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Major General Jeffrey VanAntwerp · 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: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the west point class of 1974 recording studio and the five questions for a General podcast. I'm Cadet Zach Olson, your host, and it's my pleasure to be here today with the command team of the 25th Infantry Division, Major General Jeffrey Van Antwerp and Command Sergeant Major Michael Eilers. Gentlemen, you both served in the army for decades, and you chose the infantry. Why join the army, and why was infantry the branch of choice? Sergeant major.
• 0:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, for me on this day in particular, 911 had a profound impact. But myself, I was a senior in high school at the time. Watching that go live, basically, you always put yourself in when something happens. What can I do about it? Felt like what I could do about it was join the army for the homeland, speed been attacked. And choosing the infantry, I'll say, you know, soft power must work because, you know, you watch Rambo and Black on
• 1:07
  Speaker D: down, you get the time.
• 1:09
  Speaker A: Like, I absolutely wanted to do that. But I think at a deeper level, you know, you want to test yourself, you want to find something that. That's difficult, and you want to put yourself in situations that are going to kind of try the soul. And I saw, you know, infantry was probably the way to do that. And I was right. Everything's. Everything's difficult, everything's hard, and it's supposed to be that way. That's kind of why I've stayed in, you know, for the people and for the challenge. You got to have a purpose. You got to kind of climb the next mountain. I don't know any other profession that kind of gives you the ability to do that every day, sir.
• 1:35
  Speaker D: Yeah, I probably came in for less noble purposes in some ways. You know, it was pre 9 11, graduated high school in 1994, and I graduated West Point in 1998. My dad had. Was serving at the time. He's an engineer officer. He. He'd come to West Point, you know, my parents have five kids. He was interested in me getting a free education, so he encouraged me. But even from the time I was little, he'd taught here previously. So there was a bit of a seed corn planted just based on the cadets that I'd known. And as I thought about, like, What I want to do after high school, serving in the military seemed like a pretty good thing. But I don't think I even connected West Point as much to the military service at that time as much as I did to a good place to go to college and do something that would make my parents proud. What I stay in. Choose infantry. Well, I chose infantry. Probably the same reasons as Mike. You know, as I got into it, you're like, well, man, I want to do the thing that's hard. You know, the physical part of it attracted me a lot. I did go do CTLT with an engineer unit, and we farmed out our squads to go work for the infantry. I was at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and like my, you know, sophomore to junior year summer. And from that point on, I was like, I'm going infantry. I'm going to be the. In the thing that's in charge of the other things, which hasn't always been the case, but in my simple mind at the time, that's how it was.
• 2:56
  Speaker C: Yes, sir. Sergeant Major, going back to what you brought up at the time of recording this episode, it's the 20th anniversary of 911 tragedy. And, sir, I'm curious, as you are three years into the army, four years, I say in 2002, and you have the graduates coming out of West Point in 2002, you're leading those young lieutenants. What did you notice? Did you notice a difference? Did you notice maybe some type of commitment or a different special quality about them? Maybe a determination to lead?
• 3:22
  Speaker D: I don't know about the immediate after because I was a lieutenant myself. And so those, you know, in some ways, those were sort of my peers. I got a cousin who graduated here in 2003, and definitely there was a different level of focus. I'm sure they felt that here. You know, we felt it out there in the force. I was telling Mike and Cole, our other guys yesterday, I had extended for a year. I was in Hawaii as lieutenant. I'd extended for a year to do a fourth year, thinking that I was. I may get out. But once 911 happened, that wasn't happening. I was like, there's no way I'm getting out now. And we definitely. It was. It was way realer because we were in some interwar years there, however you want to think about it. So, yeah, and then, you know, my subsequent experience coming back here, I did a year as attack here, like night and day. Just the level of focus when you've got, you know, you know you're going to deploy when you leave. And the people who just graduated last year or the year before that, you know, are over there and we did and multiple funerals for siblings of cadets that were here during my time here as attack. And so, yeah, it's totally different.
• 4:25
  Speaker C: One of the special privileges we have on this podcast is interviewing incoming commanders and outgoing commanders. So we just got to interview the new superintendent who is your predecessor hack. Yeah, Right. And just a couple months ago, we got to interview General Ryan as he assumed command of Western Hemisphere Command.
• 4:42
  Speaker D: Oh, another former 25th ID.
• 4:44
  Speaker C: Absolutely.
• 4:45
  Speaker D: Right. Fantastic. Because of his deputy who was very strong at the time, I'm sure, I'm sure.
• 4:50
  Speaker C: I'm really curious, how are you entering this command role? What are your priorities? What are you looking at? What are the challenges that you're facing and how are you overcoming those?
• 4:58
  Speaker D: Yeah, I think the number one thing is you come in and you look at what is the overall mission of the unit and have a good perspective of yourself. Kind of is you look at your role and responsibilities within that mission. I look at the 25th Infantry Division. It's founded in 1941. Before that was the Pacific Division or the Hawaii division since the 1920s. And I'm a blip in the screen in some ways in just sort of the temporal, you know, life of this division that has a very purposeful mission in support of the joint force in the theater. I don't come in with like, oh, I'm taking, you know, I'm taking charge or I'm taking command. You're taking command in the sense that, yes, you are the commanding general, but you realize that I'm one part of, you know, an important part of a, a much larger unit with a ton of talented people and a ton of talented people that have gone before me. So you come in and say like, all right, what is working really well here? Let me not mess that up. Let's sustain those really good things. And then how can we enhance the mission? By doing the things that we must do, you know, provide clarity in, in that mission, provide good, strong commander's intent, make sure people understand the purpose, make sure that we can tie all, all of the things we're doing. We can logically connect them to that purpose so that soldiers and down to the individual light fighter, you know, as best we can, that person knows why they're doing what they're doing.
• 6:26
  Speaker C: Now, Sergeant Major, I gotta be honest, that was a really humble answer from a two star general. Who's the division commander you're talking about? You're just a member of the team a blip in the screen. That's not, that's not language that I, I would say I hear all the, all that often. Sar. Major, I'm curious, what's your perspective? Why is that humility so important for leadership? And how does that impact your role as an NCO from brigade command or now as division command?
• 6:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, there's a good point. And humility. You know, I find that the two biggest things that a leader needs to have is one, humility. Well, understanding exactly where you're at in the larger scheme of things. But also, you know, if you don't have that humility, you're not humble. You kind of lose the ability to understand that you need to learn and that you should learn, you know, and once you find yourself in that, that spot as a leader, you're probably in a bad spot. So once again, I find that as one, one of the most important virtues that a leader can have, you know, focus and humility. Focus being my ability to see where I want to take myself and my organization building. You know, I say like a flagstone path back to where you're at and then follow that, that path you built. And you really cannot do that if you have you lost the ability to learn from other people, which only comes through humility. As far as, you know, what we do there in the 25th, I'll tell you what, the 25th has got the best light fighters in the, in the army. There's no doubt about it. We're very privileged in that sense. So what can the command do to really enable that light fighter? Do what they're supposed to do. And that comes with, you know, providing them, you know, the time and space to train, but making sure that we're caring for families and we're caring for soldiers by one, ensuring they have, you know, facilities that are comfortable, their finances are in order, and the, you know, food to fuel our light fighter. Those are things that sometimes get overlooked and they're difficult. You can't turn those things on a dime. But they're things that we need to focus on to make sure our light fighters are able to do this very hard job day in and day out.
• 8:26
  Speaker C: How do you inspire subordinate leaders to focus on hard problems? I think, I don't know. As a, As a leader at the academy or as a firstie, we like to focus on the easy problems. You can get them done in a night, and maybe it helps somebody out a little bit. But inspiring leaders to solve more difficult problems that are longer in scope, larger in impact how do you do that?
• 8:46
  Speaker D: You've been talking to people who've been talking to me. This is one of my favorite subjects, actually. Yeah, this, I think the, the actual, like, word and the thought that that is part of our job, inspiring people, I think is sometimes overlooked. And, you know, we, you know, if I go to my, you know, as I've philosophized a bit, Mike doesn't mind it, you know, like, number one in my sort of leadership philosophy, or at least what I aspire to do. Like, it is, it is this idea of inspiring or igniting the passion and because that's the necessary part if you want to challenge people with the hard thing. And that's absolutely what we're going to do. You know, we're not going to. In order to be, in order to, to pursue excellence, to be a unit that's going to be successful in this. Like, you have to take on challenges and you, you want to build it. You know, the goal is to build an intrinsic motivation within the individual light fighter, within that small unit, within the, the larger units that, you know, you build out of the small units to do the collective tasks. You want to build that hunger to take on challenge. You know, and you can see it in the best individuals, you can see it in the best small units where there is like almost an insatiable appetite to devour challenge. And the, the idea of, like, is this accomplishable? Can we do it?
• 10:07
  Speaker C: It almost.
• 10:07
  Speaker D: That almost becomes immaterial. It's because they've, they've seen the benefit of the growth that comes from even the failure and the, the stretching. So, but to do that, you know, you don't just immediately like, oh, you guys just need more grit. That's the problem here. You need more grit, perseverance here, you know, grit. Grit is the byproduct of, of passion. Our goal is to ignite that passion. And sometimes it does. The inspiration does take. You know, it's absolutely. There are, there are transactional portions to that. At times there's going to be carrot and stick. You're not going to feel like doing what you're doing. You're not going to be intrinsically motivated to do it. And that's just the way it is. The goal, though, is to inspire so that once that fire is lit and you've ignited that passion, then there's going to be the desire to take on challenge and to endure when things aren't going well. And as long as you, you've done those, you've ignited the passion. You're Providing challenging training. You know, there's a great book on it, you know, called the Talent Code by Daniel Coyle, where he talks about how do you build talent? And this is part of you ignite the passion. You probably call it deep practice, which is like, you know, it's not. You're not flailing, but it's. It's beyond, you know, what you can just easily do. And the key part is that you come around on the back end because the failing will happen and you provide, he calls expert coaching. Or, you know, it's the sense making. It's the making meaning of it. You do that in counseling, you do that in the ar, and then you move on to the next challenge. So, yeah, inspiration is absolutely a huge part of it. And the number one way you do that isn't through create a great speech, make some great swag, put up a bunch of great posters, have an awesome culture statement and slogan. I'm not saying all those things aren't great things to do. It's through your own personal example. If you're not doing it. There's nothing less inspiring than a leader who says a bunch of stuff and then does it do it themselves. Like, that's called hypocrisy. The bigger that say do gap becomes, the less inspiring you will become, regardless of what you say.
• 12:19
  Speaker C: There's a great leader named Colonel Glover Johns, and he was a, I believe, a brigade commander when we were in Berlin while the country was occupied, and he used to go out on ranges with the. With the Joes, and he would flip a quarter in the air and shoot it. And that was just an element of sportsmanship, of showmanship. That's pretty. That's pretty impressive. I'm curious, what impact do you think showmanship needs to have in a junior leader versus a senior leader's leadership style?
• 12:51
  Speaker D: Showmanship. I have not thought about, like, even that word or turnaround.
• 12:58
  Speaker A: What is it? Maybe. I don't know.
• 13:00
  Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, I. I'm probably like you or anybody. I mean, I'm attracted to. To charismatic leaders. If the charisma is supported by substance, if there's foundation. I worked a long time, you know, in many different roles for General Carrilla, Eric Corella, who's, you know, depending who you talk to, people have varying opinions. There's a bit of. I don't know if he'd appreciate it, but showmanship. But it's backed by substance, and that's what I appreciated about him. And it's the kind of thing where I think showmanship in the Terms of I'm trying to show off or I'm trying to, you know, trying to impress. Not that welcome, not good. But showmanship is that in terms of I'm willing to show you, not just tell you I will do the thing that I'm asking you to do 100%. That's we talk about all the time. You must be prepared to validate your credentials. No one cares what schools you went to, what badges you have with things you did. They don't care that I'm 50 years old. They don't care that Mike's got, you know, a couple kids in college. They don't care. They want to see, like, you know, show me. Show me you can do the cfd, do this obstacle course, go to this thing, suffer, you know, suffer out in the jungle when it's not convenient and it's raining and it really sucks. Everybody's tired. That's not the time to. I got to go to battalion, you know, like, no,
• 14:44
  Speaker C: Sergeant Major, I want to switch gears a little bit. You have been in career infantry nco, commanding from scene leader all the way through. Now division command Sergeant Major, how do you shift your mindset from role to role as you increase from being a tactical, operational, and strategic level leader? How do you change that as an NCO and as a. As your relationship with the commanding officer?
• 15:07
  Speaker A: I would say still very tactical. You know, everything from team leader to division sergeant Major is about as tactical as it gets. You know, we are a tactical division, and that's important. Important to remember as far as shifting, you know, focus as you go. You know, no one wants to. I think we're joking there. Dave gets promoted exactly one too many times, you know, so how do you make sure, you know, in your current position you're not the best, you know, what your last position was? I think that comes with one, you know, trusting your subordinates. And sometimes you have to allow them to earn that trust, as uncomfortable as it may be for you. And also, I'll just go back to, like, the humility part of it, and my definition of humility being, like, the understanding that you need to learn. All right? So, you know, what I do is really just kind of lean into what is the. What is the next thing that I have to do, and then remembering the attributes of, you know, the kind of people that came before me. I've been very lucky to have just some phenomenal squad leaders when I was a team leader or a rifleman. I had a great platoon sergeant, you know, and all these things kind of Stack together and I take, you know, Connie's best attributes from. From them and make them so they. They become behind. At the end of the day, I don't think I'm coming up with anything new out here in the world. I'm just taking absolutely what. What has worked and I've seen in the past and trying to apply it to the best of my ability. And I will say, you know, if you want to know what kind of leader somebody is, like, show me who they followed. I think that that goes a long way.
• 16:35
  Speaker C: Absolutely, sir. Shifting the question just a little bit to you. After going from various special operations positions and being a platoon leader in the 25th ID, now being the commanding general, what's been the most difficult transition for you in terms of your leadership style or your knowledge base?
• 16:55
  Speaker D: I think the leadership style actually has not differed that much in some cases. You know, I think the. The echelon varies more than the. The type of unit in some ways. Like when you're in a lower echelon, you know, while still tactical, as Mike was saying, you know, even from a division level, you're still in a tactical division. You don't have the opportunity for as much direct leadership as you did when you're a platoon leader or even a company commander or even a battalion commander, which is probably still in the very direct leadership role. And certainly as a platoon leader coming to commander, you can know every soldier in your formation. So in some ways, some of the special operations units, even as I moved up into higher levels, you still had the opportunity for very direct leadership because the formations were smaller. Now the challenges were of a different form in that you may have a smaller formation, but the activity you're doing may be in some ways more complex or of at least complex in terms of, you know, policy dynamics, partner dynamic, interagency dynamic. So the challenges are different. I think the part that is the constant is. Doesn't matter if you are at first SFOD or you are in the 25th Infantry Division, that same type of leadership we just talked about, where it's like, show me you can do it. You know, we're always accountable for our operator skills. There's no time where certainly in the world we're in right now, you know, as a division command team, where we get a pass on the things that we're asking them to do, we must be prepared to do those. We owe you all of that stuff we've asked of you, and we owe you clear commander's guidance, clear priorities. The stuff, you know, facilities, funding, food, Resources to the degree you can provide it, you know, a degree of predictability about those things. So I think the challenges change, but the fundamental part, and honestly the hardest part about both jobs is that the, the, the showing and the demonstrating is an everyday thing. You know, that was the same at first SFOD as it is at the 25th. That showing up every day with the right attitude of mind to work in, the right approach, you know, the get to kind of approach, that is the hardest thing about it because it takes a ton of personal discipline because there are days where you don't feel like doing the thing you're going to do. You don't feel like going to all those meetings, you don't feel like it doesn't matter. You know, you, you've got to have the discipline to show up. It's like, okay, I'm, I am blessed to be in this position. You know, I'm going to approach this as if, with that in mind, like, I am blessed to be here. This is an opportunity. Every one of these is an opportunity. Today that is the, is the most challenging thing I think of almost any job probably for anybody in any field. It's so important the military, because that's, you know, if you talk about your attitude, you know, we talk about you like you particularly as you, you grow over time. And the time I really first realized this, like most clearly was I had an awesome Sergeant Major Rob Lively at, at the unit. And he told me, he's like, hey, you're just. Because there's danger there. You're, you got guys who are still down in team rooms that you went to OTC with, you've known for over a decade. He says you're not just Jeff Antwerp, like, you're Osco Whiskey 01. You know, the call sign says you just have to recognize that. And because, because of that, you will have different effect in some ways, you know, in some circles, not all the time, but I'm very cognizant of that since then. And now that they use the analogy of you are a weather machine as a leader and every time you walk into a room, you affect the weather and the climate is the preponderance of the weather. And so if you have, if when you come in, ponderance of the time, or even some of the time you come in and it gets cold and rainy, you're going to have a cold and rainy command climate. And over time, that command climate affects people's basic underlying assumptions about the organization, their beliefs. And that's the, that's the foundation of culture. So all of the programs and statements and swag and all of that can't overcome the thing that you consistently do every day, which at the most basic is a product of your attitude, which determines your behavior, which determines your influence. So that's a. That's a high bar. If every day the most important thing you're gonna do is the attitude with which you show up to work. So Mike talks about.
• 21:51
  Speaker A: Like it's.
• 21:51
  Speaker D: It's not. That's not a feeling either. Like your attitude is not a feeling. You may not feel like doing said task, most of that, but you're gonna do it. Yeah.
• 22:02
  Speaker C: I'm curious. We were just talking before the podcast about General Clark and how I think he's a pretty good weather machine. He comes into a room very commanding, very positive, and very inviting, I think, to ask questions and to engage with subordinates and other leaders. I'm curious, how do you communicate the challenges that they're facing in Europe, in Ukraine, and the lessons that we're learning from that conflict and the lessons we're learning from the conflict in the Middle East? How do you communicate that to a unit like the 25th ID, the best light fighters in the army, but it's a completely different ballgame. How do you communicate the lessons that they're learning over there to this maritime battle space where we're going from island to island, and we have maybe a different mission set.
• 22:44
  Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, the fundamental mission set, you know, the mission, the bottom line, big AM mission, fight and win our nation's wars, is the same. If you are operating in Europe, you're operating here. You know, the. The terrain and the environment may be different, but even the character, you know, of. Of war, you know, as you guys talk a lot about here, there are so many similarities. So absolutely, we spent a ton of time thinking, talking. I mean, I've been over to Europe several times in my previous jobs, you know, since the Ukraine conflict. My brother was the 10 Special Forces Group commander. And that helped a lot, you know, to have insight. But, you know, back to what Mike is saying, if you don't think that you've got a ton to learn from people who are directly engaged with capable enemies, even if that learning, you know, first person, Brandon Tegmeyer and guys in the 82nd JTF82 right now, whether it's first person and second person, you know, through other allies, Ukraine's, from places like, whether it's, you know, a JIC or, you know, folks in 10th group or SAG U, you're doing a total disservice because that is part of our job in this tactical infantry division is to be looking target out, be looking a little bit, you know, get our eyes up on the horizon a little bit. Trust that brigade commanders, battalion commanders, company commanders, platoon leaders can train their elements and we're resourcing to do it and that we're infusing that training and holding it accountable to the real world. And that's the real world.
• 24:07
  Speaker C: Sergeant Major, are you getting any feedback from your junior enlisted or from your senior enlisted or your sergeants and your staff sergeants about difficulties they're having learning or maybe adapting to new command and control systems? And how are you guys overcoming that within the division?
• 24:21
  Speaker A: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean we're a next gen C2 enabled division, you know, and we are constantly receiving new soldiers. We had the same turnover as any other numbered infantry division. So how do we bridge that gap between a soldier coming from a numbered division, you know, as a team leader or a squad leader who's never seen this equipment, who very quickly has to apply some prudent learning so they can get down actually lead using the equipment that we want them to use. And the brigades have come up with really good kind of onboarding programs to get our new soldiers kind of up to, up to the task to use what we have. And I think, you know, a strength that we have at the 25th is our ability to learn from what's happening around the globe and then, you know, apply some critical thinking and put like the mission variables that we will be fighting in. It is a lot different west of the international date line than it is other places. So you know, what's happening here, what is going on in my current mission. Variables at all levels. Right. We should all be thinking about what variables matter to us in our small units and small teams and then rehearsing what that is going to look like, you know, on the future battlefield.
• 25:30
  Speaker C: Do you find that the tactical innovations that are happening on the battlefield either in Europe or in the Middle east, or that you're finding in the Pacific, should those replace any of the 10 level tasks, the basic training level tasks that we're teaching at our initial entry training institutions, or are they just simply something that you need to add on and that has to happen at brigade in processing or when they get to their first unit?
• 25:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean there's always going to be a lot of learning when you get to your first unit of assignment. I mean the army is designed that way. We can't teach you Everything and basic training, there's just so, so many hours, a lot in a day. But you know, making people aware, you know, I think right now talked about the tactical problem of being under constant surveillance and contact of some form. We just haven't had to deal with that, you know, during our kind of global war on terror. And now we are so, you know, leaders and soldiers are really understanding the like their job is survivability to survive until like their moment of relative advantage against the enemy so they can perform their, their tasks. And we are seeing, you know, leaders, but also soldiers think like that, which is quite, quite the benefit. Even the youngest soldier can understand, you know, what they're getting into. And we talk about transforming the army, which is always transforming. I haven't been in the army yet that wasn't doing something. And we have to build that transformation from the bottom up, right? That, that is information we're getting from the ground level, synthesizing it up at echelon and then pushing back down solutions because we know we're the only people who can do that.
• 26:56
  Speaker C: As we shift into multi domain operations and large scale combat operations, maybe from coin and CT over the past 20 years, do you find a specific or stubborn mindset or tactic or theme or axiom that's pertinent in the minds of soldiers from the lowest enlisted to the senior NCOs or senior officers that you've had a hard time changing? And how do you go about changing some of those?
• 27:19
  Speaker D: I really don't. I think part of it is in this part like somehow it happened where those people are us, we're you go around at your, your typical infantry division. There isn't a ton of people who are immersed in the heavy days of the G wat you know, that are hanging on to an old way of doing business. It's not like it's more us. You know, we're the people that have to change and incorporate new technologies. You know, it's a challenge because it's as Mike said, new ways of fighting, employment of new technologies. You don't get to necessarily just replace all the old things. That's the challenge is how do you, how do you take the best of what that can provide to enhance what is still the foundational capability which for us is the individual light fighter and the small units we build out of them. There was a great article probably two years ago. It was written by a bunch of UK guys who were just post command that and it was called, probably read it. It was called, you know, things I know now that I wish I'd known then. And they're, they're talking about the modern battlefield, robots in multiple domains, you know, ubiquitous technical surveillance, ubiquitous surveillance in like heavy EMI environment, you know, where start talking about the modern, you know, the modern battlefield, albeit a version of, you know, in this, this fight along the flot in Ukraine. And the things they're talking about is a, it's, it's what we talk about a lot, partly informed by that learning, which is in this order, you must survive, fight and win. Survival is lethality, protection is lethality, survivability. So I think for us, we don't have people hanging on to old ways. We have people struggling to, struggling to find the best way to integrate new ways and new technologies on top of the things that we still must do to be survivable and to get into position to fight and win.
• 29:08
  Speaker C: So for our last question, sir, Sergeant Major, if you could go back to Lieutenant Van Antwerp or Private Eilers, what would you tell them to best set them up for their career that they're going to have in the army that they didn't, that you didn't know at that time?
• 29:23
  Speaker D: First thing I said is marry Teresa Van Antwerp.
• 29:26
  Speaker C: Solid call.
• 29:27
  Speaker D: She eventually did.
• 29:28
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 29:29
  Speaker D: Solid call. Yes. The smartest decision I ever asked, Best decision I made there. And honestly, that's the best decision. Like to your very point of, like to, to, you know, enhance your life in your time in the military. The other thing that I told him, and it's something I didn't totally get then, but I get so much now, is do not be afraid to take risks. We self select out of more opportunity than we're told no one or we fail on. And I think I see that pretty often. I saw this in my years in special operations and then even now where trying to get guys to go to Ranger school and prepare is like, they think, wow, I'm not as good as that person who went or you know, that person didn't make it. And so maybe I can't or I'm just afraid of failure and what it might say about me or what people may think about me. Get over that, get over that. Don't spend a ton of time thinking about and trying to protect your reputation. I don't even like that word. We talk a lot about credibility and that's not something to be defended or to build a wall around. It's something to be expanded into, gained. You do that by proven performance and operating with high integrity and having strong relationships. So that'd be the bottom I tell myself is like, don't be afraid. Don't care as much about what other people think. Just go get after it. If you're doing it for the right reason, the result will be beneficial regardless.
• 30:44
  Speaker A: Sergeant Major, I would tell younger me to maybe focus a little bit more. And it's kind of weird to say that because feel like, you know, however you define success. I've been doing okay. I've been the world's most okay. It's everything but, you know, having focus early. I feel sometimes, you know, young Private Islers, you know, through maybe SAR Major as this has force gumped his way through a lot of this and that's okay, but it would have been nice when I could have handrailed a road or something, maybe so, you know, there's a lot of ways to get to where you're going. Focus will help you get there a lot easier.
• 31:21
  Speaker C: Absolutely, sir. Sergeant Major, thank you for your time. It's a great discussion about the leadership aspect of the army, the 25th ID and emerging warfare. On behalf of Colonel Past Sullivan, the director of the Modern war Institute, and Dr. Charlie Fate, the director of this podcast series, I'd like to present you all with this rare and coveted Modern War Institute challenge going on. Thank you for your time.
• 31:41
  Speaker D: There we go. All right, thank you very much.
• 31:47
  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 podcasts 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.