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General Xavier Brunson · Five Questions for a General

• 0:03
  Speaker A: 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.
• 0:25
  Speaker B: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Five Questions for a General Podcast. I am Olivia Hanson, your host, and it is my pleasure to be here today with General Xavier Brunson, the commander of United Nations Command rok, US Combined Forces Command, and United States Forces Korea. General Brunson, welcome to the show.
• 0:45
  Speaker C: Olivia. Thanks so much for having me.
• 0:47
  Speaker B: General Brunson, you're a native of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and a graduate of Hampton University. What made you decide to join the army? And why did you branch infantry?
• 0:56
  Speaker C: You know, my dad's a retired sergeant major. And what I grew up watching was my father care for people he led. And I listened to some of the things they said about my dad. And I thought early on, I want to do something like that, where people are going to speak like that about me because I was investing in them. I was investing in their careers. I was investing in their hopes and dreams and desires. And that's what I saw my dad. I saw him go to his soldiers when they were in trouble. I saw him go to his soldiers when they were celebrating an accomplishment or a promotion. And these were things that he just did on his own. And I remember my dad telling me, there is nothing more important than someone's name. And I thought, I want to do something where people's names mean something to me. And so I set out to be a soldier. My whole life, I just wanted to be a soldier. The toys I played with, soldiers, GI Joes, the people I always wanted to be around, they were soldiers. And it didn't hurt that I grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which is where my mom's from and where Fort Bragg is. So all I saw was parachutes. Some of my earliest toys were like drogue chutes for. For big G11 shoots that would drop vehicles. You know, my dad would bring me those little chutes that helped to open the larger parachute and. And play with these things always. What's really important is it was something that I was passionate about. And that passion's carried me for the past 35 years. Like I never saw myself where I am now. That wasn't even in the realm of possibility. But it was always like one goal at a time. And then Checking back in with my dad. So it was okay. I'm going to be a first lieutenant now. This is huge. It really wasn't because I colored my rank in with a Sharpie, but as I grew, every time I did another thing, it was like I was able to celebrate that with my dad. And my brothers are both colonels now, and so this is sort of like our family business. My dad hung up the shingle, and we just continued to serve. My wife's a retired colonel. You know, she was a judge in the Army. So I could talk about this for hours. But I absolutely love serving. You know, we talked earlier about the contract that we make. You know, when you kind of think about the soldier in the state by Huntington, there's a contract between people like yourself and me that is special. And it's born of wanting to do for other people things they can't do for themselves. We were never looking for acknowledgment. That's the other thing I love about wearing the uniform. I'm not looking for you to tell me, this is what I do for you. And so we give a gift to the American people every day just by getting up, going to pt, putting on our uniforms, and going to work. So that's why I do what I do.
• 3:51
  Speaker B: Sir, your duty title is quite a mouthful. You simultaneously command UN Command, rok, US Forces Command, and US Forces Korea. What do each of these units do, and why is there one commander for them instead of three?
• 4:06
  Speaker C: Okay, so history first. I've got four titles. I'm also the senior US Military officer assigned to Korea, the Sus moak, and I represent the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in that capacity. It started with MacArthur. And what happens is we had this conflict breakout, and we came here to fight. But like many things, when things are bad in the world and people see wrong being done to a people, people come together, and that's UN command. At the time of the Korean conflict, over 20 nations came together to man and staff UN command. There was a UN Security Council resolution which established command. And when that command was established, it said, the US Will lead this. And so we begin leading this command. Well, the cessation of the hostilities, because that's where we are. It's an armistice. That's a cessation of hostilities. What we've basically done is we've taken our helmets off, we're sharing cigarettes. Now we're saying we're just going to take a break until this kicks off again. The cessation of hostilities found us needing to still be there. Why? Because the Chinese had gotten involved. So you have the Chinese who came in. We find ourselves thinking we're just fighting North Korea, but we're fighting North Korea and Chinese regulars. And so we said, you know what? For this piece to last, we're going to have to stay. And we've been there for over 75 years now. So you've got the UN command. In 1978, it was decided we need to organize ourselves a little bit differently. And that's how you have a professional army rising in Korea. And now we're in alliance because of a mutual defense treaty that. That's what the Combined Forces Command protects, if you will. We are there. Should deterrence or should the armistice fail, then you have the Combined Forces Command based on a mutual defense treaty, one of three in the region. Mutual defense treaty with Japan, with the Philippines, and then, of course, with Korea. US Forces. Korea is really our demonstration of the importance of the alliance that we form with the Republic of Korea. It is a visible representation of the means and capabilities of the United States military that are present on the peninsula. It's a joint command. So I have components that are from the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, Space Force, now Special Operations Command Korea, as Well as the 8th US Army, a field army, the only forward station field army in the Department of War.
• 6:44
  Speaker B: And why are all these positions held by one person?
• 6:47
  Speaker C: Because I'm special. It's really. You know, that's a question, believe it or not, that even people in Korea ask sometimes. Why does one person have all these titles? And here's what I would tell you. If you think about the continuity of operations, the UN Command is supposed to be there to do what? Make sure that we maintain and sustain the armistice. And that's not just me by myself. It's me in the 18 nations now that are UNC, UN United Nations Command member sending States. People who signed the armistice have said, should this peace fail, then we'll return to the peninsula. So I command that part of it. The Combined Forces Command is because we are responsible for ensuring that we underpin the freedom, the rich freedom that's enjoyed by the people of Korea. I happen to be right now because Korea said the commander right now because Korea said you have wartime OPCON operational control of these forces. Right now, we're working through how we might transition wartime OPCON to the Koreans, and they'll be in charge of that command. But still, what remains is our contribution to the peninsula that's embodied in United States Forces Korea.
• 8:07
  Speaker B: Sir. The Indo Pacific is often described as the decisive theater of the 21st century. From your vantage point, what does winning without fighting actually look like in this region?
• 8:18
  Speaker C: I think it begins with pulling out a map. Too many times we have discussions without looking at a map. And one of the things that I've put forward recently is using an east up map, which puts China in the south, sort of ordinantly in the south, and it puts Korea in the center of the Indo Pacific, and it puts Japan in the north. The first island chain. We're inside the first island chain right now, which is positional advantage. And I think that before you can get about how you might win a thing, you have to understand where you are relative to other things in the globe. And when you turn that map, you know, east up, you take east and you put east where north should be, right? When you do that, what you see is this triangle that exists from Tokyo to Seoul to Manila. And you recognize 52%, approximately, of global trade goes through that area. 52%. And so if that much global trade goes through that area, then what else is important there? We've probably got some pretty compelling interests tied to that region, Northeast Asia. And if that's the case, then it's absolutely critical that we start to understand that, and then we commit capabilities that we might be able to, not necessarily enforce anything, but that we're able to put a base there that says we're not going to allow anything that would impede a free and open Indo Pacific. And we're saying that by having the things forward, because it's important to us that we've placed the right capabilities forward that should anything impact the globe, we're ready to respond.
• 10:08
  Speaker B: You've commanded at every level, from platoon to theater. What changes about leadership when the battlefield becomes an entire region rather than a hilltop, a valley, or a city?
• 10:19
  Speaker C: Your ability to visualize, describe, direct, and assess never changes. There are some things that change. The scope gets larger. You know, I led 30, then I led 120, then I led 1200, then I led 3600. And, you know, on and on and on, and it just keeps growing. And the scope of your responsibilities changes. But I think with that question, what's most important is what doesn't change Your ability to communicate and communicate well, your ability to visualize a thing, to take someone somewhere they've not been or they can't see because of where they sit at, sort of in a military hierarchy, your ability to then describe what you want to happen, you know, to be able to give your Guidance and your intent and your ability to help people solve problems, those things never change. And those are the same things I saw in my dad. My dad helped people solve their problems. He gave them guidance, he gave them his intent, he helped them solve their problems. And then to direct people to tell them the right thing to do in space and time, that never changes. And then the ability to assess that so that you can then go right back to the beginning again, we didn't get that quite right. Here's what we can do now. This is what I think we ought to do. That never changes, right? So again, the things that don't change, I think, are more important. And as leaders, we have to make other people more important than ourselves. That, too, is part of the beauty of our service. There are things that our service requires. It requires that. And it denotes. And it denotes that we're people who will follow orders. It denotes that we're people who will place others before ourselves. It denotes that we are people who find in other people this great potential that that's generally untapped, that they haven't seen themselves. That never changes. So whether it's 30 or 60,000 or 500,000 plus, it's all the same. And so I would take great exception to the question you asked me and say what? Things don't change? Those don't change. And if you're passionate about the things that we do in service, it won't ever change. It gets to be more difficult. But what else changes, though, does change, is you have to begin to trust others to do things because you've given them the right guidance, you've given them the right intent. They understand why it's okay to tell people why sometimes very few things in our business are life and death, even in combat. You know, Dr. Fink could probably tell you there's some times you're sitting around twiddling your thumbs, right? So everything's not life and death. But if you give people the why when you can, they'll do it when you can. So your ability to trust others has to grow. So back to your question. That was a good question. Your ability to trust. Wider the bigger you get in terms of scope and scale, the more that it increases, the more that you have to begin to trust those that you work alongside. 30 people, that's cake. You probably do that right now, Olivia. But when formations get so big that you can't see everyone, now you have to trust that your leaders are going to embody everything that you've told and shared with them. Requires A bit of transparency, too, believe it or not. Because the higher up you get, the more transparent, I think, that you actually have to be to be a leader if you genuinely care about the people you're leading.
• 14:00
  Speaker B: As a follow up to that question, you've spoken a lot about how your dad has had an influence on your leadership. And I was wondering how your leadership. Leadership style has differed because you're an officer and your dad retired as an nco, and how did you go about discovering those differences and developing your own leadership style?
• 14:20
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think I hold my father up as an example, both as a father and as a husband and a soldier. There are different authorities and responsibilities that I had as an officer. But I think at its core, what served me best is just caring about people. And I know that sounds strange for a guy that's like, yeah, man, I'm infantry. I'm Ranger. I've led these special operations formations in combat. I've led conventional soldiers in combat. I've done all these things. But at its core is caring. So I take that from my dad and I apply it. So if I care about you, I've got to direct you to go train, even when you don't want to. Okay, that's the thing my dad never had to do. All right? Because I care about you, I'm going to put rules in place to protect you from you. And because I have authority as an officer, I can do those things. But I tell you, Olivia, it goes back to your name. Your name is important, and I've tried never to lose that. And so I'll stop and talk to people. A lot of times, they don't want to talk to me because I'm wearing four stars now. But I try to be that same person. And I think the biggest lesson I got from my dad that's applicable across any grade. And nobody will tell you that this is a leadership characteristic. But consistency, if you can manage to be consistent, it doesn't matter what rank you wear. All that matters is that you're consistent. The person you are on Monday is who you should be on Friday. The person you are in Garrison should be the same person you are in combat, because our soldiers have an expectation that you are that person you say you are. And we demonstrate that daily. So in my case, I watched my dad lead out a thing, and I had to be good for that, because I look at every soldier as if that was my dad. Would they follow me? Would they do the things that I say we have to do and get done? So I think I've taken everything from him. So when people see me, I hope they see my dad. There are a lot less of those people around who know my dad from service now than there were when I was a lieutenant. And they would say, hey, are you Breeze Brunson's son? And I go, hey, dad, did people used to call you Breeze? He said, yeah, when I was in 82nd earlier, my dad was like, 140 pounds. My dad's like five foot six. I'm six foot tall. He would be the first person to leave aircraft when they would jump, and they'd say, how far did Breeze go? And he would just get blown around. And I go, dad, did they used to call you Breeze? And said, yeah, that's my nickname. But. But I think that. That having that touch point had grown, both growing up and serving. And still my dad, at 83 years old, I still call him to say, what do you think? I want to be that for other people, too. I want people to call me. And one of the things I tell folks is, you know, they go, sir, I didn't call you because you're busy. And I'm like, well, I'm supposed to be busy. I've got three jobs and four titles. I'm gonna be busy. But I want to be involved in the lives of those who I serve with. And so all that comes from my dad. The application's different by virtue of the authorities vested in me as an officer, but it's all the same thing.
• 17:56
  Speaker B: Deterrence in the Pacific is complex. Multiple allies, partners, competitors, and flashpoints. What is the single most misunderstood aspect of deterrence today?
• 18:09
  Speaker C: I think that one of the things that people forget about deterrence is deterrence at its core requires some sort of asymmetric offset in order to work. And because we think of deterrence in terms of either the nuclear triad had or, you know, some agreement that's made between nations, we forget that it's underpinned by looking at the adversary and saying, saying, what can they do? And how do we defeat that? What is our offset strategy for what they have? Because we don't do that always. I think we find ourselves sometimes thinking that only in terms of nuclear. I would tell you that because of that, sometimes we don't always appreciate this network in the Indo Pacific of alliances that we have both in the land and the maritime, in the air domain. And when we forget those things, we do it at our own peril because it forces us to sort of Occam's razor it, right? And we go, oh, immediately that's this nuclear bomb. That's the solution right there. Boom, deterrence complete. But we don't take into account that there are other people in there, in the region who are part of our network, both friends, partners, and allies. Remember, I talked about three mutual defense treaties. Okay, that's important. There's at least a groundwork right there that we say that's different than what the adversaries in the region have. And then as we look at what people how. And I would call them authoritarian colluders. China, DPRK and Russia, authoritarian colluders who are coming together in a form like alliance, but they don't have the time invested in these alliances and partnerships that we have this long standing thing in Korea alone, over 75 years we've been there. And I think that when we don't appreciate the fact that we've got to develop these asymmetric offsets, then we. Cheapen's not the right word, but for want of a better word, I'll use it. We make light of. That's a better word. We make light of the alliances that we have. And I think it's important that we remember that, that we're not starting from zero. We've got a baseline established globally. That is very important.
• 20:38
  Speaker B: Our alliances are often called our greatest asymmetric advantage. What does effective alliance leadership require from an American four star in today's environment?
• 20:49
  Speaker C: One of the things it requires is, it's like any relationship. I've been married for almost 31 years now, and I have to continue to remind myself that my wife and I are not the same people. Like, oh, if only she would do what I said to do, or if only she would do this the way that I do it, then this would be easy. You know, if she would only fold towels the way that I do, man, this would be cake. And so we have to recognize that there are appreciable differences between us and our allies. And imagine a world where we said, just do the thing that you can do really, really well, and we'll do these other things. And sometimes we don't do that. We go, no, that's not how you do it. That's my wife talking to me. That's not how you do it. I'd never say that to her. But that's not how you do it. You got to do it like this. We don't appreciate what people can do. Like, I will tell you, my wife does our taxes. I am so thankful for that. I am horrible. And because the statute of limitations has passed There were like three years I was on active duty, I did not file my state taxes. And she says, what are you doing? And since that time she's been doing our taxes. So what I try to bring is let me make an assessment of what you have and let's find ways to get better. And how do we do that? We exercise together, which is really a tend to a rehearsal and say, okay, you guys aren't quite there yet. Whether it's a material shortfall, whether it's an institutional shortfall, it's a doctrinal shortfall, we say, here's how we can get you to doing this better and then we can go do this other thing and then we can develop this. But sometimes we don't take this long term view of developing a relationship. So that's my job. So as a SAS moek, I'm trying to do those things. I'm trying to pay attention to what the Chairman's saying and then work alongside the chairman's counterpart to get him to where the chairman says we need to be as a joint force. And so I have learned over time that appreciating that more changes things. Because now what we're saying is, I'm not saying that you're not as good as us, I'm saying that you do this differently than we do, but together we could do this way better together. And that's not an appreciation I had in Iraq as a younger officer or Afghanistan as a younger officer. And if I had that mind, then I sometimes sit back, I don't ever think about, man, I wish I could have done this or that. I don't ever do that. I'm 59 years old now. I don't have time for that. There's so many mistakes in the past. I just try to keep moving forward. Right. But I think, what if I had approached that situation from a perspective of this is what you do really well. Let's set that over here. Let's go to these things that you're not doing so well and let's agree on a standard for doing this thing. I appreciate what you can do. You're culturally astute, you're really good with individual marksmanship and those things. But how do we bring this to a collective level together where we might both benefit? That's the attitude I have now, is appreciating what my friends, partners and allies can do and finding ways to make them successful in other things. And that is really, really enriching, you know, personally enriching. As you start to work through Some of these things with your friends, partners and allies, and you're like, this could really work.
• 24:43
  Speaker B: Multi domain operations are no longer theoretical. How is the army adapting in real time to integrate land power with maritime, air, space and cyber capabilities in your theater?
• 24:56
  Speaker C: Well, you know, it would be easy to just put a bumper sticker on it and say, well, we've got Space Force Korea, da da da, and it's done. But I would tell you that what we're really trying to get about in the Indo Pacific is we recognize the tyranny of distance in that some of those capabilities that might not be in theater presently, at least in Northeast Asia, we have to find ways to bring them closer. So back to the question about how I view working alongside our allies and how we do things in alliance. There are some critical capabilities that exist right now that our allies have that are easier to touch than those from our own forces. So while I might talk to the chief of staff of the army about a multi domain command in Korea, and that's a thing we want to do, we have to sometimes look to our allies, say, what capabilities do you have in space, in cyber and EW that we might apply to solving theater problems? And it's not only that, but it's making sure that we take best advantage of what our Joint Force partners can do as well. There are some really interesting things that are going on in the maritime domain with unmanned vehicles. Well, those aren't inherent to my formation right now, but I know the Air Force, the Navy has those, and I want to try to take best advantage of those to the point of looking and saying they could go to Base X right now with that capability and we could utilize it to great effect. I know that the Air Force is working on combat collaborative aircraft, you know, unmanned jets. Well, I want that in Korea. Why? Because the 7th Air Force has a super squadron right now and I want them to be a part of that. So we can do manned unmanned teaming, because that's a thing that would be great. While we're waiting for people to get to Korea. Here's another reason why. If you look at Guam, right, which is US Territory, and you look at San Francisco to get to the region, it's the same time for both. But if you don't look at a map, you don't understand that. And so it's talking to members of the Joint Force and our allies about capability they're developing. But we've got to always think, why? Why? In the application of that thing and if you can get people to Understand why and what that thing might do from sort of an in ways and means perspective, then you're able to bring those things to the fore. That's how we end up in the discussion about a multi domain command in Korea. That's how we end up in a discussion with what can our partners do in those other more ephemeral domains that we can't right now. So Space Force Korea might grow to maybe about 300 people right now. It's not quite there, but eventually it will. And another thing that we don't think about a lot when it comes to multi domain things is what can you access from national capabilities. So there's this thing called tin cap, tactical exploitation of national capabilities. We have to be willing to reach over somewhere and grab the capabilities we need and then employ them properly to great effect. And when we do those things, you're not waiting like, oh man, next Phi Dep, you know, we're going to get this capability, man, just five years from now we're going to have it. We're able to take advantage of those things now. And I think that's what leaders have to do. That's what I have to do in my theater is I have to reach out and grab those things. I have to talk to other commanders and say, hey, we've got a problem in the EC because Vladivostok sits at the head of the East Sea or the Sea of Japan, depending on how you look at it. Right? They sit at the head of that. What if a Russian threat comes due south? How do we deal with that in the maritime domain? Well, I've got to talk to the USFJ commander. Why? Because a fleet sits right there and I might need to do operations with them. I think the most interesting thing about new capabilities is you don't have to have them. You have to know who has it and how you might use it. And it's the same thing with authorities. I don't need all the authorities. I just need to know where those authorities are resident and how I access them at the right space, at the right time. So cybercom can hold all the authorities for offensive and defensive cyber. I'm okay with that as long as they know that in this phase of the operation, I need a cyber effect and that should satisfy us. So that's what we really spend a lot of time doing. How might we use the most cutting edge of technologies developed by the army, the Marines, the Air Force, the Navy, the Space Force? How might we use those? And even something as simple as how might we in the maritime domain because fishing is very important in Korea. What lessons does the Coast Guard know about patrolling in the littorals that we could bring to our ally? And that's just satisfying yourself and not having everything, you know, know. That changes, I think, too. Going back to question number two. What changes? I think that changes. See, there was a time when I was a platoon leader. I was a platoon leader in Germany in 1991, okay? And I'd never seen a pair of PBS 7s. I know those are old school right now, but I got to the 82nd and I got a pair of PVS 7s. You would have thought it was Christmas morning. And I took those things and I then had all my squads need those PVS sevens as well, sir. And you know, we had things and we had to have our hands on it. We didn't want to hear, well, you know, we're going to buy some more next month. You can't have that thought. As a strategic leader, you've got to think, who has what I need? Who can produce an effect for me when I need it to be produced? And have I made that linkage with them so that we can ensure that though it might not be resident here, we can achieve an effect from them being somewhere in the theater?
• 31:11
  Speaker B: As the character of war evolves with drones, AI and information warfare, what aspects of soldiering remain timeless?
• 31:19
  Speaker C: I think one of those things that's timeless is the need to protect and the need to sustain. I was working on a paper not too long ago on this thing I call the three Kings, and it's protection, posture and sustainment. And I think those three kings never change. You've got to be able to protect what you put forward. You've got to make sure that it's in the right place, posture with the right capabilities, and you've got to be able to sustain it. If you can't do either of those three things, I would say you could look at any campaign that's ever happened, and the victor has always been able to protect what they put forward. They've been in the right place at the right time, and they've been able to sustain themselves. So those three things will never change.
• 32:08
  Speaker B: For young officers and NCOs listening to this podcast, what advice would you give about preparing themselves for leadership in an era defined by complexity and uncertainty?
• 32:20
  Speaker C: Yeah, you've got to read, read. Find yourself some news sources that you trust and read. Do environmental scanning. Pull out a map, for goodness sake. Pull out a map and understand the world and lines of communication and understand economics. And that's all part of just reading. You've got to read. Listen. You can't prepare for complexity or ambiguity. Is that vuca? Right? Volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous. You can't prepare for that any more than when I was a lieutenant and I was in the basic course and some of us would eat like one meal a day to prepare for Ranger school. All we did was made ourselves sick. You can't, you know, we would do dumb stuff like, hey, let's just stay up as late as possible. Let's see who can go, you know, 18 hours. We'll go 18 hours. Maybe we can stay awake that long and only eat one meal a day. Then you'd find yourself in class, in the basic course, falling asleep. You can't prepare for that. But what you can do is build for yourself this sort of storehouse of knowledge from which you can draw from when things do get Vuca. See, that's the difference. So that's what I would encourage folks to do. Make sure that you understand what's going on globally. That's, you know, information, news. Understand that by having things. That's what reading gives you. You know, when we first sat down, I pointed out three books to you that I think you should read. And why, because it's going to help you or give you a framing, a framework from which you can operate from. That trumps not having experience right now that defeats that because at least you got some very similitude, maybe with the ideas that you've read. And you can now say, you know what, I'm going to take a little bit of this and I'm going to put it over there. Now this is what I'm looking through. Remember? Did you ever see the first Terminator movie?
• 34:24
  Speaker B: Yes, I did.
• 34:25
  Speaker C: Had that heads up display. That becomes your heads up display. It's just putting those facts and figures in front of you so that now when you say something, it's coming from a place of knowledge, not guesswork. We can't afford as leaders to guess. And then there'll be some intuition too, that'll come to you over time. But intuition is built off of experience, sir.
• 34:49
  Speaker B: Knowing what you know now, what advice would you offer your younger self?
• 34:55
  Speaker C: Well, what's funny about that is I would be like, hey man, don't be so high strung and you'll probably keep your hair longer. Just, just look me up on Google if you want to get that joke. No, I, I would tell you. The first thing I would tell younger me is be kind to Yourself. Sometimes you have to be both cheerleaders and pastor and friend, all to yourself. So be kind to yourself. Give yourself grace, because you're gonna have tough days. Start out in the mirror. Acknowledge the things that went wrong the day before, and then get out of the mirror and get to the window. Because as a leader in this, somebody needs you to be there. And if you keep worrying about what you got wrong every day, that means you're not thinking about somebody else. Remember what I learned from my dad is you've got to care for people that you lead. You absolutely have to. And you can't do that in the mirror, but you can do that from the window. You look out that window and you go, yeah, that cat needs me right there. I'm gonna get to him immediately. Okay? But those are two ways to be kind. First of all, just be kind to yourself. Cheer yourself sometimes. Hey, man, you got more wins and losses. You're doing okay for yourself now. You might be six and five, okay, but you still got more wins and losses. And that's the way you have to approach that and recognize. I didn't recognize this early on, that somebody's always watching you. Somebody's always watching you. And sometimes somebody's watching you because they need to see strength in you that they themselves don't possess. And as a leader, you have to always remember that. And you can't do that in such a way that you're faking anything. You can't put on a costume every day. And that's why you have to be kind to yourself. If you're kind to yourself, you won't put on a costume. You'll just be who you are. And again, transparency is required the higher up you get. And there will always be things that you could have done better. There always are. If you. If you don't feel like that, then you're not pursuing anything with ardor. Okay? You've got to pursue it. But, yeah, that's what I would tell me. I'd be far better off if I had given myself that advice 35 years ago.
• 37:14
  Speaker B: General Brunson, thank you for your time today and for an excellent discussion about strategic leadership, team building, and the security challenges of the Indo Pacific. On behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan, the director of the Modern war Institute, and Dr. Charlie Feint, the director of this podcast series, it is my pleasure to present you with this rare and coveted MWI coin. Thank you.
• 37:37
  Speaker C: Thank you so much, Olivia. This was an absolute pleasure. And hopefully everything doesn't end up on the cutting room floor. Because I can get windy sometimes. But I am so thankful for this opportunity. There are more days behind me than ahead of me in unifor form, and any opportunity that I have to get to share some of the things I've learned, I take it as a true honor of my service. So thank you so much.
• 38:04
  Speaker B: Thank you, sir.
• 38:05
  Speaker C: All right, this has been an episode
• 38:10
  Speaker A: 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 personal views of the speakers and do not represent an official position of the United States Military Academy or the United States government.