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Major General James Bartholomees · Five Questions for a General

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign. You're listening to Five Questions for a General a production of the Modern Morses 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 brought to you by the west point Class of 1974. I'm Cadet Zach Olson, your host and Today's guest is Major General James Bartholomew, the Commanding General of the 25th Infantry Division. Sir, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us after your morning PT session.
• 0:42
  Speaker C: Thanks Zach.
• 0:43
  Speaker B: Do you go out and do PT with a lot of different units in the morning?
• 0:46
  Speaker C: Yeah, every day I PT with a different formation, different unit. On Tuesdays I PT with our basic onboard light fighter trainers. It's our onboarding process that we do a two day inculcation of our tropical lightning soldiers in the 25th of Division. So I just finished up PT with them them a few minutes ago. We're six hours behind you all. And then the day prior to that I was PT in with one of our infantry companies that's had a workout with the holistic health and fitness team doing strength and intervals training. So PT is not an individual sport. PT is training and training is supervised by leaders. That's a fundamental of how we fight. And it all begins with PT in the morning. It's an indicator great units in the army that do it well, those who PT on their own by themselves. You're missing an opportunity to connect with soldiers and understand training methodology, all great things about the Army. In the army it's the best way to get to know your leaders to start the day. That's the way we connect with one another.
• 1:40
  Speaker B: Well, sir, why did you decide to join the army and why did you want to come to West Point?
• 1:43
  Speaker C: I grew up in the Army. My father was in the army and actually my wife's father was in the army and both of my that came with that. And so from a very young age I knew I wanted to go into the Army. I think probably one of the most impressionable times of my life was when my dad taught in the military history department in the 1980s. And I got to see West Point cadets and appreciate what West Point was and how it prepared cadets to become soldiers, to become officers. And so I wanted to be a part of that. And at each level I never thought I would rise to this level. I'm the first general in my family. Although I'm a multi generational officer, my father retired as a colonel, my grandfather retired as a colonel. I had great grandfathers who served as well. But I've continued to love serving and so I'm fortunate to stand here now as a 25th Infantry Division commander after numerous opportunities to command.
• 2:38
  Speaker B: So you got to visit or get to be at West Point when your dad taught in the history department, what was special about the environment or the cadets or the other instructors that you were with, the officers that made you want to go to West Point instead of pursue ROTC or ocs?
• 2:53
  Speaker C: At that time, I just saw something magical about West Point. I appreciated the discipline, the shared vision, the sports. I got big into it at that time and all of my friends did as well. And I was young, but that's something I carried with me throughout our time of moving around as a kid. And actually I did not go to West Point my first year. I actually did not get accepted to West Point the first time I applied. So I went to Wake Forest in rotc. So I got to experience college experience rotc. I was a rugby player, so I played rugby in high school and then I played rugby in college. And I just determined, especially at that period of time, the folks who were in my ROTC detachment were not getting to commission in the branches. They wanted to go. I really wanted to go infantry, and I determined I needed to reapply. And it was good that I had that college experience because if it gave me some appreciation for what I'm missing, many West Point cadets who go straight in often have this sort of FOMO of what they might be missing in college. I had that experience and felt like that wasn't something that was for me and made me appreciate West Point all the more when I did finally go to school and. And then choose to go infantry.
• 4:06
  Speaker B: That's awesome. So rugby is a hell of a sport. I've only played it once or twice, but the West Point team is pretty. It's pretty substantial. Did you play rugby while you're a cadet?
• 4:14
  Speaker C: I did.
• 4:14
  Speaker B: I was.
• 4:15
  Speaker C: I was an army rugby player and I was very proud. I. I played through my, up until my third year and because of a number of injuries, I had to hold off in order to ensure I could commission and go into combat arms. But the brotherhood of rugby is like none other, and it's really strengthened over the years. We didn't have the rugby complex that exists today. Back in the 90s, we were running up to the commissary parking Lot to conduct practice up there under coach Mike Mahan. He was, he's actually a classmate of my Dad's class of 70. And being an army rugby player was part of who made me the officer that I am today. And having reconnected with the rugby team when I came back for my 30th reunion and previous speaking engagement, it was awesome to reconnect with the, with army rugby and see how it's matured over time, the brotherhood and what it means. And then I. And, and with that I've gotten to reconnect with, with classmates who are also army rugby players. So excellent sport. Really builds toughness and grit, all the things that are great about our army. And it's great to see that both we have a men and a women's team which did not exist when I was there. So. Yeah, thanks for asking.
• 5:33
  Speaker B: Yes, sir. Toughness and grit definitely carried those attributes into all the units you've served in from 82nd to the 75th and then Brigade Command at the 173rd, which sounds absolutely incredible across all those assignments. What would you say is a leadership principle that's remained constant regardless of your rank or your mission? And maybe what has changed as you go from big army to special operations to brigade command to now division command?
• 5:58
  Speaker C: Yeah, my leadership philosophy has largely been shaped by my early years in the range regiment. And it really rests on three principles. And the first is soldier discipline. That discipline. Soldiers discipline small units win the day. Having seen this time and time again in successful units and having seen it fall apart in units that did not do it well. That units have to be inherently disciplined in what we do, athletes are disciplined in what they do, academics are disciplined. And discipline is something that great warriors, great professions, the profession of arm especially embrace. The second is, is leader initiative and agility. That our army is one of the best in the world because we empower leaders to make decisions and ultimately the mission command. The philosophy of mission command is disciplined initiative. It's combining those two and the balance of those two. And great organizations that I've had a part of and those that I've gotten to observe, they're highly disciplined, but they empower their leaders which at times can feel like it's in tension. And that tension is healthy when it's appreciated. And finally, third fundamental that I focus on is strengthening soldiers family. And in my case as a senior commander, our community, a lot of discussion over the years, it's about taking care of soldiers and how we take care of them the way we take care of soldiers. Is by strengthening. Strengthening is something that means that we have the best interest in our soldiers well being in terms of ensuring they're well trained, they're well prepared to do their mission, their families are prepared. And this is something that over the years, we as leaders also have to artfully understand. The best way that you can strengthen someone is by talking to them face to face. Any problem that I've ever dealt with in the army ultimately needed to be resolved with a tough conversation because that's where we connect and it leads to a position of being uncomfortable. But great units that I've served in strengthen one another because they're willing to have tough conversations internally in order to strengthen their organization. So I've seen this time and time again. And those three, that three fundamentals I've laid out, I often will bin the way that I philosophically look at my command and leaders as a whole.
• 8:15
  Speaker B: How does tough conversations translate as a PL all the way to now being a major general? I imagine the conversations maybe stay kind of similar, but it's got to change in some way.
• 8:27
  Speaker C: No, I think it's very similar. You mentioned pt. I mean, PT is where we connect face to face. We look at each other in the eye and we push each other physically. And it's a very easy way to train because everyone can PT in the same fashion. And it doesn't matter where your background is, your sex, your age, you need to do that. And people get hurt too, and they need to recover. And so that requires a face to face conversation of, okay, I need to, I need to not run right now because I, I need to ensure I can get fit. So that's an easy way to do it. When you translate that to anything that else that you do in training or meeting standards or attempting to, or, or accomplishing a mission, tough conversations need to occur. And that kind of gets back to the discipline we have to hold one another accountable. Our perfection of arms demands that we hold one another accountable. Because if we can't do it in the easy places, when no one's shooting at us, when we are getting shot at, and when we are in combat, and when things are not going well, we have to rely on those to our left and right, that discipline, and it builds trust. And trust is the foundation, the bedrock of our army and our army values. So the face to face conversations, those tough conversations, they tend to be different over time. But being candid, being having moral courage to talk to one another, but also at the same time having a positive mental attitude to want to accomplish A mission that is the key to great organizations. Colonel Ralph Puckett was father of the Ranger Regiment in many respects. Class of 1949 from West Point, Medal of Honor recipient, a hero of mine. And of many who served in the Ranger regiment In the past 20 years, he has a great quote many have used. And we all leaders, good leaders, turn back to. And that is we should be proud, but never satisfied. We should be proud, but never satisfied. Having a growth mindset of I believe that I can make my organization better while also being proud of it. That you can do both at the same time. Poor organizations don't have that proud and they are satisfied or they're not proud at all and they're satisfied with that state. So that's a leader's job, is to get into an organization, set the climate so that the climate aligns over time with the desired culture.
• 10:43
  Speaker B: What kind of gauges and measures can leaders look at to see whether or not their unit has too much pride, too little pride, or whether or not they're too satisfied or not satisfied enough with the current state of the unit? What can leaders look at?
• 10:57
  Speaker C: If you're looking at a unit to determine its, its level of pride, I think more often than not what you're going to find is units that don't have a level of pride or what are they proud of is really, I mean, what are the things that, what do they hold in high regard? What are you, what is it you value? And I think particularly for our units here in the Pacific, what we value, what we need to value is our ability to meet the competition in great power and potentially large scale operations against our, our pacing adversary. In, in this, in this theater, you know, what is your purpose? If your pride is based upon your organization's purpose, then you're, you're moving in the right direction. But if you have a pride in something that's out of alignment with any sort of purpose that is of value to your nested command that you serve under, then your, your pride may be misplaced. And so that's a good indicator is commanders and leaders understand their commands, mission two levels up. The operator format is written for that purpose. So you understand your higher, higher headquarters mission. Because ultimately that's what we as leaders do. And then, then we as commanders are looking two levels down and assessing. I assess down and I evaluate my battalions. As a division Commander, I have 20 battalions and 108 companies across my division of over 12,000 soldiers. And so I'm looking down at each of those battalions and assessing their ability to accomplish their mission. And at the end of the day, the pride of the organization is not what's important, it's the ability for them to accomplish their mission. Because pride can be an emotion that is either manufactured or is internal. What really matters is can they accomplish their war fighting mission?
• 12:41
  Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, zooming out, you mentioned large scale operations. Before taking command of the 25th ID, you served as Chief of Staff of U.S. army Pacific. And during that period there was a lot of transformation and a refocus on deterrence. What do you think are the most important things to know about deterrence as it pertains to with the 25th ID?
• 12:59
  Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I've been blessed with the opportunity to serve in the Pacific AOR for the last 6 years. And prior to this I was a battalion commander during 2012-2014 in which we as a nation stated we were pivoting to the Pacific. And that's because of the rise of the People's Liberation army of China and their their ability to build strength and create land features in the South China Sea that was building for over a decade. What we've been watching and what we focus on in this theater is not only watching that threat as it builds, but also ensuring that we can assure our allies. What's not often appreciated by a lot of the army. Most of the army is really focused on Europe and the Middle east and has been for for many years. I've served in Europe and obviously I've spent a lot of time as most many of my peers have and a lot of the army has in the Middle east for the past 20, 20 plus years. But what's less appreciated is building capability of the People's Liberation army to seize land and at scale at mass and that they're increasing those desires to do so in the first island chain, specifically Taiwan. But those island features are thousands of islands that interconnect Japan and all of its outer is to Taiwan and its islands down into the Philippines. The Philippines is made up of over 7,000 or 7,000 islands. And each of those islands are sovereign territory of the Philippines, which is actually our oldest treaty ally in the Pacific. NATO is a well known alliance. It is strong to this day and it is absolutely important we sustain. But equally important are the alliances that we've created in the Pacific where with Korea, with Japan, the Philippines and Australia and then not a mutual defense treaty, but a fifth treaty ally is Thailand. And so those relationships are beyond partnerships. Those are alliances. And the Philippines today remains in contact with maritime militia forces. They are dealing with the West Philippine Sea and building a features out there. This is a problem because it is a threat to their sovereignty. Why does that matter? Because sovereign waters connect to sovereign land. People live on land. And ultimately our history has shown us. And it was 85 years ago that Japan seized the islands of the Philippines and we had to retake them. Our forefathers had to retake those islands. Today we train in those same areas in that same exact terrain. We visit the monuments where our forefathers fought, led, and died in support of Filipino independence, freedom. And so land forces, and specifically the army, is incredibly important, A, because our history pulls us there, our history pulls us to this region, and B, because contrary to popular thought, any future war will not be won by ships and planes alone. And the Marine Corps is not big enough to solve this. And what has really sharpened our focus in this region more than anything has been Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, and a war that continues on four years and running of fighting that is not short or sharp, in which, in the 21st century, one large sovereign nation is willing to seize another sovereign nation's territory. And so that reality has struck, not only us as US Army, Pacific and assigned forces, but every other nation across the Pacific is watching what is happening in Ukraine and Russia. And they are wondering, can the same thing happen in the 21st century, led by an army that is building sizable combat power to seize land and is signaling that it wishes to seize land? So that is a call to arms, a call for purpose that we assure our allies. And Our division, the 25th Infantry Division, is squarely focused on the Philippine Army. And partnering with the Philippine army, we have a rotational force in the Philippines even to this day, that develops our exercises into rehearsals as part of Operation Pathways. It supports the larger Campaigning for Use or PAC ready forward that we have forward in the Philippines to assure our Philippine allies, but and to deter Russia. And that the only real way to deter a fight because we don't want another war, is to have a credible force that's trained and ready to prevent that from occurring. And land forces are increasingly proving out that we need army to do this and that it can't be done by Air Force and Navy alone.
• 17:32
  Speaker B: So you brought up Operation Pathways, and I'd love to ask about that in a minute, but before I have a question about Ukraine, you mentioned the army can get maybe a little bit of tunnel vision about Europe and the Middle east, but the 25th ID is really uniquely positioned to focus on the Indo Pacific while Trying to pay attention to what the Army's learning from Europe and from the Middle East. So what is your assessment of how the lessons we are learning in Ukraine translate to the Indo Pacific? What are the differences? Because I see drones, we see electronic warfare, we see different command and control systems that the Army's developing and trying to learn from Ukraine. How is that going to. How do you see right now that Translating to the 25th ID training or the AOR in general.
• 18:13
  Speaker C: Exactly. You just described is the vision for transformation and contact. The theory of the case is that we as an army need to learn from what is happening in one of the largest conflicts with massive casualties in our, in our lifetime. We need to learn from this, transform, watching and participating in this mission in contact. So we are watching very closely what is happening in eucom and we've sent teams out to SAG U, we read their reports and we take their lessons learned and we're applying all of that. The Army's helped our division to apply that as a transformation division that is continuously transforming. We sort of evolved our terminology over time, but we're continuously transforming in the arena of drones, counter drones and electronic warfare. And I would tell you there is a direct correlation between what we need to apply and what we're learning not only there, but also now in the Middle East. And the need for land forces to have long range, one way attack uas, the need for land forces to have a system and a means to defend against those types of attacks, and then the dominance of the electronic warfare spectrum in a way that we've never had to worry about in the past. Because at the end of the day, our skies are becoming more and more contested. The ability to project power via air is going to become more and more difficult as rocket capability and cheaper technology, munitions are available to strike. And that frequency management is beyond just the way we've thought of it in the past. That in fact electronic spectrum is at risk and that we can be seen anywhere. And I think that those are all principles that we're pulling out of what we're watching in Ukraine, a ubiquitous battlefield, being sensed anywhere to ranges that we've never thought were possible before. We're applying all those now. Some of these lessons don't directly apply because of the static land battlefield that has come into play over years. But the tactics, techniques and procedures, the weapon systems and capabilities, everyone is watching and everyone is learning from and participating in some way with what is happening. That is why the army made the decision to field our division as the first division in the army with the high mobility rocket launch system, the HIMARS system. And we transitioned one of our artillery battalions from a cannon battalion to a rocket battalion, anticipating that we would need those fires. And we've already deployed it in the Philippines. We've already live fired in the Philippines. And we're going to continue to grow longer range, sensing and strike capability based on what we're watching and learning out of Ukraine and the Middle East.
• 20:59
  Speaker B: So what's the best way to translate some of these like big strategic army ideas down to the battalion commander and then he goes to the company commander and then down to the platoon leader? I'm curious, like from your level, what do you maybe expect from your subordinate leaders and how, and how they communicate some of these big ideas down to soldiers so they can do the right thing?
• 21:19
  Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great question. Strategic concepts can get lost, especially when we talk about transformation. And the key thing that we need to watch in, in our discussions on transformation is that it does not relegate us. Tech will never relegate the, the need for a focus on the fundamentals of war fighting. And the way we've defined that in this division is the way I've learned over time, particularly serving in the Ranger regiment and that we have in our division, the big five. And that is, number one is physical fitness. You need fit and ready soldiers in order to do the mission. Number two is lethality. That all of your weapon systems, you need to be able to engage and kill at night at the range that you can sense. And so that's all we've done is just increase the menu of options for, for weapons. And we need to increasingly focus less on small arms and focus more on longer range capability. From drones to long range drone strike to Javelins to anything that the longest range weapon systems that you can at night striking from offensive defense. The third is field craft and survivability. The very techniques that we've learned over time of dispersion of forces, camouflaging forces, digging them in. All these principles that have been tried and true for decades, that we've gotten all the way back to World War I, World War II, they still apply today. And you could see that in Ukraine and we're seeing it now in how we train as well. There is no sanctuary, There are no forward operating bases. There's not such a thing. We need to be, we need to be survivable and we need to be able to live for days, months, years in the field, in the jungle, specifically in our terrain. Small unit drills Ultimately, every mission comes down to winning the first fight, making contact with the small unit possible, and that you need to have command posts that are survivable and can move, that can dig in in order to win that fight. And so that fourth fundamental of small unit drills depend upon the mission essential tasks of that company I mentioned. I've got 20 battalions and 108 companies across my relatively small division, where we're a two brigade combat team division. And so those small unit drills are going to vary, but those units have to be proficient. Those at day, at night, when they're cold, wet, tired, hungry, hot, doesn't matter what it is, they have to be proficient. And finally, the fifth is mobility. We have to be able to move by land, sea or air. We use army watercraft. Our CAB is absolutely essential to the joint force. We also have to be able to move over land, not only in our new infantry squad vehicles, but also on foot, as our forefathers did through the jungles. We're finding that units that fail to do that will die soon and they'll die quickly. We create tough, realistic training around those big five so that we can ensure that we're testing them at the lowest level. You can layer the tech on top of it, whatever the drones, the counter drones, the electronic warfare. But ultimately those essentials have not changed over time.
• 24:18
  Speaker B: So, sir, it's an ever changing, super complex world. At West Point, a lot of our instructors have deployed to the Middle east or, you know, they've been in for 10, 15 years, or our colonels who've been in for 20, 25 years. And I think we all have these ideas or these notions about what the future conflict might look like, but it's all based on the past, right? Units like the 25th ID are at the forefront of what is possibly going to happen. You have the best picture of what could happen. So I'm curious, what would you say to the soldier that's getting out of AIT, who's learning from NCOs who've been in and deployed to the Middle east, or to cadets or to other cadets at ROTC who are kind of have these preconceptions from the past and are being taught by people who are a little further away from the fight? What would you say is the mindset that needs to emerge? What do you. What needs to change before they get to their unit at the 25th ID or at, you know, another emerging division to best lead the soldiers in the next fight?
• 25:14
  Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great question. Something we think about and Talk about a lot is I'll draw back to our history, and I think we need to study our history and particularly the regions where conflicts have been fought. And it's, it's within the past century that we liberated the very country that we're training with. And just to put a finer point on it, this past exercise, Balikatan, it's a large, large joint exercise in the Philippines that we conduct every April. This was the first year that the armed forces of the Philippines invited the Japanese Ground Self Defense Force to train on Philippine soil since they were ousted out of the Philippines. So if you just wrap your head around that, I mean, given the atrocities and everything that the Japanese inflicted upon the Filipinos as a nation, for them to invite the Japanese back in to Luzon, to the very lands, the very training areas that were once, in some cases internment camps, is pretty, it's pretty remarkable and very historic. But it was barely a blip in the news because everyone understood the challenges of today. So it's worth putting that in context in this theater because this theater is not as well studied as, or I certainly didn't appreciate it as much as, say, the battles in Normandy and the Bulge and Europe's a lot easier to get to. So it's. I mean, we have connections there that are, that are different. So I think in terms of what we need to prepare for the, for the future, that's different. I mentioned the one big. Which is the forward operating base mentality. And it is very difficult to pull that out of our thought process, that somehow we're going to magically appear on some battlefield and that we'll be able to part a forward operating base that is secure, that's got a chow hall and it's got latrines, it's got all the, all the niceties of life. And we'll go out and conduct combat operations and then within that next day, we'll return back to that sanctuary. That sanctuary will not exist in this future. And we know this because of the ranges and the capabilities and the withering strike power of our adversaries. That's a reality that we have to understand. And that the very device that we, that we lean on every day to communicate, the phone, is also a targeting device that will provide your signal and location. You have that side of the problem. Then the other side of the problem is that we have to move forward with embracing artificial intelligence. We have to embrace automation of all of the, all of those skills that I mentioned before and our execution of our operations from command post down to the appropriate level. If we choose to remain analog, we do it at our own peril. And the Secretary of the army has talked about this, is that he who senses and strikes first, wins. That's why 4th Infantry Division is at the National Training center right now executing Project Convergence 6. And we are one of the two next generation command and control units in the army because we have got to update our technologies, our ability to command and control commensurate with the 21st century. And again the Secretary of the Army's talked about this at ausa, he's talked this in multiple forums. That in fact we're in an age today where industry is leading us in tech with the military trailing and we have got to catch up, we've got to keep up. We cannot allow systems of record that were made before your parents were born to be what we fight off of. It's unacceptable because we will lose, because our, our adversaries are not doing that. They are modernizing at a pace, a withering pace that we have to keep up with. So those two can be intention at times because the very capabilities that we want to be able, we need to be able to communicate can also be a vulnerability. But actually the Navy understands this better than any other service about emission control, IMCO and how you communicate, when you communicate, how you connect to the cloud, what is your transport and your ability to connect. These are the things that we need our young leaders to understand as a digital nation so they understand where they're a vulnerability and where those capabilities need to be an asset to depend upon.
• 29:22
  Speaker B: Sir, I'm not sure I understand the high praise for the Navy that's hard for me to comprehend. But
• 29:29
  Speaker C: I'm a joint warrior. I'm a joint warrior. I know you have to beat Navy at every turn, but we need to learn and fight as a joint force. So that's.
• 29:37
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 29:38
  Speaker C: You're gonna get that?
• 29:39
  Speaker B: Absolutely. That'd be a hard sell for me, I think.
• 29:41
  Speaker C: No,
• 29:43
  Speaker B: I am curious. I have been curious about Operation Pathways. We talked about it earlier. I was looking it up, trying to figure out what this is and it sounds like some type of JPMRC rotation trading center thing. Can you kind of just like give me like an overview? What is it? How does it benefit and maybe how's it changed? You know, why? Is it better than it used to be?
• 30:01
  Speaker C: Yeah. So Operation Pathways is a concept by which United States Army Pacific has command. Our land forces in the Pacific is stitched together 40 plus exercises in a coherent fashion with multiple different countries throughout the area. To put into an annual campaign plan. And the idea is that it's positioning forces with our allies and partners across the key terrain in the Pacific as part of a rehearsal. So I say this because over the years we have so we have 36 nations that we partner with over across Pacific from as far west as India, as far north as Mongolia, as far south as New Zealand and Australia and into the Pacific island nations. The Pacific is vast. It's 52% of the Earth's surface. So I mean the sheer distances out here and the number of partners that we train with is significant. Similar to Europe, just much more dispersed. Each one of these partners are incredibly important in our military to military relationship. The five treaty allies I mentioned before are especially important because of the Mutual Defense Treaty. And then certainly the key terrain of the first island chain I described. Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, stretching around the South China Sea is arguably the most important terrain. Not militarily, not just militarily, but because the amount of trade that flows through. Again I'll refer to the Navy. But the reality is is that those the reason why gas prices have gone up, that we all feel it is because of what is happening in the Middle East. The fuel that flood that flows out of there also has to transit when anything that's going east, it's going through the Malacca Straits, around Singapore, it's going through these key choke points in the region that are the reason why the Pacific Command is focused on a free and open Pacific is because it's our livelihood, it's the livelihood of our partners. And there is an economic and a national sovereignty issue to this. So all of this is interconnected to why we have these military to military exercises over time to help increase the capability and competence of the armies that we work with across the ar. Oh, by the way, most of these countries do not have large navies and air forces. They rely on their armies to sustain their sovereignty. So we usir pac we partner with these armies in these exercises. What pathways does is it puts us into a coherent strategy by which we conduct these training events in a way that logically sequences them and places forces across all warfighting functions in key terrain to train with and rehearse those partners so that we are in a position of advantage and we've built interior lines, if you will, in key terrain. So a lot of this down to the soldier feels like I'm going to Malaysia or I'm going to Indonesia or the Philippines or Japan for a single exercise. But the larger tapestry that has been woven year after year, we're improving the way that we train. Ultimately we deliver war fighting capability into the region by training it through our Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness center that we do here in Hawaii as a division. We then strengthen our allies and partners through these series of engagements. But ultimately it is to advance our forward posture and our forward capability through use or pack ready forward. That's the end state is putting sustainment forward, putting capability, protection, engineering, command and control fires, all those things forward that we would need to fight when in a contingency.
• 33:40
  Speaker B: That was going to be one of my questions you mentioned. It's sustainment. You know, there's an old quote, somebody said it that amateurs talk about tactics and professionals talk about sustainment. I just got out of jmrc, the Hohenfels training area in Europe for about nine days and it was a great time. But I was fascinated by how we were able to actually use a sustainment system to move different equipment around. And then we were able to like, you know, use that in the fight within the box. It was really neat. So I'm curious, how does Operation Pathways enable the whole logistics train of the army, you know, according with the Navy and everyone else to practice sustaining the units on the front line, getting the training with those foreign armies.
• 34:21
  Speaker C: One of the biggest pieces we rehearse that when we talk about rehearsals and pathways is the sustainment. It's large sustainment formations which only army uniquely can provide. It's. It's not really well appreciated that the backbone, a lot of, a lot of our joints, contested sustainment capability is coming from the United States Army. The Marine Corps almost wholly relies on, if they can't get it off a ship, from the Navy, they rely on anything on land, they largely rely on army sustainment structure to support them. And so we as a joint force with land forces supporting Army, Marines, SOF and allies and partners are essential. And the expertise for, from medical, logistics and evacuation and treatment to fuel management, consumption, storage, movement to munitions, to water, water purification, water management, these are critical capabilities, just basic needs that soldiers require in order to fight and win. And if not positioned at a time of crisis, the risk increases dramatically for the joint force dramatically. And so a major objective for a lot of our exercises is not only rehearsing, but positioning and managing and sustaining forces forward. So although I am basic branch initially as an infantry officer, I'll tell you day to day, I spend more of my time, even as an infantry division commander focused on my sustainment architecture than I do on, on, on war fighting. Because the way I set conditions the way we set conditions for units to fight win is by positioning sustainment so that they're, they're ready to fight. And really when we look at all of our war games and where strategic forces run short, it's, it's, it's their ability to tie all the way from the defense industrial complex all the way into the war fighter. With the distances that we have in this region, it is much more fragile than any other region that we might be faced to fight in.
• 36:29
  Speaker B: If I branch infantry or artillery or some type of combat arm, what level does sustainment start to kind of take over that tactic? Priority? I'm curious. So you talk about being a division commander and you're focused on that, but you know, is it battalion command? Is it maybe a little bit of company command, even coordinating asset? When does that priority shift?
• 36:48
  Speaker C: If you're an infantry platoon leader in the 25th Infantry Division, what do you think is your most critical class of supply? Moving over, over land in the jungle, what would you imagine it'd be? What would you run out of first?
• 37:00
  Speaker B: Slaughter.
• 37:01
  Speaker C: Yes. So as a native troop platoon leader, you're going to carry a whole lot about water. Just as an example, how many quarts of water do you think our soldiers carried in the Philippines during a 10 day exercise? Or consumed during a 10 day exercise while they were fighting and moving through dense jungle terrain at over 100 degrees? You went through your summer training. So like how many quarts would you drink in a day? And you're like your toughest day. How many quarts? What would you guess?
• 37:28
  Speaker B: Earth soldier, Quick math. I just dated five, five or six quarts?
• 37:32
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, five or six quarts. They were consuming 12, 10 to 12 quarts a day because it was so hot. The amount that they were carrying, the distance they were going. So how do you, how do you resupply that? So I just give that just as an example. Like you start caring about logistics when you really are in a position where you are detached from that forward operating base, in a position where you're vulnerable and that's just water and that's just for a platoon. So if you're an artilleryman, your ammo counts are everything because that, that's your livelihood, that's your, you're of no value without munition. So you have to know where it's coming from. You have to understand your control supply, distribution rate. It starts happening at a very young age, but it is, it is something that can easily get wished away in training if we're really not careful. And we're just focused on just the war fighting because ultimately we have to be proficient in order to execute. But yeah, 12, in some cases up to 16 quarts a day. And so we're, we have different ways. Part of our transformation is how do we purify water for. You know, campers have been doing this for years. I mean we, and we've. Our forefathers in Vietnam and others use iodine tablets. But I mean we obviously have had all kinds of health problems. And you deal with those things. That's a real problem in the jungle. That's why we, those are things we focus on our jungle operations training course that we run here in Hawaii so that when we get into the Philippines, we get into these other jungles that we're ready to, to preserve ourselves. And with just that simple, just that one class supply. And you could imagine there's a lot of ways you could go on and on about this. Now is that something the platoon leader needs to be consumed with? Absolutely not. Should be your platoon sergeant, your squad leaders, your leaders who are doing this. This goes back to leader initiative and agility. I mean you need leaders that are thinking in time and are anticipating. And then we've been working in part of our next generation C2 with our. Everything from log stats from our, from our attack devices back to digitize this so we can kind of see the problem in time so that you have an element of this gets solved with water consumption and purification at the ground level. And some of it has to be solved up to the company, battalion, brigade, sometimes division level, depending upon where you're moving, particularly if you're not near a water source that you can purify. There's a lot of great examples. So I just use that one example. That's, that's a. But it's a great question.
• 39:48
  Speaker B: That's actually fascinating. Okay, so kind of rounding it out. So sir, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to Lieutenant Bartholomew's in the 101st or in the 75th Ranger Regiment to do a better job leading soldiers?
• 40:00
  Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great question. I struggled with this one for a little bit because I had to be self reflective of how I was. I admire you, Zach, for asking. I would have never been able to ask these types of questions of a two star general when I was your age. I just would not have even crossed my mind. So in many ways the types of advice I would give Lieutenant Bartholomew are probably different than what Lieutenant Olson needs. But in terms of the things that were that I Needed specifically is I really would advise myself to read more and to study our history more. Some of the things I've been talking about history, I've learned over time, but I didn't appreciate how much West Point really provided a full, broad education at the time. I. I was a civil engineer major, and I was. I was just slugging through ones and zeros and helped me. It taught me problem solving. But in terms of appreciation for a broad understanding of the problems that I might need to understand against our historical background, that is where I would have focused. And I'd say even wider than that is. I would advise Lt. Bartholomews to be curious, is to be curious about more than what was in my comfort zone in that time and to truly try and be curious about every aspect of what I was asking of my soldiers and what was going on with them. And so I've really focused on that with our CTLT cadets who've come here as immersing them in. And I hope you had an immersive experience. Sounds like a jmrc. You got that? Immersing them in formations, immersing them in with units that maybe they didn't plan to branch, but so they could get to know soldiers and how they interact with the mission and understanding what it is, the problems that they're kind of trying to solve. I think being. Increasing my curiosity as a. As a junior officer would have been better in terms of helping me. And I think particularly for. For you all in the 21st century, with all the technology that's available to you, some of that may be great. Leaders sort of already understand that because so much information's at your fingertips, so you really. Your world's your oyster. But at the same time, I think applying it to the human condition, to how you connect with people, is really what matters. So those. Those are some of the big ones. A couple others that. That. That I think I wrote down, but I would say kind of apply. But it's. These are things I think I did a little better, was really sustain a positive mental attitude. You're gonna. You're gonna face a lot of time and a lot of negativity and all kinds of different leader environments that a positive mental attitude is absolutely necessary to maintain a winning spirit. Because ultimately the American warrior wants to win and needs to win. We want our soldiers to win in what they're doing. And so our. Our training and what we do needs to be focused on how we can challenge ourselves, how we can push ourselves to the brink of failure. That's the beauty of our combat trainings. Our they push us through the brink of failure, but allow us to see what victory looks like on the other side of that, through tough, realistic training. And finally, trust your instincts and inspire soldiers every day. Our soldiers deserve one thing, and this is a quote that I got from General La Camera, who is a longtime commander. They deserve tough, realistic training and great leaders. They deserve inspirational leaders. And that is something that I think the United States Military Academy produces leaders of character who can inspire our future generations. And as a young leader coming in, the power of an inspirational leader, a positive leader, cannot be undersold and is incredibly valuable to who we are, to our identity and our profession of arms.
• 43:32
  Speaker B: So those are great, enduring leadership principles. On behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan, the director of the Modern war Institute, and Dr. Charlie Fate, the director of this podcast series, thank you for your time today. Thank you for a fascinating discussion about the 25th Infantry Division, Transformation, contact and deterrence in the Indo Pacific. So normally I'd have a rare and coveted MWI coin for you, but we'll save it for you and we'll have it back at West Point when you hopefully get there at some point.
• 43:58
  Speaker C: Cadet Olsen, thanks for your leadership and what you're doing with this podcast. Keep up the great work.
• 44:05
  Speaker A: 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.