for a reason. The mission, the results were what mattered.

"...You're not so bad. But I'm an actions-before-words kind of girl. So, being mouthy is hardly a cardinal sin."