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General Joseph Ryan · 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, and it's my pleasure to be here today with General Joseph Ryan. General Ryan graduated from West Point in 1991 as an infantry officer and now commands the U.S. army Western Hemisphere Command. General Ryan, welcome back to West Point. Let's start at the beginning. What prompted you to attend West Point and join the Army?
• 0:48
  Speaker A: Okay. We're going to go way back. Good. So I am originally a New Yorker. I was born in Yonkers and then we moved over to Rockland county. And I grew up in Pearl River, New York, right down the river. And long story for, and I think for most people, it is a long story by virtue of geography. I was connected to West Point mostly through athletics. Came up here for basketball, baseball camps of sorts. My father was a basketball coach and PE teacher. He was connected to the basketball staff here at west point in the 70s and 80s. Think Mike Krzyzewski, think Bob Brown, guys like Les Burdig, Coach Wetke, the group that was running really the basketball program back then. He was very strongly connected to. In 1982, a kid from my high school named Kevin Houston attended the United States Military Academy prep school and then came to West Point in 1983. He graduated in 87, the year I arrived. But Kevin's claim to fame is as a first class cadet and as a senior here at West Point on the basketball team. He led the nation in school scoring and free throw percentage in Division 1. You know, West Point has had a few outstanding basketball players in their time, but he was certainly one of them and ranks at or near the top. That brought some relative fame and notoriety to not only him and to West Point basketball, but to Pearl River, New York, Pearl River High School, where he was from, and a little bit to my father too, because my father had coached him in high school. When I interviewed as a high school senior to come to West Point, over here, Monroe Woodbury Middle School was where we did the interviews. The team of interviewers asked me about coming to West Point and I sort of relayed the same story that I had known some folks who came before me in school. And they asked, well, can you give us a couple of names? And I said, kevin Houston. And they immediately were sort of enthralled by the idea that I knew Kevin Houston because he was a bit of a sensation in these circles at the time because of how he was playing. Anyway, long story short, I got admitted to the academy, I got a congressional nomination, and it all came relatively early in my senior year of high school. And I just said, well, you know, bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. And I just decided to make the leap into the academy, got assigned to company E1 and met some great people, and, you know, the rest is history. Stuck it out from there.
• 3:15
  Speaker C: That's awesome, sir. I got to be honest, in preparing for the podcast, I was googling Western Hemisphere Command, trying to learn all I could about it, and I got to be honest, I'm a little confused. Can you run us through what is the organization, what is it created for, and what are your main priorities?
• 3:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, and I appreciate you asking that question because that is something that I want to talk about for sure. So US Army, Western Hemisphere Command, like our counterparts, primarily in US Army Europe, Africa and US Army Pacific, is a theater Army. Our theater, though, is the Western Hemisphere. It's north and South America. It stretches from Greenland to Alaska in the north, goes all the way down to the, you know, Cape Horn through the Panama Canal, and Central America and South America. And so as a theater army, we are responsible for assigned and allocated forces, army forces. And when given the authority to operate as a combined joint land component or a joint task force, we will command forces in the theater of operations for which we're responsible. And that's the Western Hemisphere. The Western hemisphere, of course, is a little bit unique because it includes our country, right? It includes conus, not Hawaii, but Alaska. So it's not perfect. And I know Hawaii because I commanded the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii and very much a part of the United States, but just not a part of the Western hemisphere as we've defined it. And maybe more specifically, you can look at Northern Command, northcom and southcom areas of operations as really our theater of operations in peacetime and in normal day to day operations. The northcom commander, who's an Air Force general, Greg Guillaud, and the southcom commander, who's a Marine, General, Frank Donovan, they are the operational commanders for all forces in those theaters. My job is to provide army forces trained and ready army forces of all components. So compo one being the active force, compo two Being the Army National Guard and Campo three, being the Army Reserve, providing trained and ready forces to those commanders so that they and their subordinates as they deem fit, can operate with those forces to do the things that they need to do in the theaters. If given the authority, though, by either one of those guys, I could assume role as a component commander, as a joint task force commander, as a land component commander, to actually provide an operational staff and perform functions in the theater and do the work that's required. Of course, I also report to headquarters, Department of the army on all things that involve health, welfare, morale, discipline, just leadership of my assigned army forces. That includes primarily 18th Airborne Corps. So 18th Airborne Corps right there with me at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And it's downtrace, 82nd Airborne Division, 10th Mountain Division, 100 Airborne Division, 3rd Infantry Division, several others, separate brigades and such, located mostly on the east coast of the United States. It also includes 20th so Bernie command. So chemical, radiological, biological, nuclear. They're up at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland. But they have forces distributed across the United States too. And we also perform duties, as with the Garden Reserve, as a four star training readiness oversight headquarters. So for everybody who's in the Reserve and the Guard in CONUS in the continental United States, we have a role at Western Hemisphere Command because we have oversight of first army, which is the training and readiness component of our command, just to ensure that the Guard and Reserve forces that are required to perform duties in any theater of war or any theater of operations across the globe are ready to go. So like all things at the four star level, Zach, it's a complicated command, but it makes sense because we've not had a theater army for the Western Hemisphere, in my view, that's been capable of doing the work that really is the result of what's going to be required given its priority, this hemisphere's priority in the National Security Strategy and National Defense strategy that was recently published. So the Army's honestly ahead of the game here in terms of being very proactive in responding to the recently published National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, because those documents prioritize the Western Hemisphere in terms of the military, the required military approach to operations in the theater, whether that's directly defending the homeland. You know, the forces on the southern border, as an example, are folks that work for me, whether that's theater security cooperation in the theater of operations, northcom or southcom with Mexico, with Latin America or Central American countries. We have a base in Honduras at Sotokano Air Base. We have a growing presence in Panama, where we're rebuilding the Jungle Operations Training center. And, and we're also partnering with Panamanian forces to ensure the security of the Panama Canal as a critical piece of key terrain. We also have a role in, as I said, in the continental United States in providing defense support to civil authorities, whatever that requires. And we've seen some of that play out, not just since this administration has come into power here in the United States, but even in the previous administration. Think hurricane disaster relief, humanitarian assistance. Right? Those are the types of things that our forces, if asked to perform duties in the continental United States, we will, and any of our territories and such that are in the North Comm and South Comm. Aor. So it's an exciting time to be a part of a new command. We're a little over 90 days old. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention army north and army south, who existed before U.S. army Western Hemisphere Command came to the fore. Army north and army south did fantastic work, but were routinely and traditionally underpowered under resourced by the army because of requirements globally outside of this hemisphere. And again, where I say the Army's kind of ahead of its game here is the army has recognized the prioritization of this theater requires a new approach. And U.S. army Western Hemisphere Command is it at the four star level. There's just simply more we can do from an access and placement and authority perspective that army north and army south perhaps couldn't do in the past. And so we're excited to take it on. We're excited about what the future holds and we're excited about what it's going to mean for soldiers and leaders and army civilians and families and service members across the board in the army going forward.
• 10:07
  Speaker C: Sir, it's always a rare occurrence when we get someone who has a new command, they're establishing this unit or a command. In the podcast studio, we've asked division commanders of newer units or as they restart units, what's the most important thing that they have to focus on? Maybe it's culture, maybe it's an SOP or maybe it's some type of nesting function at your level of command, being all the way at the top there with Western Hemisphere Command, where do you see the most important mechanism or idea or organizational structure that you have to get right to make Western Hemisphere Command work?
• 10:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, great question. I want to start where I just finished, which is, you know, the organizations that are forming U.S. army Western Hemisphere Command really get to the crux of the matter. I think you're talking about. So three commands have become US Army, Western Hemisphere Command, Forces Command, which existed for 50 years, Army north and Army south, which I just talked about previously. Forces Command was built and formed in about 1972. 73. So 50, about 53 years of service to the country in Forces Command. Where were we as a country in 1972? 73. We were coming out of the Vietnam War. We were also professionalizing and modernizing the force by eliminating the draft and going to an all volunteer army and an all volunteer force. That was a huge endeavor and there were a lot of people in the midst of that change. Change being an important word, and that's kind of what you're referring to, were skeptics about whether we could make it work. The military professionals knew we had to make it work because we knew what the value of a professional force was going to provide for our army and for our country. So we endeavored to make it work by leading through change and figuring out how we needed to best align our resources and our requirements to make sure that we did make it work. Forces command for 50 years helped the army do that. Now today, as Zach, you prepare to enter the force. I prepare to leave the force at some point. Right. The volunteer army is ubiquitous. We know nothing else. And it's very important to who we are as a joint force. It's very important to who we are as an army. And it's not going away. And yet we still hung onto some of the legacy formations that we had before that helped make it work. So this is what I would argue is a clear indicator of why we had to change. Beyond that, given the view of ongoing conflicts across the globe, the army had to transform. The army had to change to meet the requirements for those conflicts. I just talked about the national security and national defense strategy. What were we going to do as an army other than change to meet the requirements of those strategic documents in support of our nation's security? So the requirement to change was self evident. Not changing, Zach, was not a part of the equation. And I say that because the most important thing in leading through change in any organization is making sure that people understand why. Why are we changing? Because if you don't establish the why and if you don't establish the ultimate reason, people will always question your motives that are behind the reason for change. You have to establish the why and make sure that people know it. And so part of me being here today is to talk about the why. Talk about it with staff and faculty. Talk about it with your podcast listeners. So people start to get their arms around it and understand not just what we're doing. Because it's easy in the army to just be a lemming and say, I'm going to follow orders. But in the end, your soldiers, your leaders, your civilians, your subordinates, and even your family members and other stakeholders out there, if they know the why, they can help you directly or indirectly get there. That's been honestly the number one thing we've been focused on is making sure that the ForceCom, Army north and Army south, leaders and stakeholders that were invested in those organizations that are now folding into US Army, Western Hemisphere Command, taking on a new identity, understand the why so that they don't become disenfranchised. And as America. And I think we're having some success there. But every day, you know, there's. There can't. We can't rest on our laurels. We have to stay at it. Leading through change is what that requires. And, Zach, that's something that everybody listening should think about for the organization that they're in, because every organization inevitably has to go through some level of change. And the best thing, the first thing you got to do is establish that why. And I think that's been not necessarily the biggest challenge, because we knew going in we had to do that, but it's been our. It's been our most strident point we're trying to make. And it's been the area where we've put the most effort in is making sure people do understand the why. And then the last thing I'll say is we've established three priorities initially in the command, accomplish the mission, build a theater army, and take care of people. Those three things prior to pervade all that we do, we have ongoing missions across the command that can't be sacrificed. Our administration, Department of War, joint Staff, army leadership will not let us fail, and we won't fail them. And so we have to continue to accomplish the mission. But in the midst, we've got to change, we've got to build this theater army into the thing, the entity that's going to make all that stuff work and all of that come together out of the pieces and resources we have, and then we're required, asking for additional resources and then taking care of people. There's never a day that goes by in the army where you're not taking care of people. And so we're constantly listening, assessing, providing advice to making changes to our approach where it makes best sense for our workforce. We're also trying to do the best job we can in managing the talent that we have. Because without talented people, we're not going to be able to do anything. And you know, that, that each situation is a little bit different, but it's certainly something that's foremost in our mind and we got to do so.
• 16:40
  Speaker C: I found the historical perspective interesting. It's good to know that how the past informs what's happening right now. How is right now informing what's happening right now. So we're switching over to Western Hemisphere Command. How are conflicts around the world or future, you know, anticipations of conflicts informing the switch to Western Hemisphere Command? And why is that important?
• 17:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, Zach, again, another really good question. Things are moving pretty rapidly here in the Western Hemisphere. And for those who are reading and paying attention, it should be self evident that, you know, that we're beginning to focus on this area of the world. But you know, I acknowledge we're a global army and we're a global power and therefore we have global requirements and responsibilities. And so, you know, given today, you know, just sitting down today in front of a, you know, an online, you know, news program, or sitting down and reading a periodical, you know, you would, you would look at what's going on in the conflict in Iran and with Israel and our activities there. You would look at the war between Ukraine and Russia and what we're doing to support that. You would look at the operations and activities and investments we're making in the Indo Pacific to deter China, multitude of others across the globe. And yet here we sit in the cozy Western Hemisphere and what do we have to worry about? Well, I think this administration has looked at the situation here and realized what we've allowed to occur over the course of many years has simply gone on too far. We have adversaries directly in this sphere. China is one of those adversaries vying for global power with the United States, no question about it, economically, certainly vying for competition with the United States militarily, although right now largely a regional power. On the economic side though, a global power. And they've expanded their economic interests into the South America and Central America, perhaps more broadly than people think. This administration has declared an effort to become the economic partner of choice for many of our South American and Latin American partners because it's important for the national security of the United States to ensure that we have those interests in our near abroad in this hemisphere. Perhaps most directly though, illicit cartel activity, whether that's narco trafficking or whether that's migrant flows or any other Illicit activities that cartels are involved in in this hemisphere. This administration again has declared this has gone on too far. And so we've not dealt with it militarily before. But this administration intends to include the military as an element of national power. You got diplomacy, you got information, you got the economy, and you got the military. Using the military as an element of national power to address the narco trafficking threat. We've defended the southern border and we've established a military presence on the southern border of the United States. But Zach, any military or strategy professional knows that that's sort of close to home. That's the last line of defense. What we want to do and help the administration with is a defense in depth, defending forward. Right? So some of that's enlisting our partners and allies in this part of the world, in Latin and South America, to do some of that work for us and with us, perhaps sharing some resources with them, but allowing them and empowering them to do the work in their own countries where that work needs to be done to counter the cartel activity that is flowing up into the United States and bringing, you know, human trafficking, narco trafficking, etc. And those problems into the continental United States. In other cases, there's going to be places where we position forward to do that work directly. I think you can look at operations recently in Venezuela as an example of where the administration has drawn a line and said, we're not going to. We're not going to accept in our near abroad the president of a sovereign nation who is primarily a narco trafficker and is an indicted war criminal in the United States, and we're just simply not going to accept that. And I recognize that there's a debate about whether that particular action from this administration was lawful or unlawful. But I think the fundamental purpose of why they did it is very clear they weren't going to accept the state of affairs as they existed. The president has taken a stand against Cuba as a pseudo puppet regime of the Russian state in this hemisphere. We have other nations in this hemisphere where I think the United States sees that there's activity required and perhaps more effort required immediately to do the work to counter cartel activity. One that's recently in the news is Ecuador. Ecuador is a transit hub for many of the illicit drugs that come out of neighboring Colombia and neighboring Peru. Colombia and Peru produce fentanyl using precursors largely from China, but it flows out of Ecuador and then through Ecuador, either out to sea and up into Mexico and the United States or over land from Ecuador. And so The Ecuadorian president has said he wants to partner with the United States to eradicate that activity in his country. There are other countries that are coming together to partner with the United States and help counter some of that activity. Most recently last week and over the weekend, Secretary War and the southcom leadership met with ministers of defense in Miami. And then the president followed on over the weekend with this Shield of the Americas conference and America's Counter Cartel coalition. And about 13 or 14 nations in South America and Central America signed up for that. I think there'll be more to come because there were certainly a few that were notably absent from that session with the President. That's okay. We're just getting started. It's something to build on. There are certainly countries in Central and South America with shared values of the United States, and we're going to use that as a jumping off point to get some of this work done.
• 23:03
  Speaker C: Sir, if I'm a battalion commander, maybe company commander, or maybe I'm choosing the wrong levels of command here, but what do I need to know about this switch to Western Hemisphere Command and how? By tell soldiers about it? Do they need to know about it? What do they need to know? You know, do they expect any changes coming down?
• 23:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's a fair question. And again, going to our previous conversation before we came online here, you know, day in and day out, I don't think there's much they honestly need to know. For example, there are leaders at certain echelons, at the Corps echelon and at the division echelon who need to understand it because, you know, we're about two levels up from a division commander, one level up from a corps commander. Those guys certainly and their staffs need to understand it down and in, though, in the army and largely, you know, for, for the cadets that are in the audience or young officers at the major, captain, major, lieutenant colonel level, I think. I think those who are moving back into battalions and brigades and are going to do that level of work, I don't think there's much broadly that they need to understand other than the fact that the organization of the army at the theater army level has changed as a result of that. There are going to be some responsibilities that transfer to various echelons of command. And this gets to kind of the army transformation point, Zach, that I want to talk to staff and faculty here about Forces Command as it becomes a part of US Army Western Hemisphere Command. Forces Command did a lot for the army for 50 years. There are tasks and responsibilities that Forces Command took on that we've got to promulgate laterally. Some are going to move up to HQDA and the Army's going to do those things and some are going to move down. And it's going to require everybody across the army to ask, what can I do to make sure that this army transformation works? So a level of awareness, perhaps is what I would ask leaders and soldiers to think about day in and day out, though, Zach. I mean, life at the, I would like to think life at the battalion and brigade level is going to remain very much the same for those in 18th Airborne Corps and maybe more broadly across the Army. For sure. Understanding that the Western hemisphere is a priority for this administration is important. Understanding that there'll be opportunities in the western hemisphere for operations activities and investments in places like we talked about Panama. Right. Understanding that there's. We're going to build a jungle Operations training center down there and that will provide opportunities certainly for probably largely our light airborne air assault type units and their associated enabling units. But honestly, we haven't governed it that way. We're going to provide opportunity for anybody and anybody who wants to go. You know, I ran a jungle course out in Hawaii when I commanded the 25th Infantry Division that still exists at Lightning Academy there. But that's largely an individual school and provides individual expertise. What we want to build at the Jungle Operations Training center in Panama is a collective training opportunity. So I want whole units, platoons, companies, battalions to be able to rotate through the Jungle Operations Training center and train together as a unit. It just provides an awesome experience for leaders to take a unit, prepare for deploy down there, execute the training, and then, you know, get, get that experience together as a group because it, you know, it's going to be, it's, it's not going to be easy training. It's going to be hard training. But shared hardship just makes units a ton closer. So that part of it, I think should be super exciting for folks too, sir.
• 26:32
  Speaker C: A lot of leaders talk about building a toolbox over their whole career of different mechanisms and words and ideas to bring into units. When it comes to building a culture of excellence or war fighting, whatever you want to call it, what kind of things have you had to pull out of your toolbox to build a good culture in this new command?
• 26:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's very important, you know, at any echelon of command really, starting at, I think, the company level. But it's certainly not, it's not unimportant at the platoon level recognizing that for an officer who's moving into a platoon leader job. You know, the opportunity for that officer to lead and train and motivate young soldiers to do the right thing is paramount. But it's also an incredible learning and experience for that officer as well. So arguably, the officer learns as much as they give in that particular role. At the company level and the battalion level, for sure, there have to be opportunities for the leader to sort of think about the process that they're going to use in how they do it. Right. You're not jumping on day one and execute. You've got to do some thinking about it up front. Every unit is a little bit different, but there are certainly some common threads that pervade every level of command, but it's certainly something that folks have to think about. Again, I go back to what I said before, Zach. The most important thing is really telling people the why, Giving people the reason why we're doing things, why we're on the path we're on, whatever that path is, and then ensuring that you continue to sort of repeat that message so that everybody gets it. Because at every echelon of command, you're dealing with a large number of people. I mean, think about it. At the company level, it's well over 100. At the battalion level, it's several hundred to almost 1,000. At the brigade level, it becomes 2,000 plus. It's an audience that you have to keep talking to and making sure they're well informed, because you're never talking to the same person twice, it seems. I mean, you may feel that way day in and day out, but. But there's a requirement there to be a little bit repetitive to make sure that people are getting the message. I think that's the number one thing, talking to people about why and then being a little bit of a broken record to ensure that people understand. And that's a little bit of a tactical phrase, but it is important from a method perspective for folks to understand. I also think good leaders at any echelon should be focused broadly on three things. Anytime you take a leadership role, the first thing is accomplish the mission that's in front of you. That's the most important thing. And you got to figure out how to do that. And like I said, this is a priority for me. I've said it plainly. We can't let the mission go unaccomplished, even as we're building the theater army, even as we're taking care of people. Right? So the first and most important thing is accomplish the mission. The second thing, of course, is take Care of people. And then the third thing is leave the organization better than you found it. You should be doing something every day that's going to extend past your lifetime in that organization. Company, battalion, brigade, command, one year, two years, maybe you get to do it twice. On limited occasions. I've had the luxury. I commanded two companies, two battalions, commanded a brigade, commanded a division. I got the opportunity to do command multiple times every day. You ought to be looking to make something better in the organization, to ensure that it endures beyond your lifetime. And your legacy largely is that thing. Some of that could be tangible in the organization, on the installation, in the unit. It can be really sort of something you can put your hands and touch and feel, and it's a real thing. Other can be, as you've described, an importance of the culture. How do you build the culture to make sure that it initiates, endures in a positive way beyond your departure? Some of it can be in the way you develop leaders, right? And the people that you touch in that organization, and they always ought to be, you know, your goal always ought to be that they're looking back into that organization and saying, that was a part of my life and a time when I was led by good people who had their priorities in order and they were doing the right thing, and I was inspired by them. Right? So there's a number of different ways to do it, but accomplishing the mission, taking care of people, and then leaving the organization better than you found it. Those are sort of the three touchstones that if you wake up every morning and you think about that, or you go to bed every night and you think about, how did I do? In retrospect, you ought to be keeping yourself honest that way.
• 31:14
  Speaker C: Sir. I'm obviously cadet right now. One of the things I love about the academy is how many cadets are eager to get out there and lead soldiers. Whether or not they always want to say it, you know, in front of their friends or whatever, but how people actually want, and they want to get better and they want to learn these leadership lessons from great leaders like yourself, sir. And what would you say to the platoon leader or to the cadet who has all of this energy and really wants to do a good job, but they maybe don't have that experience or that background to level themselves where they need to be? Because there's a certain amount of institutional inertia when you get to a platoon or a company where it's just going to. It's going to go where it's going to go. And as a Leader, you can kind of maybe put it on a glide path in certain one direction or another. What would you say to the platoon that's maybe trying to do too much or too little or how do they find that balance and do the right amount?
• 32:03
  Speaker A: So I would say, first off, it's very normal and it's expected when you get to a unit that that's exactly what you're going to bring. The most positive attributes of a young lieutenant in any organization are going to be his or her energy and excitement about the mission and a willingness to want to do well. Right. You know, I can give you multitudes of examples. Obviously, I was in the same boat when I was commissioned. You know, there's a ton you don't know. And candidly, Zach, you're not expected to know. But that's not the value that you bring to the organization. But you. You ought to be attuned enough and paying attention enough to be picking up on the cues where you can learn as you go. Right? And so being a very active listener, a very active participant in the organization, learning as you go, and making sure you're sort of got eyes wide open, ears open, and learning from your mentors, because the quicker you can sort of pick up how and what to do, the why should. Again, I've talked about how important the why is, but the quicker you can pick up the how and the what, the method, it'll show growth. Okay? And that's what leaders like me are looking for in young officers. The ability for them to pick up the how and the what demonstrates potential. The more rapidly they can do it, the more potential that they would have. I'll give you a quick mnemonic that I've used since I was really a battalion brigade commander. And I originally applied it, I applied it to young officers, really, at any level. But. But I think it, and I think it works, and it's pretty simple, but I, you know, it's got a lot of wisdom behind it. Three attributes of a successful leader in the army. Smart, willing to work hard, team player. Smart, willing to work hard, team player. Okay? The latter two there. Willing to work hard, team player, 100% in control of the individual, right? So the leader, the young officer, the young cadet who's entering the service, be willing to work hard, right? Do the things above and beyond what your commander has told you to do, what your immediate supervisor has said needs to be done. Go above and beyond. Be willing to work hard. Be willing to dive in, roll your sleeves up, get the job done. 100% and then some, right? Be a team player. This is a team sport. We give out individual awards. We give out individual promotions. People aspire to individual positions. That's all great. It's a team sport. Nobody in this organization, nobody in this line of work gets anywhere, anywhere by themselves or through virtue of their own individual talents and capability. It's a team sport. Be a team player. Prop up those who need help. Enlist the expertise of others. Get to know people, build relationships. Right. The more you build relationships among your peer group as you go. The army is going to seem like a huge place when you first get into it. Trust me, it is small. It is. Every time you go somewhere, you're going to meet the same people over and over again. Never miss an opportunity to make a relationship. Never miss an opportunity to help somebody. I had an officer. I'd like to tell this story. I had an officer in my brigade when I was a. I had a major. And of course, a major seems old to cadets. Trust me, young to me. When I was a brigade commander, I had a major in my outfit. She was a lawyer, and she was on my brigade staff. And routinely, when the brigade had to do something that required extra work above and beyond the normal duty day, a planning effort, an excursion to explore what we could do, something maybe we were given by division or corps to take a look at. The standard cast of characters were always there. The Brigade S3, the Brigade X4. Right. Sometimes the S1, the planner, for sure. You know, they were getting together and they were hunched over a map and they were. Got spreadsheets and they were working on the problem, and there's the lawyer. And I would say to myself, okay, there's certainly some operational law aspects to this, but why is the lawyer here? And one day I pulled her in and I said, what are you doing here? It's late. Why don't you go home, sir? I'm just here in case the guys need anything. It could be running out for sandwiches. It could be operational law advice. It could be going to get cold drinks, or it could be just a morale check. But I just want to make sure. This is important. I want to make sure they get it done. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Being a team player, being there, being present and understanding, you know, important work that people are doing. So be willing to work hard, be a team player. Those two things are completely in the control of the individual. Smart. That was the first thing I mentioned, right? Every cadet who becomes a lieutenant is a smart person. This Institution doesn't bring in dummies to West Point and try to turn them into second lieutenants. And I would say the same of your ROTC counterparts out there. There's no dummies doing this work or aspiring to do this work. How you demonstrate your intellect, though, is based on the eye of the beholder. Okay? So as a brigade commander, I sort of reserve the right to determine who really had the mental tools to be able to, you know, have the potential to work at the next level. Okay. As a young officer, Zach, the world's your oyster. You're all smart enough to do this work. There's different ways to demonstrate it. Being overt about it sometimes is the best way to go about it. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor, if you will. You've got to demonstrate at certain times, when you're asked to, when clearly the onus is on you to build a product, write a paper, execute a plan, think critically, think creatively. And I know these professors and faculty and tactical officers here at the academy at West Point. They talk about those times, types of things, and it's a little bit, like, difficult to kind of get your arms around and physically touch. You know it when you see it. Those opportunities will come for young lieutenants, young captains, young majors. Seize the opportunity. Don't miss the opportunity to demonstrate that you know what you're doing and you've got a level of confidence and enthusiasm about what you're doing. It's important because it demonstrates to leaders above you that, hey, is that Zach Olson kid? He's got a future. I like him. He can do good things. He can do a myriad things in the Army. He can be in a leadership role, some more defined than others, but he demonstrates he's got the potential because he's smart, willing to work hard, and he's a team player. So that's the one that has always come back to me, sir, is a
• 39:02
  Speaker C: company commander twice, you said, and a battalion commander twice, and then a brigade commander. Was there something that your lieutenants did not do? Maybe when they got there or even after a couple months or years that you wanted them to do, and you were like, gosh, you know, I had to counsel them into this, or whatever actionable.
• 39:17
  Speaker A: None of the lieutenants I ever encountered were waking up in the morning and asking themselves, how can I screw this up? Right? Everybody was well intentioned. But I think the lieutenants that perhaps didn't achieve the level of success that they wanted or the level of success I would have expected of them were those that didn't seize those opportunities that were right in front of them. Right. They got discouraged. They got. They didn't put forth the effort. They didn't go the extra mile. And therefore any opportunity they had to demonstrate that they were smart, willing to work hard, and a team player fell by the wayside. Certainly on that last one, if they demonstrated a sort of me first attitude or they were trying to achieve success not by their own actions independently, but by, like, sort of demeaning and degrading or at the expense of others. Red flag. Right? So that's an area where, you know, again, as a lieutenant, there's not many things you can do wrong that aren't recoverable because you can teach, and there are teaching moments, and there are important experiences where you can take success or failure and turn that into a lesson that hopefully somebody takes with them down the road. So I wouldn't say there was anything short of a, you know, a moral or an ethical misstep. That was a death knell for a. For a young lieutenant. As long as they were demonstrating that they had some intellectual capacity to do the work, they were working hard, and they were a good team player, then they were going to move forward. It's where they failed in one of those three things. And perhaps most notably the latter, the last of those three, the team part, you know, presented the greatest sort of risk of. For. For a young lieutenant that I would ask people to just watch out for. But the most important thing, Zach, is don't think about that. Right? Do the right thing. Be positive, be optimistic, be energetic, be focused on mission accomplishment, be engaged in the work that's being done, and think about it like, hey, how do we best accomplish the task? And if you're thinking about, like, how do you best get this done? Rather than who's going to get the credit? It's all going to work out fine. Those who do the work are going to shine regardless if they feel like they get direct credit or not. I tell you, Zach, I was probably not the best lieutenant by far in my battalion when I was a young infantry lieutenant in the 82nd. I was probably not the best captain in, you know, second Brigade, first Armored Division in Germany, in Europe. But I got lucky enough, and I was able to assess to go to the 75th Ranger Regiment, made it in there. I certainly wasn't the best captain or major in the 75th Ranger Regiment. I mean, it was a place where a lot of talent existed, right? Because I focused on getting the mission done. I focused on taking care of People. I focused on working hard. I focused on where the mission required me to step up and do the work. I stepped up and did the work where the mission required me to support others. I supported others. And I just put one foot in front of the other each and every day. And, you know, if. If being a, you know, general is a level of success, then I think that's. That's been the most important thing for me. And. And certainly there have been periods of time where I felt like either dismayed by the level of perception of my success by others and maybe the level of credit I was getting. There have been times when you sort of, like, start to think more selfishly like that. And, I mean, you gotta. You gotta, like, snap out of it pretty quickly because it's not worth it. And so having somebody who's gonna help you snap out of it, whether that's a mentor, a friend, a spouse, right down the road, having somebody that's gonna, you know, speak to you truthfully and say, like, look, knucklehead, get your head out of your 4th point of contact and start doing the right thing. Again, you can do this. You're good at it. That's helpful, too. So. Because. Because, again, none of us can do this alone. And so it's a. I can. I can. I can go on for days here. Obviously, I envy the opportunity and the experience that you're going to have, because it's great. It's been great for me. It's been great for my family. It's been great for all the people that I know and have worked with over the last almost 35 years. And I'm excited about, you know, hopefully, if anything comes across, I'm excited about still doing it. I like still doing it. It's fun.
• 43:33
  Speaker C: General, thank you for coming in today. This has been a great conversation, talking about culture and organization and continuous transformation, all these great things for our leaders out there and for many cadets that are listening. So thank you for your time, Zach.
• 43:45
  Speaker A: Thanks for the opportunity. And, you know, if there was one thing I could close with, it's just to say that, like that last part. I'm really envious for the opportunity that. That all of the cadets today have. The army is a great place to work. It's a great experience to have. Whatever the future holds, the, you know, the leadership opportunities that you'll have in the army are second to none. The people that you'll interact with as our president, our leadership, our Secretary of War, our chairman, our Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of the army all have said multiple times, they're the best of us. The people in the army are the best of us. And I can't emphasize enough why that's the number one thing that makes the army great is it's a people profession, and the people that you'll work with and interact with are just the best of us. And it makes it all worthwhile in the end. So thanks for the opportunity.
• 44:38
  Speaker C: Thank you, sir.
• 44:43
  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 representation the personal views of the speakers and do not represent an official position of the United States Military Academy or the United States government.