The Discipline That Almost Killed Him

Advocacy at Work · Aug 20, 2026 · 29m

A retired special forces colonel. A stage 3C colon cancer diagnosis. And how the same discipline that made him a warrior almost took him down

There’s a question that comes up early in most cancer conversations. “Were you having symptoms?”

For Dr. Lawrence Henry, the answer was yes. He had them all. Bloating. Blood in his stool. Pain.

But he also had something else. Twenty-six years of military discipline. A mission-first mindset that had gotten him through jump training, special operations, multiple deployments to Central America, South America, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan.

So he rationalized…