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General Paul LaCamera · Five Questions for a General

• 0:03
  Speaker A: You're listening to five Questions for a General, a production of the Modern War Institute at West point. I am Dr. Charles Fate, 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 west point class of 1974 recording studio and the five questions for a General podcast. I'm Cadet Zach Olsen, your host. It's my pleasure to be here today with retired General Paul La Camera. General La Camera graduated from West Point in 1985 and was commissioned into the infantry branch. He served in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 75th Ranger Regiment, eventually rising to command that organization. While in the 10th Mountain Division, he was deployed to Afghanistan and participated in Operation Anaconda, which he earned a Silver Star. As a general officer, he served in the Joint Special Operations Command and the 25th Infantry Division and was later the commander of the 18th Airborne Corps. His last assignment in the army was the commander of UN Command and Rock US Combined Forces Command in the Republic of Korea. General, welcome to the show.
• 1:12
  Speaker C: Thanks. Good to be here.
• 1:13
  Speaker B: General Lacamra, over the course of your decades long military career, you served in a wide range of assignments in places around the world, including Panama, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Republic of Korea. Can you share with our audience what drove you to join the army and why you chose to remain in uniform for so long?
• 1:29
  Speaker C: I joined the army because my father said they wouldn't take, I wanted to be a Marine, but they wouldn't take me with two broken legs. And I said, well, I'm not two broken legs. He said, join the Marine Corps? No. Being the grandson of an immigrant, my father was the first one to go to college. He said, college is important. This is the, you know, the school that I could afford at the time. I had every intention of getting out of the army, doing my five years, and then I got out to the regular army and fell in love with it and never looked back. And the good news is I've had my wife as my classmate, met at airborne school. She served. Our oldest daughter was born while we were in the military. You know, my family's been very, very supportive of me. Like I said, I just fell in love with soldiers and then eventually fell in love with sailors, airmen, marines, guardians, and the civilians in the mission. And then of course, you know, we went to war. We can't quit.
• 2:16
  Speaker B: General, you've said readiness is perishable. How do you lead to keep readiness relevant, fresh, and urgent in the minds of soldiers.
• 2:26
  Speaker C: Focusing on the basics. You know, history is instructive, but not a blueprint. And just because you were successful yesterday, doesn't mean you're going to be successful tomorrow. And Colonel Ralph Puckett, God rest his soul, who's got both the Medal of honor, the U.S. and the Republic of Korea President preached combat is simple blocking and tackling. And so focusing on the basics. And you can get to a certain level in your readiness this week. But next week, I'm going to give you new privates. You can write a very complicated plan, and then the enemy, they get this thing called a vote. And then your plan doesn't survive first contact. So simplicity is extremely important. Focusing on the basics, you can do multiple teams, multiple rooms, multiple buildings. This week, next week, I give you brand new privates. You're back to single. Single team, single room. And so throwing different scenarios, focusing on the basics. Really what we, you know, came up with was the big four. Physical fitness, you know, mental and physical toughness. You don't do PT to pass a PT test to look good in uniform. You do it to withstand the rigors of combat. You know, there should be one standard. It should be sex and age neutral. Because at my age, I should not put you at risk on a target because I can't meet a standard, a physical standard. This is the ultimate contact profession. Two types of people on the battlefield. Targets and marksman. You want to be a marksman, not the target. So marksmanship is extremely important. Whether it's an M4, a pistol or an M1 or an Apache helicopter, you better be able to hit what you're shooting at. Combat lifesaver. You know, it was never the golden hour that saved lives. It was always the Platinum 20. So you got to be able to treat yourself. So focusing on that and then battle drills, whether you're an infantryman doing battle drill one or pilot or a rigger, any, you know, military occupation especially, you better be able to do your basic proficient job backwards and forwards in all conditions. And if that's not enough to keep you busy, then I don't know what is. So I think focusing on the basics and realizing that even when you're going to take casualties, you're going to replace them. How do you on board, right form storm norm to perform, you got to be able to do that very, very quickly. And you might be able to come up with a brilliant plan there, Olson. But if people don't understand it, then you're. You're in trouble. And so again, it's really focusing on the basics. And when people are shooting at you, you go, you go to simplicity very, very quickly. So to me, it is perishable because of the turnover. Leadership isn't about creating more followers, it's about creating more leaders. Right? You grow more leaders. And so I'm going to give you a new private this week, and I'm going to tell you to make him a specialist or a corporal, and that corporal a sergeant, and that sergeant a staff sergeant and then that second lieutenant, first lieutenant, that first lieutenant, captain and on up. Yeah, I met a private, World War II survivor of the baton death march. Not only did he survive, he escaped. But one minute he was a private, the next minute he was a lieutenant when his PO lieutenant was killed. And going forward. And so, you know, again, focusing on the basics is more will keep you busy. And there's turnover. And sometimes people you rotate, they either get sick, they get hurt. You know, how do you. How do you get them to move up to the next level and do it seamlessly? Going, going forward?
• 5:50
  Speaker B: What's the greatest distraction as a leader to getting to focus on the basics?
• 5:56
  Speaker C: People think getting bored. I tell, yeah, I said, when you're tired of doing the basics, when you're tired of doing battle drill one, when you're tired of, you know, doing the basics, then it's time to move on. It's never going to end. We're always going to give you, just as I said, we're going to give you new privates and tell you to make them sergeants, those sergeants, make them staff sergeants and above and first sergeants and sergeant majors. It never ends, okay? And so if you get tired of focusing on that, then it's time to move on to something else. But it's being able to execute the basics absolutely ruthlessly, flawlessly, and with extreme prejudice, I guess, for lack of a better term, against the enemy. Because on the other side of the forward line of troops is the enemy that's waking up trying to figure out how to kill you. This is the ultimate contact profession. Sports athletes love them. They were my heroes when I was a kid. My new heroes were the cloth of our nation. And but them and actors and actresses and athletes, they are the court jesters of today. Entertain us. You all get paid to protect them in our way of life. That allows them to entertain us. And so I think that's the piece that people need to truly understand. But it's never going to end. It's just never going to end. They're going to give you, you're a squad leader now, right? They're going to give you more. And so make him, you know, better. He's got to replace you. Your job isn't to grow more followers. Your job is to grow more leaders. And some get it right, some can't progress, and that's okay, but that doesn't mean that they're not, you know, what we need to do to do our job going forward.
• 7:44
  Speaker B: Looking at case studies around the world, Ukraine, Israel, Africa, do you see any liabilities to those basics? There's all this talk of the changing nature of war. It's the changing character of war. Do you see a liability to any of these basics being replaced or outdated?
• 8:01
  Speaker C: No. You have to boil things down to the fundamentals and then apply them to the conditions. So again, history is instructive, but not a blueprint. So you can read about Ukraine, you can read about all these different things and what's going on and everything else, and that's great, and you can learn from it, but you still then have to apply it. But you got to understand the profession. I can remember going out and watching. We were training the Iraqis and I remember watching a couple junior off, you know, and NCOs. And they were training. They were, and they were criticizing how they were doing this battle drill. And I said, well, what do they do wrong? Well, sir, they, they fired and maneuvered. They didn't flank. You know, battle drill, one light, locate the enemy, gain fire superiority, maneuver, destroy the enemy, right, consolidate, reorganize. But the way they were doing it was they were bounding right online. So I said, so what did they do wrong? Well, sir, they didn't, they didn't flank. I said, what? It's not flank, it's maneuver. Did he lay down a base of fire and maneuver his forces right up? I'm seeing them down, right, or why did he have to flank? Well, first of all, you have the lieutenant who's the only one who's educated, who could actually read and write. He had one radio. His team leaders didn't have radios. He could have sent one to the flank and probably never seen him again, you know what I'm saying? And so it's understanding the principles and then applying those principles to the conditions, the fundamentals going forward. So again, we're going to pull off the battlefield and it's adapt or parish, right? I mean, if you go to Fort Leavenworth, you can read the after action reports from the German army from World War I. They figured out how to fight trench warfare. The problem was they couldn't get it at the operational level because they didn't have the resources to do it right. But they, that's where blitzkrieg came from. Oversimplification for all the history folks out there who are going to call me on this. But when you look at our infantry squads right now of two maneuver elements, right, the weapons that we use, you know, even our helmet design, but light machine guns, light mortars and things like that, but they just, at the operational strategic level, they couldn't produce that, you know, to adapt to it. And so do you consider when we, you know, we started having predators at the beginning of, you know, after 9, 11, that was that an evolution in warfare or a rev. A revolution or an evolution? You know, some people out there, it's a revolution. I go, no, it's not. It's an evolution. We had spotter balloons in the Civil War, right? To me, ISR is not, we got it wrong. So to me it's irs, isr and that is intelligence, drives your reconnaissance plan, drives your surveillance. And then it's isolate, suppress and reduce. And why is it isr? And I'm not trying to change doctrine, but the reason why it's ISR is the Air Force named it because surveillance, right, for the Air Force is what we call reconnaissance. And reconnaissance for the Air Force is what we call surveillance. How do you fail your Ranger school patrol, Forget to leave surveillance on the target? So I'm not trying to change doctrine, but it's understanding the fundamentals of locate the enemy, game, fire superiority, maneuver, or decide, detect, deliver, assess. So you're deciding that your old plan or your operation order, which then drives your reconnaissance and surveillance, so then detect, so go out and find the enemy and then finish, right? And that's isolate, suppress and reduce. So we have to look at it through those lens. And that's why doctrine is important, right? Because it gives us this common language so that we can't, we're not talking past each other. And that's something you just have to, you got to know it, you got to understand it. But the basics are there for us. The five paragraph field order, it works. The mission, you know, MDMP works. You know, different things going to be, you know, is machine learning and artificial intelligence that going to help us? Yes, but you still have to understand that growing up because you're going to have to be able to ask the right questions because the information is there. We're collecting so much data and what we can't afford to do in the next war is we can't stack a tactical, operational and strategic asset on top. We've got to take the reconnaissance and surveillance capability, the intelligence apparatus, and just go out there and do the Hoover, right, Suck it all up and then can use machine learning and artificial intelligence to help sift through it. And then you all have to learn to ask the right questions because the data is out there, the information, but it's information and it doesn't become intelligence until it's synthesized. And that's synthesized at each level. But everybody should have access to it going forward there we're learning a lot. And the good news for us is we can adapt and we're helping others adapt and things like that. But also don't, don't make a mistake that the, our enemies are also adapting. Right. We have thermal devices. You know in Afghanistan they just pulled the blanket over the top. AC130 couldn't see them. So we waited until they got outside of auditory range. They came out, they put the blankets off our 130 AC130 sensors could pick them up and we'd roll in on top or use another sensor. So it's this, the ability to synchronize, synchronize all the war fighting functions, if that's what we're still calling them today for a commander or a leader to impose his or her will on the enemy. So the good news is we can learn and it's not Americans that are, that are being killed on the battlefield and we have to continue to learn, but we got to look at it through our lens. We got to be careful about criticizing how they do it because they don't have the same education, they don't have the same resources that we have. And I sat down there with these officers and I said what did that Iraqi lieutenant do wrong? And then in the end he did nothing wrong. He still took the target. We have to be careful about looking at it through only our eyes to be able. We gotta be open minded to the way we do it.
• 14:28
  Speaker B: It's a fascinating game of details. We go through air assault and it's all about attention to detail, but it's masked in this technical ability to do sling loads and to rappel. I think Tom Brady the other day, I saw him say that all of the details matter, but you don't get to choose which one matters the most. And talking about his rise to aim, you know, and he tried to do everything right, tried to get all the details right, but he couldn't tell You. He can't predict which detail is going to matter most in a game or in a practice, so he just had to try and do all of them.
• 15:00
  Speaker C: Right.
• 15:00
  Speaker B: I'm interested in an organizational perspective. How can you even figure out which detail matters in such a complex organization? Or we just have to care about them all?
• 15:13
  Speaker C: That's a good question. Well, as a commander or as a leader, platoon leader, you're the only one who cares about everything in that organization. I mean, others care, but you're the only one responsible. And that's why it's also important, like to understand the oath of office for an officer and the oath of office for enlisted sergeant is different. We swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States. They swear an oath to the Constitution, but also to the president and to the officers appointed over them. That's different. Ours is, ours is to the Constitution and. But you're the only one. So you can delegate your authority all day long, but not your responsibility. So everything that your organization, Organization does, right. Hate to break the news to you too. Not your fault. Everything they did wrong, that's your, it's on you. And you have to own that. Right? So you, you can delegate authority, but not your responsibility. Meritocracy does not mean that we're all given the same amount of authority. Because sometimes, like for me, most guys start off with 180 degree range fan. Some will go to 359 because I trust them. Some will go to 1 degree, right. Because I can't, I can't give them 360 because that would be giving away my responsibility. And so you have to know your people, right? That's, that's the other thing that people don't understand. And you know, remember talking to an NFL coach came over to visit and we're just sitting around, you know, drinking water and watching Ranger tv, which is a fire, by the way, if you haven't figured that out. And I just asked him, he said, yeah, there's some, you know, athletes that you get, they'll only respond if you get in their face. Others that if you, you know, because they're, you know, high stress or whatnot, skittish you, you get in their face and they just crumble. So you have to know your people. And so when I was at 4id, we published in our paper, you know, do you know your, your soldiers? Because it's not one size fits all. It's not cookie cutter. You, you have to know your people. And so we have to be careful about, again, the one size fits all and you got to understand the challenges and that, that go along with all of them. But yeah, Brady's, you know, exactly right on that. You sometimes you don't know, but that's risk, right. And uncertainty. And you can buy some of that back. But then some of it is are you in a position to react fast enough? You know, when do you commit your reserve?
• 17:34
  Speaker B: Right?
• 17:34
  Speaker C: So the more information, you know, the smaller the reserve, the less information, you know, the bigger the reserve because you have to be able to react to what's, what's going on to the things that are, that are coming at your way. But you know, General Schumacher, you know, when he was the chief of staff of the army, he used to say, you know, you train for certainty, you educate for uncertainty. And there's, there's three. It's a, you know, education, military education or professional development is a three legged stool. One is the institution, right? You're in an institution now. You know, you're going to go to your basic course and you're going to go to other professional schools and things like that. Then there's the experience, right? So we're going to buy back that risk of you as a lieutenant by giving you a good platoon sergeant and good squad leaders. In the end though, they make recommendations, you make decisions and then they got to execute and then the third leg of which I commend, what you're doing here with this podcast is self development of people going out there and reading. And so we do a really good job of measuring iq, but we don't measure EQ which is getting on the side of the table and seeing it from somebody else's position or CQ Curiosity quotient of the curiosity to go, huh? What's around that corner? Because the sensor might not pick up on it. So you have man and unmanned teaming. But one of the questions on the, on the unmanned stuff is has the enemy figured out how to defeat that? Or you know, if, you know, as a helicopter pilot or the pilot turns away and all of a sudden he sees a flash and he's like, oh, curiosity gets his. And he goes and looks. But that sensor didn't pick up on us. We got to be really careful about thinking that we can outsource all of everything to technology to be able to get that done. So you have to think we got to teach our leaders how to, it's how to think, not what to think. And you know, there is a little bit of luck in this. There's fate. If you haven't read the book Platoon Leader by McDonnell. He talks about, you know, in Vietnam one guy gets shot in the leg and you know, or shot in the foot, bullet travels up, it kills another guy, gets shot in the chest and lives. Or a bullet is deflected by a tree or something. I mean it's, there is a little bit, I'm not, you know, fatalist or you know, but there sometimes, you know, it's, there is a little bit of luck in the, in the things we do and can we take a step back and understand what right what's not throw our shoulder out, patting ourselves on the back. So be proud but not satisfied. You might have gotten lucky. And sometimes the enemy can make us sloppy on the battlefield because they, they're not testing us. So having good hard standards and rotating people off the line I think is important to make sure that they stay switched on so that they can pick up on those little, on those little nuances. But I think Brady and others will tell you, you know, sometimes the ball bounces the right way. Somet they pin a football against the helmet or they get both feet down. That might, don't get me wrong, there's some skill there, but we gotta make sure we put things in perspective going for it and be ruthless. I mean some of the non commissioned officers that I serve with were just absolutely ruthless in the after action and not just in holding themselves and the leaders accountable. And I think that's what they bring to the table is just being ruthless. Not to the point of being derogatory or demeaning or anything else, but just very objective of what we did right, what we did wrong and how do we, how do we get better?
• 21:21
  Speaker B: Does that little piece of uncertainty or ambiguity, does that just scare you or does it free you?
• 21:28
  Speaker C: No, it's not, it's not an excuse to be a blind dog in a meat house. Risk never goes to zero. You can't afford risk at zero. American people can't miss the ultimate contact profession. You want an omelet? We're going to crack some eggs. So bad things are going to happen? No, I just think it's the nature of, of the business. You want to buy that risk back as much as you can, but it never goes to zero. And then it's, it's based on leaders. You have some readers that know are more risk averse. So the real question is the further we get away from combat operations and putting leaders in those positions, how are we going to replicate that? So as you come up, you're going to look at people who have Combat experience. Well, you got to be careful. My first platoon sergeant as a second lieutenant was a, was in the 173rd in, in Vietnam. And I remember him pulling me aside one day and he goes, sir, I was a private. I was trying not to get myself or anybody else killed or step on a landmine. I wasn't the platoon sergeant in Vietnam. I was a private. So I can talk about certain things. I can tell you about that experience. But we got to be careful about taking what we did in combat or the experience that we had and, and over interpolating it or giving ourselves credit for something, you know, going forward. And so I think holding ourselves accountable, not to the point of it being dysfunctional, but really questioning and learning and, and again being objective about that. It's going to be on uncertain, right? Go to Airmore school, you know, 1,000, you know, you count the six. I still could hear myself count, you know, when they went from four seconds to six seconds, it was like, oh, you know, I mean, wanted to pull that. But then the new parachute, it opens at 6, right? But then when you jump, you know, in helicopter, out of a helicopter, it goes. And so it's like, oh, it's a little bit unnerving sometimes, right? But you're putting your trust, you know, in someone that the packed that same thing, you know, with fast roping or rappelling out of a helicopter or whatnot. You know, they pay the guys more money to stay in the perfectly good airplane than they pay the people to jump out of the perfectly good airplane. So there's a little bit of that trust factor and building that trust. But again, there's a difference between managing risk and gambling. And we're not here to gamble. Some guys kind of get lucky at that, but it's got to be calculated. But this is. The enemy gets a vote and being switched on. But not giving him time to adapt also can, can cause some problems because then he can react to it. So freeing isn't. It's just understanding. And then when you're fighting an enemy, as I, you know, I look at the flag behind you there, you're fighting it, you know, that they're willing to give their lives, you know, different, you know, from a cultural perspective and what they believe is something, you know, we, our culture is different when it comes to that. You know, we're not here to, you know, to dust, send people to their, to their death. You know, I'm fairly certain the guys who came across the beach at Normandy or the Marines who did landings in The Pacific and jumped out of airplanes or climbed point D Hawk. I mean there's uncertainty there but you gotta again the training and your leaders and you know, your equipment and things like that are extremely important.
• 24:44
  Speaker B: Famous Thomas Edison quote about light bulbs where he says I didn't fail to create the light bulb. I learn 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb. I don't think, at least I don't think sometimes that maybe I will have the freedom or the ability to fail 10,000 times in my job. Are there separate approaches that a leader has to have to learn from both failures and successes in war?
• 25:09
  Speaker C: Yeah, this whole zero defects thing, I think that's the question you're asking me. There are certain things that are non negotiable. But if you don't think you're going to make mistakes, the real question is what's the tolerance of that mistake that some leaders, seniors have. And that's why I go back to we're going to have to put people in, in those things and so they can get the reps and the sets. But again it's not, you know, for you to be wasteful. I mean you're going to make mistakes. But there are certain things, mostly legal, that get people in trouble that you know, you're not be given a second chance. You know, in World War II though, since we like to quote that, I mean we fired, don't quote me on the exact number but I mean tens or hundreds of generals, some of them got a second chance. So I think you know, being fired, you know, I asked a general one time, you know, when, you know, when do you throw your stars on the table? And he's like, you don't, you know, Lance Corporal Smith couldn't, can't quit. So General Smith can't quit, get fired. And so I think that's part of it that we have to, we should be thinking about. Yeah, it's again, some of it comes down to risk tolerance and that your training plan live virtual and constructive. You've got to put leaders in those positions. So the first time you're being asked to make these decisions it's not, you know, under, under fire and then you go after and you, and you make the corrections and go back and fix them. But even sometimes you don't have enough time and we talk about after actions and you got to prioritize what can I get after? You know, a lot of times, you know, like Eisenhower, if you can't define the problem, expand it. Right. But sometimes you don't have time to to fix everything. And you got to prioritize that. So you got to think, you got to kind of think it through. But to say that zero defects, I mean, there are things that we're just not going to tolerate. Sexual assault, sexual harassment, fratricide, plain and simple, you know, we can't tolerate that. But I do believe in redemption. So if a soldier makes a mistake and they're willing to pay the price, you know, when you think about back in the day, like I said, a lot of times we like to quote what happened in World War II and Korea and Vietnam. I mean, some guys got busted and what's wrong with the 16 year corporal? You know, it can't be the upper out. You know, we have to really think through, you know, that person wants to give, they're willing to serve you, give them pay raises, but not for, you know, pay, you know, a rank increase. But if they're willing to do it, why wouldn't we allow that? I think those are the things that you all are going to have to face. And when you start thinking about the blended retirement, for me, they had me once I got to the 10 year mark, it's like, oh, we gotcha. Right? Because you're now invested, but now you all can walk away. Right. It's a 401k. Can you come back? I mean, we've got to start thinking about what new things do we let folks go away. I mean, some countries, they let them do sabbaticals, go out and then come back. I mean, now you don't get to come back at the same, you know, with your peers and then what's the standard? Can you meet it? We got to think differently about how we, how we get forward. I had a sergeant major who had this shtick that he would do that, you know, you shouldn't be allowed to join the army until you're like 37 years old. Right. Because by then, you know, your kids are out of school, you're, you know, you've had, you know, had all your fast, live in, fast drive in and everything out of your system. And you know, now you should be a private. Right.
• 28:31
  Speaker B: Some way to do it.
• 28:32
  Speaker C: Yeah. Although at some point you're like, well, I'm not buffing the floor tonight. So your manor. So there's, there's got to be that, you know, balance. But you know, some guys, they just, you know, special operations. We had, in my, this is just the camera's opinion. We had the best people who raised their hand. I believe in the, the training and the Selection process and whatnot to keep them there. We didn't have the best people. There are some soldiers out there turning wrenches or driving tanks or whatnot. That that's what they want to do, and they love it. But they might be the best special operator in the world. Either we didn't convince them, or that's just not what they want to do. And that. That's okay. So we got to be really careful, you know, in some organizations, throwing our shoulders out, patting ourselves on the back, that we have the best. No, we have the best that raise their hand. I do believe in the training and selection and education and then. And, you know, the ongoing. Every day is a selection piece of that. But make no mistake, there's some great troops out there that just want to turn wrenches, and they're going to do really, really Good work.
• 29:36
  Speaker B: Last 100 meters is still the most dangerous piece of ground on the face of the earth in conflict. It's a quote from you, sir. What preparation is necessary for a soldier to bear that trinitary pressure on the body, mind and soul during those last hundred meters?
• 29:54
  Speaker C: So I don't believe in the term resilience. I mean, I know it exists, but that means bounce back to your original shape, right? So the way I talk about resilience is in strength. And so you said it. Mind, body, spirit. Right? And I put spirit in quotes because I'm not proselytizing. But you got to be able to, you know, you got to be able to get that stronger every. Every single day. But it's a simple formula. It's mental strength plus physical strength plus spiritual strength and spirituals and quotes, times leadership. And what makes that work is the leader. And in some cases, when the leader gets shot, that, you know, that private who stands up and says, follow me is what matters. But it goes back to do you know your. Do you know your troops? But it becomes exponential by the leader. And the leader decides, you know, to me, I think the mistake that we're making is we keep telling you that we're going to lighten your load. Hey, I hate to break the news to you, The Ranger, it's 65 pounds. The question is, is it the right 65 pounds? And the rocks in your rucksack are placed there by leaders. Do you have the right packing list? But the load is 65 pounds. And so your training and everything else, I can't carry. I can carry your ruck for a little while. When you have children, you can carry it for a little while, but you're not doing them any favors. The good news is you get to drink water. You're on a foot march to life. The chaplains will tell you into the afterlife. The good news, you get to take a knee, drink water, change your socks, right? Sleep. But the leader sets that and asks those hard questions. You as the subordinate have to ask the harder question of hey, what do you want me to do right today? Sir, you've given me 10 things to do. You only resource me to do five. What five. Now, at the junior level, you guys won't have that conversation. You'll just try and do them all and you will fail. You'll pick the wrong five. My experience, as you get in higher ranks, they'll start having that conversation. Battalion, brigade, brigade, division, you know, etc, like, hey, sir, what do you want me to do right? Ma', am, what do you want me to do right today? And those that say all of it, you're like, okay. I mean, you got a defined end state, you gotta, you gotta make priorities. But the last hundred meters, whether it's in the air, sea, land, whatever, I mean, I'm maybe a little bit of an infantry snob here, but it's the only one designed to take and hold terrain. Now, anybody holding terrain has become by default an infantryman. But you got to hold that ground. And it's dangerous. And others want that ground back. And where we send the United States army, all right, so the Air Force, and this is not meant as an indictment because I actually do believe when they told me I was a joint general officer, I'd make the argument I'm a combined joint interagency general officer, flag officer because of the forces but that I've led or been part of. But we put the army on the ground, right? The Air Force flies over, all over the place, right? In the air Navy sails all over the place. The army and the Marine Corps, right? The naval infantry guys out there, they, we. When you put a soldier on a piece of ground, our country has said that piece of ground is important to us. Not that we want to own it in the sense of, you know, make it, you know, part of America. But, but that's a piece of ground that's important to the United States. And so you got to hold it, you got to defend it, right? Consolidate, reorganize your gains going forward. And so. And then they. Somebody else wants it back. And I think we, you know, when we say force protection, you can't meet the standards of the force protection checklists, but you can defend the ground and so you have to look at it from a very basic, I'm going to hold this piece of ground until, until relieved and I have to protect it. And going forward, as you all graduate and go out into the force, protection is going to play a much bigger role. Right. So you know, upon consolidating, reorganize your priorities of work. Right. Security, which is what protection and it's multi domain and you have to be able to protect, you know, from where you're at to underground to undersea, all the way up to now in space. When you start talking about the domain that's there and then of course the information space, that that's potentially, you know, out there. So it's complicated. It's getting more and more complicated. So that's why I would challenge you all to, to try and, you know, boil it down. But yeah, that last piece is, you know, they're fighting to hold, to hold on to it and you're fighting to take it to in to impose your will on the enemy, the friendly, the terrain and the civilian. Since I retired, we've changed end state and commander's intent. And so for a commander taking the time to write his or her commander's intent is extremely important. What's the purpose? Don't get bogged down by tasks. Focus on the purpose of what you're trying to do. Key tasks or methods, you know, whatever doctrine you're espousing, but that's important. But again tasks not about the task because we can debate that task, but purpose is the real, the reason why. And then end state defining that end state and friendly enemy terrain and the civilians that are around that. And that's where a commander, where they have to take that time to write it, to write it down. You know that like I said, the LS100, whether it's in the air or on the ground or whatnot, is they, you want it, they want it. Who, who wants it more? And then once you have it, holding onto it becomes a challenge going forward.
• 35:31
  Speaker B: General, is there a truth about life or leadership or combat that you failed to understand in peacetime in the States that when you went into the realities of war made sense, it clicked, you understood it.
• 35:50
  Speaker C: The medical, I guess if there's one. Right. So we take a step back here. The combat lifesaver, it reinforced it to me. You'll never get me to not push medical training. Not everybody's gonna pull the trigger. I mean that's the other piece is if you read On Killing, you read some of these other books, you Read, you know, about the Revolutionary War or even the Civil War, where they found muskets, you know, with five or six bullets in it. You know, some of them, I mean, not all your troops are going to pull the trigger or they're going to fight or they're going to. I mean, we're asking a lot of that, you know, the other piece is they need to truly understand the nature. We can't make what we do impersonal.
• 36:36
  Speaker B: General, knowing what you know now, what would you tell yourself as a second lieutenant?
• 36:42
  Speaker C: Yeah, well, I guess I was lucky because I didn't have to tell my lieutenant self this because my first sergeant told me, hey, sir, just remember the boys are here before you and they'll be here after you, and you're not going to cure cancer while you're here and don't try and change the world. And I think that helped ground me. And I just. We got a great army. I think some units do better at promoting it or promoting their little piece and selling their merch, for lack of a better term, their brand. But I've been fortunate. I've served with or been around almost every division and corps and service. They love our country and they love what they do just as much as the people at the tip of the spear. And you can't do it without them. You know, Garrison said it, your proximity to the objective is not in direct proportion to your importance. But I do believe this. I believe this as an infant, as a young lieutenant, and I believe that as a subunified commander, from the company commander to the President of the United States, everybody from that, you know, from that platoon that's holding that piece of ground all the way up to the top works for him. That works for that lieutenant. Because without him holding that ground, policy drives strategy, not the other way around. And so you want that piece of ground held, you better be prepared to provide that support. You know, back to your Brady comment. He doesn't throw the ball to himself. He didn't tape his own ankles, may not have even called his play, his own plays that he didn't block for himself. Everybody's important. We have to make sure that that's stressed to our troops, regardless of rank or position, that if they were not needed, they wouldn't exist. And so making sure that they know how important they are is, I think, extremely, extremely important. Yeah. Worrying about things that just don't matter. I think there are probably rocks in my rucksack that I worried about that just didn't matter. And I carried them for no reason.
• 39:02
  Speaker B: General, thank you for your time. On behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan, the director of the Modern war Institute, and Dr. Charlie Feint, the director of this podcast series, it's my pleasure to present you with this rare and coveted MWI coin. Thanks, sir.
• 39:20
  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.