Military Leaders From The United States

"Over the past three years, I have been stopped on the street by great folks telling me their own stories: How they didn't back down from the sharks, how they didn't ring the bell, or how making their bed every morning helped them through tough times. They all wanted to know more about how the ten lessons shaped my life and about the people who inspired me during my career. This small book is an attempt to do so. Each chapter gives a little more context to the individual lessons and also adds a short story about some of the people who inspired me with their discipline, their perseverance, their honor, and their courage."

"The big men in the other boat crews would always make good-natured fun of the tiny little flippers the munchkins put on their tiny little feet prior to every swim. But somehow these little guys, from every corner of the nation and the world, always had the last laugh, swimming faster than everyone and reaching the shore long before the rest of us. SEAL training was a great equalizer. Nothing mattered but your will to succeed; not your color, not your ethnic background, not your education, and not your social status. If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not the size of their flippers."

"On May 17, 2014, I was honored to give the commencement speech for the graduating class from the University of Texas at Austin. Even though the university was my alma mater, I was concerned that a military officer, whose career had been defined by war, might not find a welcoming audience among college students. But to my great surprise, the graduating class embraced the speech. The ten lessons I learned from Navy SEAL training, which were the basis for my remarks, seemed to have a universal appeal. They were simple lessons that deal with overcoming the trials of SEAL training, but the ten lessons were equally important in dealing with the challenges of life- no matter who you are."

"There is this great scene, that sometimes goes unnoticed. Clarence takes George to the graveyard, and there; there is a headstone of George’s younger brother, Terry. George notices that Terry died when he was just three years old, then George looks at Clarence, the second class wingless angel, and says that can’t be right. Harry not only lived past three years old, but he also saved an entire ship of being sunk by Kamikaze pilots, but reminds George, that because Paul was never born then, and he actually wasn’t there to save his younger brother from choking."

"As Americans, we should be frightened — deeply afraid for the future of the nation. When good men and women can’t speak the truth, when facts are inconvenient, when integrity and character no longer matter, when presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security — then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil."

"Dear Mr. President: Former CIA director John Brennan, whose security clearance you revoked on Wednesday, is one of the finest public servants I have ever known. Few Americans have done more to protect this country than John. He is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him. Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency."

"If you want to change the world, don’t ever, ever ring the bell."

"If you want to change the world measure a person by the size of their heart, not the size of their flippers."

"If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed... If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. And by the end of the day, that one task completed, will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you'll never be able to do the big things right. And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made, that you made. And a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better."

"If you want to change the world, don’t be afraid of the Circuses."

"1. Foster a culture of action, allowing the rank and file to take the initiative and fix problems that need addressing. 2. Accept the fact that this will lead to zealousness and the occasional screwup. This overenthusiasm is better than a culture of inaction. 3. Praise those who attempt to solve problems on their own, even if the results are not as expected."

"If you want to change the world, sometimes you have to slide down the obstacle head first."

"It's been 37 years to the day since I graduated from UT."

"A good leader tries to embody the best qualities of his or her organization. A good leader sets the example for others to follow. A good leader always puts the welfare of others before himself or herself. Your leadership, however, has shown little of these qualities. Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation."

""TORTURE" −/ −−−/ ·−·/ −/ ··−/ ·−·/ ·/"

"We are honored to have had the opportunity to serve our country under difficult circumstances. We are profoundly grateful to our Commander-in-Chief and to our nation for this day. God bless America."

"We've got to realize that we're in a ball game at a certain juncture, at this point, where we better go back to bipartisanship in looking at foreign policy, be we conservatives or liberals, or Democrats or Republicans, that this country is beginning to lose its footing in the world, not only as a leader, but as a friend, or as a credible enemy. We are being perceived, perhaps somewhat accurately, as a rather paralyzed giant that is ripe to fall off the tree like an over-ripe plum, and fulfill Khrushchev's prophecy, "We will bury you!" He didn't mean overcome us with nuclear weapons. He meant that we, in our sloppy thinking and presumption about not being able to live with prosperity, and not being able to look things in the eye, would simply weaken until our interests were eroded to the point, and our credibility was eroded to the point, that we couldn't stand."

"We have been in a process of attaining a great degree of luxury, degrees of luxury which distract us... and we are consumed with such matters as wrap-around octophonic sound in our automobiles and so forth, we are becoming quite sophisticated with respect to non-necessities. This has happened to nations in the past, and it is my belief that man can cope with adversity, and that his most difficult problem, is coping with prosperity."

"I was once in a rig which was inducing considerable pain, and I finally just said... God, you've got it. I can't take it any more. I can't handle it. I'm just putting it entirely in your hands, and from the instant I phrased that... I felt absolutely no pain. In fact, I felt the greatest sense of comfort, not only physical comfort, but psychological warmth and comfort that I have ever felt in my life, before or since."

"Look, friend, I'm really not interested in all of that, really. See I consider myself damned lucky to have been able to land my airplane at this emergency strip in one piece."

"[T]he lawlessness, rioting, men like Stokely Carmichael acting as if they speak for the Negro people. They aren't, and set civil rights back 100 years!"

"I'm not disgusted. I'm a citizen of the United States of America and I'm no second-class citizen either and no man here is, unless he thinks like one and reasons like one and performs like one. This is my country and I believe in her, and I will serve her, and I'll contribute to her welfare whenever and however I can. If she has any ills, I'll stand by her until in God's given time, through her wisdom and her consideration for the welfare of the entire nation, she will put them right."

"I write you this letter because I am sorry to know that you and your people refuse to do what the government has ordered. You do not give up your arms. Soldiers were sent to Taglibi so that you could come into camp and turn in your guns. When the soldiers went to camp a Taglibi, your Moros fired into camp and tried to kill the soldiers. Then the soldiers had to shoot all Moros who fired upon them. When the soldiers marched through the country, the Moros again shot at them, so the soldiers had to kill several others. I am sorry the soldiers had to kill any Moros. All Moros are the same to me as my children and no father wants to kill his own children. ... I want to see all of my people and speak to them so that we may forever be friends."

"I am very sorry these Moros are such fools—but this Dajo will not mean the slaughter of women and children, nor hasty assaults against strong entrenchments. I shall lose as few men and kill as few Moros as possible."

"There was never a moment during the investment of Bud Dajo when the Moros, including women, on the top of the mountain would not have fought to the death had they been given the opportunity. They had gone there to make a last stand on this, their sacred mountain, and they were determined to die fighting. Their former experience on Bud Dago did not deter them from taking this step, and it would not have deterred them from fighting to the death had an effort that their solid determination to fight it out could be broken. The fact is that they were completely surprised at the prompt and decisive action of the troops in cutting of suplies and preventing escape, and they were chagrined and disappointed in that they were not encouraged to die the death of Muhammadan fanatics."

"In each succeeding war there is a tendency to proclaim as something new the principles under which it is conducted. Not only those who have never studied or experienced the realities of war, but also professional soldiers frequently fall into the error. But the principles of warfare as I learned them at West Point remain unchanged."

"A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops."

"A tall officer mounted a little platform that had been set up to our front. I'd never seen him before, but I knew him at once. It was "Black Jack"- General Pershing. I heard him say something about decorating as brave soldiers as the world has ever known- but that was all I could get. It wasn't that I couldn't hear. I had a ringside seat as far as hearing was concerned. But I couldn't get used to standing up there with a bunch of generals and colonels, while three divisions stood at attention behind me. I hoped they'd make it snappy."

"At last General Pershing finished his speech and climbed down from his platform. He came straight toward Lieutenant Hays. I kept my eyes glued to the front, but I knew what he was doing. He stopped before the lieutenant, plopped his heels, and did something with his hands. I heard him speak to the lieutenant. Then he was standing in front of me. He saluted, and I almost snapped my right arm off in answering. But I did it automatically. My head had about quit functioning. The general stepped up close to me, did something with the front of my blouse- and a pin went straight through the blouse into the flesh on my chest! He shook hands with me and congratulated me, and said something about a "fellow Missourian." Then he knocked his heels together, gave a low, snappy salute, sidestepped to the right, and began decorating the next fellow."

"General Pershing's fame rests largely upon his personal character. He was not a genius at strategy and his tactical experience was limited, but in his indomitable will for victory, in his implacable belief in the American soldier, in his invincible resistance to all attempts to exploit or patronize American arms, he rose to the highest flights of his profession. He inspired a self-respect for our national forces and a foreign recognition of our military might which has properly placed us fully equal to the best of the human race. My memories of him sustained and strengthened me during many a lonely and bitter moment of the Pacific and Korean wars."

"General Pershing was a martinet. There's no disputing that point, but he was a martinet with many offsetting qualities, not the least of which was demonstrated in a sidelight of World War I. When the local requisitions program for the American Expeditionary Force had bogged down, he arranged for his colorful friend Charles G. Dawes to be commissioned directly as a colonel to head the General Purchasing Board. Now Dawes did not understand much about soldiering, and he was a little too old by that point to learn it. Accordingly, Pershing knew enough not to force the issue. So when Dawes, newly promoted to brigadier general, finally rendered a passable salute, Pershing whispered, "Charlie, that's not a bad imitation, but next time move the cigar over to the other side." Secretary of War Newton Baker was also puzzled. At the end of the war he gave up trying to understand how the same man could be such a brilliant strategist and at the same time have so much concern for unbuttoned buttons. Actually, Pershing was not that great a strategist, but he was a master of organization and operations and always kept the higher-level perspectives clearly in mind. His frequent attention to petty detail was part of a much larger view. Disciplined troops fought better and had fewer casualties. In short, he could see the forest, the trees- and at times, nearly every leaf on those trees."

"Perhaps this depth of perception explains why a single individual stands out prominently in a crisis. Events become focused, hence mandating that decision making should follow suit. Into this focal point steps a leader who must either sort out the complexities and make the momentous decisions, or be labeled by history as mediocre at best. Few individuals seek that kind of responsibility; fewer yet can handle it. Of the latter, only a rare person of character can survive the exercise of that much power without succumbing to the ever-present leech of corruption. But General Pershing was one of those rare individuals."

"As a cadet, Pershing seems to have been inspired by the superintendent, Colonel Wesley Merritt (later Major General), whom he took for a role model. Merritt was a strict disciplinarian who also invited Mark Twain to lecture to the cadets. Apparently, the role model took root, perhaps a bit rigid at first. Plebes spent their first three weeks in what was called "beast barracks." At the end of that apprenticeship, they moved to summer camp across the Plain, by which time they had been trained to act rather mechanically. Upperclassmen took advantage of the situation to pull pranks on the unsuspecting plebes. One night after taps, when Pershing was walking guard, one of the upperclassmen dressed up as a ghost and approached. "Who goes there?" Pershing asked. No answer. Again, "Who goes there?" This time the "ghost" opened a folding chair and sat down. Pershing asked, "Who sits there?""

"Pershing's academic performance was so-so, and even his otherwise clean disciplinary record was riddled with demerits for being late to formations. Yet on the leadership side,he earned the highest rank each year: the ranking corporal; next, the ranking first sergeant; and in his first class (senior) year, he won the coveted position of First Captain. He also formed a large number of friendships and was elected class president each year, and for life at graduation."

"The tactics of trench warfare had devolved into a genocidal meat grinder, into which Pershing had no intention of feeding Americans even if it would have meant eventual victory by attrition. Instead, he advocated maneuver warfare. The problem was that he first had to prove that U.S. soldiers could fight effectively against massed troops supported by murderous machine-gun fire and backed by relentless heavy artillery. Only a Don Quixote would dream of prevailing against those odds. Pershing needed a battlefield that offered at least some temporary room for maneuver. The opportunity arose during the Aisne-Marne offensive, especially at Cantigny, Reims, and Belleau Wood."

"Although the American contribution was only a third of the total allied effort at best, it still meant the difference between victory and prolonged trench warfare. Hence, Pershing returned home to great honor and adulation. Congress revived the special rank of General of the Armies for him, while friends encouraged the general to try politics. Unfortunately, that swamp was not for him; he sunk in up to his neck when the water was only knee deep. He stayed with the Army; and when Peyton March's term expired in 1921, moved up to Chief of Staff. Understandably, Pershing's years in that office have not been especially noted by history. His main task was to preside over a demobilized Army that Congress further depleted each year. At the end of his four years, Pershing accepted the directorship of the American Battle Monuments Commission. During that period, he compiled his war memoir, My Experiences in the World War, which was published in two volumes in 1931 and won the Pulitzer prize in history the following year. He lived until 1948, albeit in a state of increasing physical debilitation from 1941 onward. Happily, much of his character rubbed off on his surviving son Warren. When Pershing offered to visit his son at college and walk around the campus, Warren demurred on the grounds that it would be "too swank." When World War II came, Warren enlisted in the Army, went to officers candidate school, and fought in Europe, making his father quite proud."

"They were having terrorism problems, just like we do, and he caught 50 terrorists who did tremendous damage and killed many people. And he took the 50 terrorists, and he took 50 men and he dipped 50 bullets in pigs’ blood — you heard that, right? He took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pigs’ blood. And he had his men load his rifles, and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said: You go back to your people, and you tell them what happened. And for 25 years, there wasn’t a problem. Okay? Twenty-five years, there wasn’t a problem."

"Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!"

"Even in the United States and in other free nations, some journalists, academics, public officials, and saddest of all young people have developed and promulgated idealized, warped views of tyrannical regimes."

"I think we’re always going to have to operate as part of a multinational force. To do so, we have to understand the history and the culture of each of these conflicts and of the microconflicts in each subregion. Obviously, our multinational partners are invaluable for their perspectives, but we also need strong partnerships with indigenous leaders. As in business, we need negotiation competencies and the ability to map stakeholder interests in particular. When we’re partnering with somebody we need to understand several things: their interests, how they align with our interests, how to build relationships based on mutual trust and common purpose, and how to use those relationships to work together to accomplish the mission."

"Tillerson would merely become another example of a subordinate who believed his own abilities could somehow compensate for Trump's failings. Aligned with Tillerson were three generals, Mattis, McMaster, and Kelly, each seeing themselves as representing maturity, stability, and restraint. And each, of course, was resented by Trump for it. The suggestion that any or all of these men might be more focused and even tempered than Trump himself was cause for sulking and tantrums on the president's part. The daily discussion among senior staffers, those still there and those now gone- all of whom had written off Tillerson's future in the Trump administration- was how long General Kelly would last as chief of staff. There was some thing of a virtual office pool, and the joke was that Reince Priebus was likely to be Trump's longest-serving chief of staff. Kely's distaste for the president was open knowledge- in his every word and gesture he condescended to Trump- the president's distaste for Kelly even more so. It was sport for the president to defy Kelly, who had become the one thing in his life he had never been able to abide: a disapproving and censorious father figure."

"In the wake of the immolating new conference, all eyes were suddenly on Kelly- this was his baptism of Trump fire. Spicer, Priebus, Cohn, Powell, Bannon, Tillerson, Mattis, Mnuchin- virtually the entire senior staff and cabinet of the Trump presidency, past and present, had traveled through the stages of adventure, challenge, frustration, battle, self-justification, and doubt, before finally having to confront the very real likelihood that the president they worked for- whose presidency they bore some official responsibility for- didnt have the wherewithal to adequately function in the job. The debate, as Bannon put it, was not about whether the president's situation was bad, but whether it was Twenty-Fifth-Amendment bad."

"It was easier to go along for the ride. Donald's chiefs of staff are prime examples of this phenomenon. John Kelly, at least for a while, and Mick Mulvaney, without any reservations at all, would behave the same way- until they were ousted for not being sufficiently "loyal." That's how it always works with the sycophants. First they remain silent no matter what outrages are committed; then they make themselves complicit by not acting. Ultimately, they find they are expendable when Donald needs a scapegoat."

"I am pleased by the confirmation votes of Generals Mattis and Kelly. These uniquely qualified leaders will immediately begin the important work of rebuilding our military, defending our Nation, and securing our borders. I am proud to have these two American heroes join my administration."

"Where others saw fickleness or even lies, Kushner saw Trump's constant, shifting inconsistency as a challenge to be met with an ever-adapting form of managing up. Incomplete information, inadequate staffing- the appearance of impulsive decision making was all someone else's fault, according to Kushner. John Kelly had a less flattering assessment. "Crazytown," Kelly said."

"I watched Wednesday’s actions on the Hill brokenhearted. Horrified. That’s not us. Are peaceful protests allowed? Yes, it is our right. Have there been criminal riots in our past over any number of issues? Yes, and we should condemn and hold the rioters accountable regardless of the issue at stake. What happened Wednesday on Capitol Hill is different. This is an attack on our democracy, our way of life, and not just by the criminals who assaulted our Congress today. The good news is our Constitution is strong, and our people are overwhelmingly devoted to the rule of law. What we need to do going forward — what we have to do as a people — not as Democrats, or Republicans, or independents, but as Americans, is to ask ourselves how did we ever get to this place. We need to look infinitely harder at who we elect to any office in our land. At the office seeker's character, at their morals, at their ethical record, their integrity, their honesty, their flaws, what they have said about women, and minorities, why they are seeking office in the first place, and only then consider the policies they espouse."

"He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in Crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had."

"What can I add that has not already been said? A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France. A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women. A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law. There is nothing more that can be said. God help us."

"Trump, a former military academy cadet- albeit not an enthusiastic one- had touted a return to military values and expertise. In fact, he most of all had sought to preserve his personal right to defy or ignore his own organization. This, too, made sense, since not really having an organization was the most efficient way to sidestep the people in your organization and to dominate them. It was just one irony of his courtship of admired military figures like James Mattis, H.R. McMaster, and John Kelly: they found themselves working in an administration that was in every way inimical to basic command principles."

"Hell these are Marines. Men like them held Guadalcanal and took Iwo Jima. Baghdad ain't shit."