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General Robert Abrams · Five Questions for a General

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:03
  Speaker B: You're listening to Five Questions for a General, a production of the Modern War Institute at West point. I am Dr. Charles Feint, the team lead for this podcast series which features interviews of senior military leaders conducted by specially selected and trained West Point cadet hosts. These exchanges produce timely, relevant and inspirational insights for professional development of leaders at all levels.
• 0:24
  Speaker C: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the class of 1974 recording studio and the five questions for a General Podcast. I'm Cadet Zach Olson, your host. It is my pleasure to be here today with General retired Robert Abrams for this important discussion about partnership and leadership. General, welcome to the show.
• 0:40
  Speaker A: Thanks for having me.
• 0:41
  Speaker C: General, my first question concerns partners and allies and the future of warfare. Yesterday you gave the capstone speech at a conference here at West Point which was a part of the Sanders International Military Skills Competition. A key theme of the conference was partnering for the future. You spent a large part of your army career working with partners and allies. Can you talk about how important you think those kinds of relationships are going to be in the conflicts of the future?
• 1:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, Zach, I was really honored to be able to address the Sandhurst competitors yesterday. And what a great scene to see 15 other countries send teams. There's eight or nine other countries observing from their militaries and a couple of guiding thoughts, principles behind this. And I shared them with the group yesterday and I'll share them with you. And the first one is if you want to go fast in anything, you go alone. If you want to go far, you go together. Now, there's several people who want to take credit for that proverb, but regardless, in my experience throughout my career, it's absolutely true. And we, as a, as an American military, as an American people, we don't want to go alone. We always reserve the right to take unilateral action, especially to defend ourselves. But in the world we live in today and the last hundred years, our aim is always to build partnerships and alliances to go together with other countries, like minded countries with similar aims and objectives for an outcome in dealing with other whatever threat or challenge that there is. The other, the other thing I shared with the group yesterday was one of my favorite quotes from Winston Churchill where he said, the only thing worse than fighting alongside allies is fighting without them. And I asked the group rhetorically, you know, why? Why did Churchill say that? Why is that the least best alternative? Because fighting alongside having an alliance and partnership in combat, even though we, our countries may share the same values, our vital national interests may not be 100% aligned, our objectives may not be 100% aligned. The ends may not be completely aligned. And then you get to the ways countries have different ways of conducting operations, whether it be large scale contingency operations, counterinsurgency operations, security force operations. Countries bring different things and it causes friction. It's just normal. Churchill made that statement post World War II, reflecting back. And if you don't like Churchill's sort of view, I would encourage your listeners to read General Eisenhower, President Eisenhower's, you know, one of his biographies where it's a crusade in Europe and it's really a, you know, sort of a chronology of his experience standing up the Allied Expeditionary Force, standing up this combined Allied headquarters, and then going into the fight, developing the strategy. How were the decisions made? You know, why did we go to North Africa? Why didn't we, why didn't we go into the, in, into mainland Europe? Why did we do that? He outlines all that. But what I took away from reading, it's, I mean it's a, it's a good history from a, from the leader. But what I took out of it was one of my main lessons I took out of it was that the challenges of working in an alliance, trying to get the two national command authorities aligned and instead of oftentimes leading on the political leadership or the diplomats to do it, it ended up on the shoulders of the uniformed leaders to bridge that gap. So I think looking forward in the world that, that we live in, that you're going to inherit, you and your peers are going to inherit your. When you graduate, step into. Right now is probably the most dangerous time I can remember and I've been through a lot, but this is, this is a really dangerous period and we've got serious challenges, serious problems, friction points. There's a struggle going on globally and we're going to be in the middle of it whether we like it or not, because post World War II rules based international order, people are trying to tear those rules down, rewrite them in their own image. And that's not in our vital national interest. And the US military will be, will be at the front of this. We're going to be working on building those hopes, alliances and partnerships so that we can face these together. When you're in a fight, more is better. Generally speaking, more of anything is better. And, but I talk about alliances, partnerships, coalitions. It's not just about what they bring in combat power, but it is about international legitimacy and international opinion. The court of public opinion actually matters in issues of national security. So the more the merrier. That's that's how we gain legitimacy for our operations. So I think it's going to be critically important and you have to invest in those relationships. When I was in Korea, one thing I used to remind everyone, both Koreans and on the US Side in a combined force, is we can't, we can't take each other for granted. We're a, you know, mutual defense treaty. It's a relationship that came out of the crucible of ground combat, a brutal war that's still an armistice today. You can't take it for granted. You have to work at it. It takes both sides communicating, sharing, being open, but it's really about communications. So that. Because even in the closest of alliances, there'll be some disagreements and you can't let those fester because it then it starts to undermine trust. And once trust starts to sort of get worn thin, then you're in trouble. That is the fabric by which all units, good units, function is trust. And that's true in coalitions too. So anyway, I think it's going to be critically important.
• 6:28
  Speaker C: Thank you, sir. Well, with that, I'm much more motivated to pay attention to my Russian class next year. If I can ask a quick follow up. What kind of things within the army do you think can sustain us through these hard times? General Dempsey and General Sharpe both mentioned a very similar opinion. Where this global space that we're in right now is extremely difficult, and it's much more difficult than it has been in the past. What kind of tactics and techniques, sops, things within the army do you think are going to sustain the army culture and the army proficiency through the next couple of years?
• 6:59
  Speaker A: Well, I think just from an army perspective, the most important thing, and this is not new, but for sustaining it is about mastery of the fundamentals of your war fighting function and of warfighting. And I'm using that word mastery specifically and on and purposeful. Being good is not good enough. Being good at your craft, in my opinion, is not good enough. In this, you know, what we, what we teach, and it's actually true. It's a very volatile, uncertain complex with a lot of ambiguity. That's the, that's the world we live in. What will sustain us is mastery of the fundamentals. Not trying to over taylorize, not try to overly craft a specific technique or process for one specific aspect of one threat. No, it's better, in my opinion, in this world of uncertainty, be masters of the fundamentals. And when we talk about mastery, 15 years ago everybody was talking about, hey, we want leaders who think outside the Box. My view is there's plenty in the box, master what's inside the box. And then once you've achieved mastery level competency, then you can, you can use it as you seek. That mastery takes repetition after repetition. If you think of virtuoso in another discipline, a violinist, musicians, an athlete, a professional athlete, how many repetitions do you think that they have under their belt to be as good as they are? We're in the hundreds of thousands creating that. That's the kind of mastery I'm talking about, that amount of repetition. So I think that in the world we are in, you should avoid over specialization. We need expert mastery level generalists that give us flexibility to do a whole lot of things and not just one thing or face one threat.
• 8:56
  Speaker C: That's fantastic. Thank you, sir. As previously mentioned, our first episode for five questions with the General featured retired generals Martin Dempsey and Skip Sharp, who you know, in his comments, General Dempsey mentioned the importance of being a memorable leader. What do you think it means to be a memorable leader?
• 9:10
  Speaker A: I had the great fortune to work for General Dempsey previously in a couple of different assignments. And it doesn't surprise me that as he was trying to create that idea of being a memorable leader because he's a memorable leader and I've worked directly for him. I think the message he's trying to send is to be an effective leader, you're going to have to be a leader. Afterwards, they'll remember you. In other words, you don't go into it, into a leadership position with a goal of hey, I'm doing this because I want them to remember me, that I want them to have memorable experiences. If you approach it that way, you're going to go down the wrong path. And it's a little selfish to take that approach. In my opinion, being memorable is that you've made such an impact on soldiers lives that it makes it unforgettable. The army is a people business. We're about people. You know, we had the 26th Chief of Staff of the army was fond of reminding audiences that people are not in the Army. People are the army and unlike the other services and I, we have the best air force, Navy on the planet. But they man their equipment, they man their fighting systems, they man ships, they man aircraft. We're in the people business. We equip the man or woman. So it's a, it's a very personal leadership is very, is a very personal endeavor. When I'm talking to young audiences like cadets or leaders, lieutenants, you know, they're always looking you know, what advice do you have? So what I tell the youngsters is it's really three things. One, be a leader of the strongest character. Two, know your job, achieve mastery level. And three, take care of your people one person at a time. You want to be memorable. You may lead a platoon of 30. You may command a company of 150, may command a battalion of 600 brigade, a division of 20,000. How you interact with them individually as well as a group, they'll remember. It's less about what you say. They won't remember much of what you said unless you had a really good joke or a catchphrase. But they will remember how you treated them. That's the memory. That's what makes it memorable. I was treated with dignity and respect. I was inspired by this leader. That leader was so competent, so calm and cool in the worst possible situations. Occasionally, that leader may have made a stern correction, might have got. Got a little sip to him, and I was on the receiving end of one of those. That could be also a memorable experience. But we had fun. I was in the. I was in units that had high standards, people worked hard. Teaming work was the most important thing, and we had fun along the way. That environment was created by a leader. That's what makes that leader memorable. They created that. They sustained the unit's culture, and they created a climate that you just wanted to be in. That's. To me, when I think back in my career, those are the. Those are the leaders that I remember the most occasionally, I'd say is being a bit of a character also. It's not something I ever aspire to be, but I do have a couple of leaders from my career. My. I was a lieutenant. My. One of my. My second squadron commander was a. He was a character. He was a. He was larger than life, gregarious, and he was an inspiration. He had plenty of shortcomings, and he'd be the first. You know, he's passed away now, but. And he'd be the first one to admit his shortcomings, so. But, God, we had an awful lot of fun in that outfit. And we could fight and that. That's what mattered the most. So. But it's not. You can't do this as an observer. You're not going to be memorable as a leader. Sitting on the side and keeping the trains on time and making sure your PowerPoint charts are filled out properly. And, you know, your reports are all, dress right, dress. This is about getting out there with people and inspiring them, getting to know them in My opinion there is no greater reward than either after you've left the unit or even now as I've retired is soldiers I worked with previously reaching out to me and us having opportunity to reminisce about times in that particular outfit. That's why I know I've got people who remember what it was like with us and then, you know, you've delivered on your obligation as a leader.
• 13:27
  Speaker C: That's fantastic, sir. I love the connection made between fun, having a good time, but also being able to fight the battles that are necessary. Why do you think there's that connection between a unit that has a little bit of fun, a unit that can joke around, but also a unit that can essentially lock it in and get.
• 13:44
  Speaker A: Get the job done again? I, I'm, I don't, I don't have a degree in psychology, but you know, I've got a lifetime experience, doctorate level experience and expertise in leadership. Ultimately, I think we're, we're human beings, people who take themselves and their units so seriously. I think that they, in the end they won't be as effective as a unit, as one that's got a little spirit to them, who can take a joke, who can make fun of themselves, who doesn't, who can, as I used to say, take a punch, right? If you're going to be in this outfit, you got to be able to take a punch, right? Somebody's going to, you know, have a little jab on you and it's okay. It doesn't cross a line into hazing or anything such as that, but it's just good natured ribbing. War fighting is serious business and good units, they know when they have to lock in and there's no time for that sort of behavior. But because the pressure is so high, the stakes are so high, you've got to relieve that stress somehow. And I'm a big believer in physical activity, sports, even in combat. Little friendly competition is good for relieving stress, but so is having a little light heartedness and finding some humor. If you're not careful, you can go down a pretty dark path without maintaining a bit of a positive attitude. Have a little air inside the organization. I was fortunate. I was on a lot of great teams, some unbelievable teams with some unbelievable talent. So I look back and you know what's consistent across all of them? High standards, people enforce them. Everyone was accountable to include the leaders. They were accountable publicly. People were fit, they were disciplined, they were masters of their craft and everyone was treated with dignity and respect and they had fun they could laugh, it was just a joy to be around. Whereas compare that with other units that I visited or maybe I observed as observer controller or something in training. What all of that brought together when you can have that environment was a really deep level of trust that all comes together in units where people really trust each other when they don't have that sort of spirit in them. My observation was there was a little crack in the trust meter inside the formation that they didn't feel comfortable, they didn't trust each other enough to be able to let their guard down, to have a little bit of fun. And that manifested itself and not as strong as performance as others.
• 16:12
  Speaker C: Fantastic. Thank you sir. That's the, that's the playbook for a high performing unit right there. Our next question is, aside from the general officer ranks, at what rank do you feel you were able to make the biggest impact and why? This could be on soldiers, families, the army or the world?
• 16:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, and I've had this question before in my career. I used to try to answer it with one position and I'd say, well, when I was at X, that was the best here and here's why. An unintended consequence of that comment was when I was talking to young officers, they'd say, oh well, if that's the case then I should get out of the army. After that, great. You know, I should plan on retiring at X number of years. And that's obviously not intent. So I had to step back and really reflect. So Zach, here's what I'm going to tell you. I don't think there's one rank where you can have the most impact. You can have tremendous impact. In fact, it's not even quantifiable the impact you can have at every pay grade as a commissioned officer. As a non commissioned officer I would add as well. And it doesn't matter what position, whether you're a platoon leader, a company commander or an Assistant Brigade S3 toiling away in the, in the operations shop and in some brigade headquarters somewhere as a lieutenant, which I don't wish that on anyone because it'd be an awful lot of work and people would have to try really hard to make it fun for you. It wouldn't be much fun. But you can have an impact, a tremendous impact at every single pay grade and even as a staff officer because you going to have soldiers who work for you or, and if you're a staff officer, they may not work directly for you as an assistant staff officer, but you're certainly going to be working with soldiers, just because you're not their designated leader or their commander doesn't relieve you of the responsibility and the obligation to lead them, to lead them by outstanding personal example, to lead them, by sharing the hardships with them, to lead them, by inspiring them, to lead them, by showing empathy when it's required. And I've seen officers who, when they're in those sort of hideaway positions doing important government work and doing important work for the army, sort of think that they, they can check out of that responsibility and they're absolutely wrong. You can have an impact. Everywhere you go, there's going to be soldiers there. Get to know them, inspire them, build trust with them. A, you'll learn a lot from them. They're going to, they'll, they'll begin to trust you, they'll begin to share with you. You'll learn about their families, you'll learn about what challenges they might have. You may find opportunities where you can help them, coach them, mentor them, encourage them, steer them away from trouble, steer them away from making poor, immature decisions. You can do that regardless of what position you're in. And of course, as a commander, you know, you have command authority and, and the Army's got a very good command policy. I used to refer to it frequently. It's Army Regulation 620. It's probably the best 70 page piece of regulation you in the entire Army. It's clear, it's concise, it specifies and outlines exactly what we expect from commanders. You follow that you can, you can have a tremendous impact. So I can't just pick one and you'll know you'll have it right. The later in your career when you run into people who serve with you and they seek you out and they want to talk about how great it was and how thankful they are for something that you might have done. And the more senior I got, you know, I interacted with a lot of people. What one of my guiding principles was, whenever there was a challenge, someone in trouble, someone in stress, was to think about them not as part of a big unit blob, but that soldier, that soldier's family. Taking the time to look into the background, the details before rendering a decision. Knowing that even though I, you know, for 10 minutes I was a deep dive into that, I had to make sure I made the best decision for the army and for that soldier and his family. And I did it, you know, so frequently, just, I can't remember every single one of those, but I've certainly had plenty of people in retirement, you know, send me an email or see me somewhere and say, sir, you probably don't remember this, but you made this decision. You made this policy. You did X, Y or Z, and it changed my family's life forever. I just want to thank you. I never had a chance to thank. That's how you know that you're making the impact. And again, I'm circling back to a common theme in all this. This is about people. You know, there's another phrase that people like to use that soldiers before, they want to hear what you have to say. They want to know if you care about and you have to be authentic about that. My brothers and father's generation were fond of saying, I don't hear people say it much anymore, but you got to love soldiers and you have to love soldiering. It's an affair of the heart. That's how you make an impact.
• 21:23
  Speaker C: It's fantastic. Sir. I love the comment on love that's so important. Sir, you spent an enormous amount of time in the Army. Are there any decisions you made during your time in uniform, particularly in the early years of your career, that you still doubt or rethink? Were you right then? How did you know?
• 21:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I was really fortunate. And again, I'm looking back at decisions, I'll be the first one to say I played, made plenty of mistakes. My career, various assignments, I just never made the same mistake twice. So decisions back then, you know, when I was a young officer, choices of assignment, choices of duty, you know, that you put your request in, but there was not a lot of guarantees. So, you know, those kind of, those things kind of took a. You didn't have much say in where you were going. I mean, I, my, when I graduated from the academy, right, I, you know, I selected my branch, obviously, and then I selected, you know, I was going to, you know, Germany, third Armored Divisions, cavalry squadron, which we could do back then. And so I knew what squadron I was going to, but I certainly didn't get to decide what duty assignment I was going to have when I got there. That's out of your hands. So I've given this some thought, and here's what I'd offer to your listeners as a young officer. And, and then when you become a company commander, you're going to have to deal with maintaining good order and discipline of your units as specified in that magnificent army regulation 620 it talks about. It really lays out for you what that means about good order and discipline your authorities for that one of the tools we have for enforcing good order Discipline is the uniform code of military justice about going down too far is. Yeah. How do you develop judicial temperament to determine how much is enough to maintain good order and discipline? And so when I look back, you're asking me that. I doubt or rethink. I don't do it much anymore. But I think back, you know, as a company commander, how did I, my judicial temperament evolve? You know, when you're doing Your first Article 15, you know you're going to get advice from the chain of command. So there's a platoon leader and a platoon sword in there to give their recommendation. And then of course, you got your first sergeant, who's going to probably have the last word recommendation. And then, you know, you'll have a private discussion, bring soldier back in, render your decision and balancing all of that, making sure that the chain of command knows that they're being heard, that you're supporting the chain of command. Because I believe in the chain of command, that you're supporting your first sergeant, that you're. That you and your first sergeant are presenting a public face, that you're aligned together. You may disagree behind closed doors, but you're publicly on the same sheet of music. It's very important at the company level for the company commander first sergeant. But at the same time, you have to send a message. You have to hold the soldier accountable. But whatever you decide, if you're going to punish a soldier, it's going to impact on the soldier, and especially if they're married. So if you reduce them in rank, you forfeit pay. It. It hurts. You know, when I think back to my early days when I doing my first ones, I wonder if I exercised appropriate judicial temperament. Was I too hard? Did I. Did I not take matters enough? Matters in it, you know, you kind of question whether. And the proof is, did the. The purpose of it is to hold the soldier accountable in the hopes that it'll rehabilitate the soldier and get back on the straight, narrow. And that's sort of the proof. As I think back, that always was my, you know, my decision. However, I decided to enforce that good order of discipline to achieve the intended result by getting the soldier back on the straight and arrow. I think I got better over time. So as I think those kind of decisions, that sort of weighs on me now. One thing I just want to caveat on this, or I just want to take it a little bit of a different direction is you can't shy away from hard decisions as a leader. And I've seen people do it. You can't shy away from doing the right thing and speaking up for the right thing. It's commonly referred to as speaking truth to power. From my own example of people I followed early on by leaders, I learned that, that that's actually a really important leader trait, is to speak truth to power. No embellishment, no exaggeration, just the facts. But you can't shy away from it. You can't. There's certainly times when I spoke my mind where some of my leaders felt it was inappropriate. I, in my heart, I say I did the right thing. But you know, as I look back, there are things that, but by the grace of God, I didn't get fired for speaking it. And we say words have consequences, by the way, you have freedom of speech, but words do have consequences. Oftentimes you've got to ask yourself as, as I speak up now, what's at stake? And you have to be ready for the consequences. I think when I was younger, I'm not sure I 100% understood the consequences. I was a bit of an idealist that I was on the, the side of righteousness. And I was right. Technically I was right, but there was probably other factors that people more senior to me that had wrapped into whatever decision was being made. And perhaps I might have been a little too zealous, but I spoke up anyway, you know, so I wouldn't necessarily encourage that. I encourage speaking truth to power. I think being measured is the takeaway, especially as a younger officer now, the older you get, you know what's at stake. You have to, in my opinion, you have to do what's right. And I did it on more than one occasion.
• 26:50
  Speaker C: Thank you, sir, for my final question. Knowing what you know now today, what advice would you give to your younger self if you were starting your career over?
• 26:57
  Speaker A: It's a really great question. And so I'm going to give you, I'll, I'll give you one temporal recommendation. What I would, what I've, what I, what I would have told myself. And one physical. Temporally, when I was a new lieutenant, I prided myself in hard work, achieving mastery level competence, high standards that by, by the way, the, the standards I learned, I learned here at the academy as a cadet. I learned the importance of leading by outstanding personal example in word, deed, physical parents, fitness, how you conduct yourself. I learned that here I saw good examples and not so good examples and I was committed to upholding those standards. I can look back my bosses, you know, my troop commander, you know, when I was a lieutenant, both my troop commanders the squire commanders, obviously, they thought I was doing a really good job, but I was pretty intense. You know, I was a smoke brainer and I worked myself to the bone. And if I had to do it over again, knowing what I know now, I would have told myself, hey, you need to throttle back just a hair. And those that are not willing to put forth the time and effort, I didn't have a lot of patience with those who were not as committed as I was, that weren't as committed to the craft, they weren't as committed to taking care of their soldiers, that weren't as committed to the unit's mission as I was. I, I had, I didn't have a lot of tolerance. I did my best. I felt like I was doing my best to be a good teammate, but in hindsight, perhaps I wasn't as good a teammate because I didn't have a lot of patience. I would tell myself, throttle back a little bit, have a little patience with, with my peers especially. And I think I learned that I learned how to adjust from my first duty assignment in a cavalry squatter because when I got to my follow on duty assignment after the camps career course, you know, I walked into the, I ended up, you know, work my way, got down to a battalion at Fort Hood back then Fort Hood, the 1st Cavalry Division, and had my intro meeting with the battalion commander and well, Captain Abrams, what do you want? What are your objectives? What are your goals here? Sure, I want to command a tank company, right? I mean, no hesitation. So I'm here to command a tank company for you. And he said, oh, that's great. Well, great. You're going to be the battalion maintenance officer, you know, and I was the battalion maintenance officer for almost two years, 20 months. That'll humble you. Being a staff officer leading the maintenance platoon of a combined arms battalion, that'll humble you a little bit. And because you're not going to get anything done without working closely with your peers, the other battalion staff officers had to work with the company commanders, who are all much senior to me, captains, but all senior to me. And I saw what it I, I realized that even though I still had the same energy, the same standards in it's different. So I would tell myself, throttle back just a hair, be a little more patient. So that's the temporal recommendation. Now look, I'm old. So physically I would tell young Lieutenant Abrams, spend more time working on developing your posterior chain of muscles. Less time on your anterior posterior is the your back. So start from your Achilles heel and work your Way, all the way up to your neck, everything in it active because that's how you prevent having bulging discs and torn shoulders and God knows what else that happens. This is a hard business. This is a hard profession. Physically, you don't go from lieutenant to general. General not as physically demanding can be, but it's not as physically demanding. But from, especially in the combat arms, from second lieutenant to colonel, that's blue collar work. It's physically taxing. It'll wear and tear on your body. And those muscle groups I spent no time working on because we had a fitness test back then. It was push up, sit ups and run two miles, which is great. I mean it was, it was adequate, but it did not prepare us adequately for the rigors that we ask our body to perform on the battlefield. That's why the Army Combat Fitness Test was a huge step forward in my opinion, because you got to change the. If you want soldiers to train other muscle groups, especially the posterior chain, you had to change the fitness test to incentivize them to change their behavior and how they train. And sure enough, that's what's happened. Spend time on your posterior chain. Don't, don't just worry about how many push ups you can do.
• 31:13
  Speaker C: Absolutely, sir. Sir, thank you for sharing your time with us today and for the great discussion on partnership and leadership. On behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan, the director of MWI, and Dr. Charlie Feint, the director of this podcast series, I like to present you with this rare and coveted MWI engraved ammo can as a token of our appreciation.
• 31:29
  Speaker A: All right, thank you very much. Awesome. You're gonna have to mail it to me. Yes, sir. We'll get it back. Perfect. Thank you very much. This is great.
• 31:40
  Speaker B: This has been an episode of Five Questions for a General, a production of the Modern War Institute of West Point. If you like what you heard today, please download, like subscribe and share this podcast to help us reach an even larger audience. All statements in this podcast represent the person personal views of the speakers and do not represent an official position of the United States Military Academy or the United States government.