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General Robert Brown · 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 Morris 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 C: Welcome back to the five questions for a general podcast. I'm cadet Zach Olson, your host and today's guest is retired general Robert B. Brown. General Brown was recruited to play basketball at west point and went on to a long and distinguished career culminating as the commanding general of u. S. Army pacific. He is now the president and chief executive officer of the association of the United States army. General Brown, welcome.
• 0:47
  Speaker A: Thank you very much.
• 0:48
  Speaker C: So, sir, you are now the president of AUSA, but over 40 years ago, you were a cadet at west point. What prompted you to go to West Point? And why did you decide to make the army a career?
• 0:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, thanks. I. I didn't even know what West Point was, to be quite honest. And I was a pretty decent basketball player in my last three years in the state of Michigan. And there was a guy also playing at the time called Irvin Magic Johnson. And he was a senior, same year I was, and he was pretty good, you know. Yes, sir. And so he was going to Michigan state university and I played against him. And it was kind of like, wow, kind of brings you back down. You think you're pretty good, and then you play against somebody. So anyway, I. I had gotten a full ride to play basketball at university of Michigan, which I was going to go. My sister had gone there. My oldest brother got his PhD there, and then a guy named coach K. Mike krzyzewski, class of 69, came by my house, and he was very passionate about this place called west point and talked to me about it. And in those days, you only got like, five visits to schools. And so my final visit said, okay, I'll go visit west point. And my dad was a marine in the Korean war, and when he. I said west Point, I saw his eyes light up. And. And navy had recruited me, and he didn't like navy. I had no. I had no desire to be on a ship. And then air force had recruited me. I had no desire to fly. But this West Point interested me. And when I visited, I fell in love with it. It's the idea of selfless service. I remember there was a poster. Maybe it's still there, but I remember it distinctly. It said, at west point, much of the history we make was Made by those we taught. And it had Eisenhower, Patton, MacArthur, Bradley on it. And I thought, that's pretty cool. And then I, I saw the basketball team was so close. I just love this idea of selfless service, etc. And so I went back and told Michigan coaching staff, no, thanks. They were, they were trying to, it was funny. They were trying to talk me out. This is 1977. And they're like, you're going to be in the Army. I know. And I'm like, well, at least I'll have a job, you know, and, and anyway, yeah, so that's how I, I never intended. I want to play basketball. And I can't say, like today I talked to our cadets and even plebes are like, oh, I love it. I'm not sure I ever loved the academics, all the pressure and all of you know, but I, I love the idea of selfless service. And the older you get, the more you realize all it taught you. And, and so, yeah, I ended up captain of the co captain of the basketball team. And, and I was going to get out and coach, but then I gave the Army a chance because I'd hurt my knee. I was actually looked at by some pro teams and knicks in the 76ers. And I was like, oh, maybe I'll go play pro or something. But then I blew my knee out my senior year, halfway through torment until attended cap, broken half. So that was the end of basketball. So I said, I'll give the Army a shot. And it's like, greatest team in the world. It's awesome. And very different from West Point. I mean, you know, West Point's awesome.
• 3:45
  Speaker C: Right.
• 3:45
  Speaker A: But Army's so different. You know, it's just a tremendous team. You have a lot more freedom when you, when you're out there, you know, the window. Yeah. And they're telling you everything to do.
• 3:55
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 3:55
  Speaker C: What do you, what do you find that's different? And why do you think that's important that there's a difference between West Point and the Army?
• 4:01
  Speaker A: Well, West Point, obviously, they're trying to instill and teach, use discipline. And the good news is, years ago, they adjusted from kind of foolish, stupid stuff that they would do, you know, the bracing and all that, to more an army leadership style. General Abizay put that in when he was commandant and that was a brilliant idea and make the leadership more like the Army. So, you know, it's different as you, all of a sudden, you, you, you go from, yeah, you may have responsibility at West Point, but, you know, it's not Quite not the same as getting a platoon, 32 soldiers all of a sudden. And.
• 4:36
  Speaker C: Right.
• 4:37
  Speaker A: And you got a platoon sergeant who you know, will be very experienced. Mine was a Vietnam veteran when I, when I graduated in 1981, you know, and, and you'll have, I mean you're, you're a leader 24 7, but you'll have a lot more free time. You work hard, you know, and, and you'll be able to establish your own goals and, and just form an amazing team, whatever size organization you have. And that's just a lot of fun. And you're, you really truly are the leader, you know, and, and then you'll also be exposed to leaders from all over, commissioned, all different, you know, rotc, one of the military texture, like North Georgia or you know, whatever. And you'll be exposed to just amazing leaders and again that, that want to develop you and mentor you. And so yeah, it's, it's an amazing team, a great experience and the people are also the difference. Tremendous people from all over the world, really, obviously mostly all over the country, but a lot of folks come in and you know, join the service as a way to citizenship and et cetera. But there's amazing people. When you're all working towards a goal greater than yourself, supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States. It's pretty amazing the selfless acts people will do and the team that you can build when you're not worried about who gets the credit.
• 6:06
  Speaker C: So you've spoken a lot about the human dimension of the army and saying it right now, people are so important to the job that we do. We're increasingly focusing on autonomous warfare, drone warfare, multi domain operations, all these things. Is there a risk of shifting away from this very human centric model and kind of pushing too far?
• 6:25
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 6:26
  Speaker C: So how do we get around it? Well, how do we be.
• 6:28
  Speaker A: You got to leverage technology. But you have to understand there are certain things that technology will never be able to do. And I'm not against technology. I think it's, you know, I, I had helped form the Stryker Brigade Combat Team and in the very beginning it was the most digitally advanced, most technology of any formation we had. So I mean, you've got to leverage technology obviously, but there's certain things that technology will never be able to do. Judgment, empathy, leadership decisions that require more than statistics, you know, require knowing the people, inspiring individuals. You know, inspirational leadership is critical and a machine's not going to really be able to do inspirational leadership ever. But we want to leverage this. So I think it's a balancing act. And you know, there are countries that will take the, the man out of the loop, if you will, and do things autonomously that I don't believe we'll ever do. Like there are countries that will have, you know, artificial intelligence make a decision and fire autonomously without any human in the loop. I don't see us ever doing that. We'll at least monitor what is going on, be able to stop it. There are countries that will, will implant things in, in humans that will make them more of autonomous and, you know, leverage. Never do anything like that. So yeah, it's a tough balancing act, but you have to remain. People are our advantage and there are certain things machines will never be able to do. But I think the biggest thing we'll leverage from artificial intelligence is the speed of decisions, which will give us a huge advantage. So leveraging that data to make a decision faster will be critical.
• 8:14
  Speaker C: Is there a level of leadership you think this will impact the Most? I know 4th ID is kind of leading the charge with this new command and control system. But do you see technology, whether it's AI or, you know, different types of SOPs that we have, are they impacting at the general officer level more or at that platoon level more?
• 8:31
  Speaker A: No, I think at the cutting edge, you know, down the platoon, you know, squad level even. Yeah. And it's just how, how warfare has changed over time. You know, the fog of war when I was lieutenant used to be not enough information. You, you would make a decision. There was an old saying, do something to anything, lieutenant, and you'd have two or three pieces of information and nobody's going to question you or critique you. You did the best you could with that information. Now the fog of war, of course, is overwhelming amounts of information. We've seen that over the last 25 plus years. It's started in the military. Overwhelming amounts of information you could get. And the challenge is calling through that information to make a decision in a timely manner. And look at all of us. You know, how many emails you get on your phone, how much stuff are you inundated with social media, everything else, emails, you name it. And so that that fog of war has changed, but that still requires that, you know, that experienced leader to make key decisions. But I think it definitely impacts the cutting edge because the best ideas come from the cutting edge. Because of that overwhelming information. They'll see it first. They'll, they're the ones that have the clearest picture now. They also have to have an environment. It's a learning environment. A culture in your organization so the ideas can get to the leadership. And how do you do that? We've been very good about that as an army. I use an example of Sergeant Cullen on the beaches of Normandy, where we were stuck because of the hedgerows. It was French acreage was divided by these hedgerows that people couldn't get through. And so the Germans, the enemy gets a vote. They leverage those hedgerows to channelize us to roads. If you ever saw the movie Patent, when he's all frustrated that they're stuck on the beaches. And you know, for years they planned Normandy. It was. The invasion was the largest, still largest to this day in history. And they planned every little aspect, but they didn't. They forgot about these hedgehose. Right. And that's how it's always going to be. No matter how you plan, you can't ever figure everything because the enemy gets a vote and they can do certain things to you. But this Sergeant Cullen, a young leader, saw the hexagons on the beaches that the Germans used to keep ships in landing zones or cause problems. And he ended up welding it to the front of a tank, creating a blade that could cut through the hedgerows. Now what's amazing about our army is that idea came from an E5 on the beaches to Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower, who would later reward Sergeant Cullen and others would try to take credit, but he knew where the idea came from and that succeeded. We broke through and he would survive the war. I think he lost a leg, Sergeant Cullinan later on, but he would survive the war. But though that's the type advantage we have, there's a few other armies that may come close to that, but most absolutely cannot match that amazing ability for the cutting edge to provide solutions and ideas all the way up. And I saw it in combat with a Striker Brigade and every day. And I saw it again later as deputy Command General of 25th Division Combat, where the idea is coming from the cutting edge, saving lives. And so that's where I think the most AI will impact the most at that cutting edge. Certainly it does up decision making at the higher levels. Cutting through, culling through all the reams of information and all the stuff to get to a decision will be big, but not as big as on the cutting edge where soldiers are.
• 12:06
  Speaker C: Do you see technology impacting where those good ideas might get stuck? Is it Private Snuffy's got a great idea and the squad leader's like, no, that's stupid. Or is it going to be the Company commander or is it going to be, you know, some brigade commander somewhere that says we can't, we can't handle it, can't do it.
• 12:21
  Speaker A: Always an issue, right? Will remain an issue despite AI or anything else. And it's something you have to work on in an organization. And it's, it's, it's getting better, but it's still not where it needs to be.
• 12:35
  Speaker C: What's making it better?
• 12:37
  Speaker A: Leaders. Yeah, leaders. So for example, when I was with the 25th Infantry Division, General Bob Castle, former superintendent at West Point Superstar, he was our division commander. I was deputy commanding general. We would get ideas, but we had 16 brigades over a year. Some you were with for a month, some of you were with the whole year. They would come in and it's fascinating to watch. Of those 16, I'd say five had leaders that really accepted new ideas and understood the value of getting ideas from the cutting edge. And they excelled. The rest, they were a little bit hesitant. Even some where the leader would be like, hey, it's not doctrine, it's not proven. Why should I listen to Sergeant Jones or Private Jones? You know, I want, I want it to be proven doctrine. Well, the reality is you don't have time for that today. You know, you've got to go with the idea. Some will work, some won't, but you got to encourage those ideas and that innovation that's going to give you a huge advantage. What was fascinating though, even those units where the leader was kind of more draconian, not as didn't inspire the trust and so forth as much, they still were innovative because lies were at stake. And those young soldiers would figure out how to get that idea up. Everything from blogs to wikis created. They would get the idea there even if it meant bypassing their brigade level leadership or company level leadership or battalion level leadership. It's fascinating because their lives are at state and you know, that's a big motivator right there. So it's always a concern. And you really have to work hard to culture in your organization. Gone are the days of leaders saying, you know, shut up, Private Brown, what would you know? I've got more time in the latrine than you've got in the army and all that type stuff. You know, that attitude is just foolish. Everybody is valued on the team, everybody's key part of the team. And the best ideas come from the cutting edge. So how do you have a culture that really reinforces that rewards that we would actually in the division weekly reward the best ideas and an idea that even fail, but they're trying to come up with a good idea, still rewarding that to encourage others to themselves.
• 14:40
  Speaker C: Would you see a lot of those ideas as a commander from writing, maybe professional military writing? Or was it kind of just sent up the chain and it was, hey, this guy's got a great idea. And you figure that out?
• 14:49
  Speaker A: Well, it's a combination. You know, prior to combat, as a leader, you should be studying on your own part of self development like you guys are doing being in Modern War Institute. So you're studying. You got to keep that up when you, you know, you read. I remember General Colin Powell, an amazing leader he talked to, talked to us once. I was in Command General Staff College, and it was tremendous talk. And he said, read autobiography because you get a lifetime of experience in a book. And I did that. And I, you know, I'd read about like Omar Bradley and you'd say, well, what does that have to do. These are problems from World War II. What does that have to do with today? It's so different. It doesn't matter the way you go about solving the problems. Different time, different problem, same challenge for the leader. And I learned so much from reading about Marshall, Bradley, Eisenhower, autobiography of many other leaders. And so that helps you. You're developing yourself before you're ever in harm's way. And then when you're in harm's way, you're not gonna have a whole lot of time to be reading and studying, but you're still trying to learn, and you're learning from the cutting edge and you're again in a culture, a learning environment. Gone are the days of a patent that says, you know, just do as I say. I know it all. Hey, you're a fool today. You know, they used to say, as a leader, make a decision and stick with it or your soldiers will think you're wishy wash. You know, again, back when I was sitting where you guys are now, well, that's foolish today because you're going to keep getting so much information. You know, I can remember sending soldiers out on, let's say a raid to against a terrorist cell. And okay, they're in building A. There's six of them. Here's where they are. And they're in the briefing. And I rem remember trying to prepare them for this and seeing, you know, young second lieutenants. They're in there with CIA, dia, Delta Force. They're going through the whole raid. What's going to happen? Oh, wait a minute. They're in building D and there's five of them. Oh, wait, they're in building, all the way on the way to the objective. And this is Striker Unit and Strikers. They would still be getting updates. So they're adjusting. As a leader, if you don't adjust, you're foolish today because you're going to keep getting more info. Now, certain point, you're going. You're. It's a little too late, but you're going to keep getting info right up to key moments of decision. You got to be open to that. So that's different. We used to have in all types of operations centers, for example, it would say, who else needs to know? That's what it was. And you'd look up that number as a young staff officer, and it's every year, who else needs to know? Well, that's an old philosophy. Today, with the amount of information we get, with overwhelming amounts of information, it should be, who else can benefit from this information? Different mindset. Who else needs to know? State Department doesn't need to know. Well, could they benefit from it? Then? Maybe we should share that info. And that's really important. And you're better as a team with allies, partners, and interagency, et cetera.
• 17:31
  Speaker C: Sir, you did a Colin Powell lecture. You have a quote. You said, to succeed, you have to fail. Maybe somebody else said it. I'm not sure.
• 17:37
  Speaker A: Well, maybe, but I don't know.
• 17:39
  Speaker C: That's a great quote, regardless. So how did your perspective on failure change from a lieutenant to a general?
• 17:43
  Speaker A: Boy, if you could go back, there's nothing I would change. And, you know, even the tough times or the toughest times of my life, I wouldn't change because you learn so much from that as a leader, and it helps you grow. But I think I would have gone back as a younger leader, not worried so much about failure. You know, you're worried about failure. You don't want to fail. You want to do well. But you realize the only way you don't fail is if you're doing nothing, and that's failure. You know, you. You are going to fail. All successful people have failed, or they wouldn't be where they are. And what happens is, it's how you handle that failure and what you learn from it and how you grow and how the organization grows. And, you know, as I got more experienced, I became a better leader from failure. When you're going through it, I'm not saying it's fun. You know, there's one time as a battalion commander, I've been in command like three weeks. We had an Incident happened, I had to go in front of the division commander and say, fire me. Don't fire Captain. So and so a company commander from a mistake sounds easy, But I'd waited 16 years to do that job. That's all I really wanted to do in the army was to be a battalion commander. And I was loving it. Three weeks. I'm like, it's the greatest job on the face of the earth. I love it. And then you got to go up and almost you're, you know, you have to give the credit and take the blame, right? As a leader. And so fire me. Don't fire, you know, Captain. So and so, obviously they didn't fire me, but, you know, I didn't know. You have to. You have to be willing to do that. And so failure teaches you, you know, think about any team you've ever been on in sports or any. It could be. Doesn't matter. When you win, what happens? You kind of go on to the next event. You don't analyze it that much. You won. When you lose, what happens? Oh, man, I missed this shot. I didn't do this. I didn't do that. You're tearing it apart, learning from it, hopefully getting better. And the same thing when you fail. So. And I'm going to say something that's going to make me sound very old, but I think your generation is more afraid of failure than any I've ever seen. Because when, again, when I was your age, we could keep failure fairly isolated. Close friends, family. Now what happens, it goes out on social media. People jump on it. I don't know if it's. It's human nature, makes them feel good about themselves, you know, kicking somebody when they're down, but, man, they do it. There's memes, there's this, there's that, right? It's like everywhere. And you. So I don't blame you. You're. You're. You're. You know, you don't want to fail because, man, it goes everywhere. It's hard. So I understand that. But, you know, you have to learn from it, and you can't be afraid of it. And it's going to happen. It's life, you know, whether you say, I'm not going to fail. Well, again, the only way you could do that. I don't know how you could do that. Because if you don't, Dwayne, you're failing. So, you know, and if you look at all great people, oh, my God. No one failed more than Abraham, like one of our greatest brothers. I mean, over and over again. There's a. There's a thing. It's almost like 12 times he failed elections, you know, tragedies, this, that elect the president. And he would say, if you read about Lincoln, he would say that it helped harden him for the toughest decisions and it helped him as a leader for the incredibly tough decisions during the Civil War and how he kept our nation together. All that failure helped him and it wouldn't have been the same without it, you know, And I could go on and on. Numerous leaders that have failed and succeeded. So you have to fail to succeed, but it's not easy. I think that's the only thing I would do is not worry about as much because it's going to happen. That's how you handle it. It makes you a better leader, no doubt, when you learn from it.
• 21:10
  Speaker C: Do you think the army does a good job at helping young leaders who fail move through it and be better?
• 21:14
  Speaker A: I would say certainly better than in business and industry where the failure can sometimes maybe lead to your fire and you're done.
• 21:22
  Speaker C: Good point.
• 21:22
  Speaker A: The army understands and they almost. I don't say they expect, but you know the old joke, they expect a second lieutenant to fail and screw things up as you're learning and growing from it. Now, when I say failure too, I'm not talking about anything illegal, immoral, unethical.
• 21:38
  Speaker C: Right.
• 21:38
  Speaker A: I mean, I saw some sad things. I'm going to come commanding Fort Benning in the maneuver center. We get a couple brand new West Point lieutenants and Bullock their basic leadership course. One guy was drunk and fell asleep in the car and like a Burger King drive through, you know, and that was it. End of his career. Drunk driver. You know, how stupid. You go through West Point, four years, you know, so nothing illegal. You can't recover from that. I'm talking about a mistake where you're trying to do the right thing or a mistake where you know, something happens in your unit that you can't control in your, you know, or maybe you could have if you've done a better job. But it happens. I think the army does a very good job understanding that, getting much better at that. 20 years of combat made us better at that too. Because in combat it's where a lot of stuff happens you can't control and sometimes you can't even explain it and figure it out, you know, and. And the worst, and the most tragic is when you know, it costs a soldier their life. And you will see leaders come together and support each and the army supporting that family, that soldier and that unit really just amazingly well in the toughest time of all.
• 22:46
  Speaker C: Where does AUSA fill a gap that maybe the army kind of misses? It's this civilian institution that's with the DOD in some sense. I'm curious how that. How that fiction.
• 22:56
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, that's a great question. Association United States army is a nonprofit, educational nonprofit, founded in 1950 by the army, which is really good because we're super close with the army leadership and stay in touch with what they need. I think the two biggest ways. Well, it's about three huge ways. One is telling the army story. The Army. I love the Army. Been in the Army. I was in the army 38 years, 42 if you count West Point. Still kind of serving the army now in this capacity. I love the Army. The Army's amazing at a lot of things. It's not great at telling its story. It's. It's almost like you get an injection when you join the Army. Do a tough mission. Do you know, do your best. Work hard, you're successful. Don't brag about it. Don't talk about going to the next mission.
• 23:42
  Speaker C: Right.
• 23:42
  Speaker A: You know, it's just not in our culture to brag about what happened in the past, to talk about it. But the problem with that is people don't know what you did. And I say this a lot, but I'm allowed to because my father was a Marine in the Korean War. The Marines are great at telling their story. They've always been small service or paranoid. There'll be 50 Marines on an operation, 5,000 army soldiers. The Marines will get all the credit because they tell the story. So if AUSA helps tell that army story, we are out there in podcasts, in army magazine, in chapters that are all around the country, linking with community partners, national partners, telling that story of what the army does. And the army really needs that because, you know, people don't know what you. What you're doing. They're not going to support you, fund you. So we. We do that extremely well. Another thing that AUS does extremely well is connect the army with America right now. Again, since 91 1, our bases have to be secured, used to be wide open, and we'd have tons of the local community on our. A lot of them using the golf course, bowling, and they still do that. But it's a lot tougher to get on base. It's really hard. We're isolated. You have to be, because there's extremists out there that would do harm. So I'm not saying open the bases, but it isolates us even further. The less than 1% serving isolates us from society. In a lot of parts of the country, very few people serve. They don't know the Army. So it's absolutely key to tell the story, but then also to connect the army with America. And we do that again. 122 chapters all over the United States, Europe and the Pacific, even in Guam, Japan, Korea. And what we do is pull in the community. We have community partners, thousands of them, that we pull events together and connect the army with the community. And they get to know each other and they understand. And I saw it in every base that I was the senior commander, you know, whether it was Fort Benning, Joint Base, Lewis McCord, Leavenworth, Hawaii. The AUSA chapter pulls in the community and links them with the Army. It's fantastic. So that's something we do extremely well. And the army needs to get better at that linking with the community and. And it's tough because everybody's so busy. The op tempo is just super busy and it's hard. I'm not trying to blame them, but we help them with that a whole lot. The third thing we do extremely well that was really visionary in the early in the 1950s when this was AUSA was established, is we connect the army with industry and that's huge. Like our annual meeting will have about 800 defense industries there. And there's never a better place. They're all in the Washington Convention Center. The networking is amazing. I used to go when I was in command in any unit. I would go and then have my Commander's action group kind of looking at new initiatives for me, send them out among all that. And it would take me three years to go visit all these companies. I wouldn't have time. I couldn't do it. But they could go out and they'd always come back with about 70 ideas, average of what they saw. A new drone, a new this laser. We need a this, you know, and, and it was unbelievable connection with industry. And it's amazing because it used to be the ideas would come again 20 years ago. The ideas would come from the Department of Defense to industry, for example, or to the country the Internet came from Department of Defense, you know, to our country. That's totally reversed now. Now dod, Dow can't keep up with the speed of industry. Industry comes up with the ideas faster. So it's even more important to link with industry because these ideas will save soldiers lives. And you want them to have the, the best equipment, the best technology. When they go into harm's way. And I can say now we're so well linked that that is happening and that's an amazing thing. And it didn't used to happen, you know in the past as, as well. So that link AUSA links industry with the Army. We just another example. Transformation Training command went around to eight cities to explain their new way for industry to connect with the army with new ideas. They didn't know how do we do that? How do we get industry? They came to us and we got thousands of industry to come to these and learn how to connect better with the army. So that's a key thing because that'll save soldiers lives. So that's just three of the things but there's others. We also have an incredible link of linking our veterans and our army across. And we've grown from 280,000 members in five years to the at over 2 million right now. Pretty soon we're going to be at 2.5 million which will make us the largest military support organization, veteran support organization in the country really in the world. Passing American Legion at 2.3 million members. So wow. Pretty, pretty awesome. It's folks that want to genuinely help the army, love what the army does for our country and how important the army is for defense of our nation. And so they, they volunteer. We have amazing volunteers. 5,000 of these volunteers out there in those chapters. Wow. That work their butts off to help the army to help soldiers every single day. It's really amazing. Yeah.
• 28:49
  Speaker C: That's great. Sir. I gotta buy my lifetime membership.
• 28:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Special 250. Yeah. It's a bargain for a lifetime. But you can also join for free which is cool.
• 28:59
  Speaker C: There we go.
• 28:59
  Speaker A: And. But there's also a real cheap rate for cadets and you get more. You get the magazine and other stuff. The free is digital only. You get stuff. But yeah could join the team. That's a winning team and. And you won't regret it.
• 29:13
  Speaker C: Yes sir. So knowing what you know now, 38 years of service. Yeah. Been with AUSA. So knowing what you know now, what would you tell Lieutenant Brown coming out of West Point? Leadership advice, Life advice.
• 29:22
  Speaker A: I would say enjoy the ride. Give it a chance. It breaks my heart. A lot of West Point graduates, it's like it's a resume builder for them. And I'm impressed as can be with cadets. I've go up there and speak and I'm just unbelievably motivated. When I come back, I feel really good about the future. When I come back from West Point. But there are a bunch of them will tell me, well, I'm a serve for five years and I'm going to go to law school or I'm going to go into business and do this. And one, soldiers deserve better than that. You're not going to give a hundred percent if you're thinking about your next job after five years already. That's, that's a shame. Your criteria has to be, you have to be able to look the parents in the eye, say, I've done everything I can do for your son or daughter before they go into harm's way. That's a big criteria and I've had to do it. And believe me, if you don't do that, you know, you'll, you'll regret it. And so I would say give the army a chance. Don't decide. You know, I had decided I was going to get out as well, but I would say don't do that. Give it 110% while you're in. And if you get out, great. If you still want to get out, you're going to do great in society. That's wonderful. Whatever job, but give it a chance while you're there and you might find, wow, this is pretty amazing. These are amazing people. And you will never be as close as you are with your unit and other leaders, particularly if you go into harm's way in any type, even peacekeeping operations, you'll never be as close because let's look at it. When I'm working for, I don't know, any company name, any company. If, if you work for me, I want you to do well, but I don't want you that well. You might take my job, you know, and that's a reality out there. And there's this hidden, you know, how much does the person make they're going to take nice scene. Very talented people never get to the headquarters. People are afraid of losing their jobs in business, you know, whereas in the military, if work for me, I not only want you to have my job, if I, if you get it before, it's the time, I'm either so bad I was relieved or I was killed. And so you get the job, you know, I mean, and there's never been a person that's ever worked for me. I didn't want to have my job someday and want to be the best they could possibly be. And so, and I had the same, I had amazing leaders that mentored me and I wouldn't have made it past major without them, you know, and amazing mentors and Leaders I learned from. It's an amazing team in the army with an incredible purpose that is tough to beat. So give it 110%. Don't determine you're going to get out beforehand and and enjoy the ride. Don't worry so much about failure. You're going to get through. It's going to make you a better leader. It's an amazing ride and I'm just very fortunate. Coach K recruited me and I thank him every time I see him. In fact, I made four star. I sent him a four star insignia and I said, I'm going to make you a brevet four star General. And I'm grateful because I wouldn't have gone to West Point without him recruiting me and I wouldn't have got in without basketball. I had good grades, but I didn't do great on the SAT and stuff. And I met the Colonel who told me he was on the academic board. He was deciding vote to get me in West Point. So I feel really proud about that, that I was able to stick around and do okay. And somehow here in about a week and a half, I'm going to receive a distinguished graduate award with some other amazing leaders. Now, they may have gotten the wrong Brown. With a name like Bob Brown, there's another Bob Brown up there that deserved it, but I'll take PFC broadband. Yeah, probably.
• 32:50
  Speaker C: Anyway, so, sir, on behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan and the director of MWI and Dr. Charlie Feint, the director of this podcast series, it's my pleasure to present you with this rare and coveted MWI coin. Sir, thank you for your time.
• 33:01
  Speaker A: Oh, that's awesome. Thank you very much. I treasure that. Thanks for what you're doing and best of luck in your future. I'd do it all again. I'd trade places with you in a heartbeat. I wouldn't trade salaries, but I trade guns are disclosed. All right, thanks, sir.
• 33:20
  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 personal views of the speakers and do not represent an official position of the United States Military Academy or the United States government.