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Lieutenant General Leslie Smith · Five Questions for a General

• 0:03
  Speaker A: 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 General podcast. I'm Cadet Orion Van Buskirk, your host, and it is my pleasure to be here today with retired Lieutenant General Leslie Smith. Lieutenant General, retired. Leslie C. Smith received his commission through Georgia Southern University, serving more than 35 years in the army, commanding at every level and becoming the first chemical Corps officer to serve as the Army's Inspector General. His career focused on leadership readiness and institutional integrity across the force. General, welcome to the show.
• 0:57
  Speaker C: Hey, good to be here. Orion.
• 0:58
  Speaker B: Yes, sir.
• 0:59
  Speaker C: That's a different name. Sure is.
• 1:01
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:01
  Speaker C: Constellation.
• 1:02
  Speaker B: Not many people know this.
• 1:03
  Speaker C: Yeah. Appreciate that. Okay. I'm a general. We know a lot of things.
• 1:05
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, sir. All right, I'll just get into it here. What was your path in the uniform service and what prompted you to make the Army a career?
• 1:13
  Speaker C: Yeah, so my folks are from Mississippi. I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. But back then, my uncles who I saw all served in the military because they were drafted. Most of them were in the army, some were in the Navy. So as a kid growing up, I saw that my dad died when I was. I was five, but we knew he was a Korean War veteran, and so we always wanted to figure out. We wanted to figure out what his career was, what his background was, and so we chose this option to do that. It was something I've always wanted to do. I've been wearing a uniform almost as much as you. Yeah. Like, from kindergarten through.
• 1:48
  Speaker B: Almost as much as me, yeah.
• 1:50
  Speaker C: Kindergarten through ninth grade, I did. And then we did an rotc, too. We had ROTC in high school, and it was mand. It was mandatory for one year, but I chose to stay there all four years. Well, yeah, that's why.
• 2:03
  Speaker B: Yeah. So it's kind of military family, and it's always military family. Always the path that you were kind of looking at.
• 2:07
  Speaker C: And my brother served in the army for four years, and my sister was in Marine Corps. Well, my youngest. Youngest daughter is an army doctor now.
• 2:16
  Speaker B: Nice. It's good to hear. She liking that?
• 2:18
  Speaker C: Yeah, she's figuring it out.
• 2:19
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 2:19
  Speaker C: It's all good stuff, right?
• 2:20
  Speaker B: Absolutely. All right, well, so you started your army career as a field artillery officer.
• 2:26
  Speaker C: That's a great. That's a great, great background. I'll tell you in a second.
• 2:28
  Speaker B: All right, sounds good. And obviously, eventually you rose to become the 66 inspector general. Can you please explain the role of Inspector General in our army for people that are as familiar like Musk.
• 2:38
  Speaker C: When I was in Georgia, it's all about the relationships. Right. And so the engagements that you have, you never know where it's going to become. So my high school ROTC instructor said, hey, have you ever thought about joining the Georgia National Guard? Like, I don't know what that is. So I joined the Georgia National Guard and my unit was a field artillery unit. So I'm a cadet and a student and in the Georgia National Guard.
• 3:03
  Speaker B: Interesting.
• 3:04
  Speaker C: So I got commissioned as a second lieutenant and Phil. Artillery my sophomore year. Sophomore year of your sophomore year. Sophomore year, that's right.
• 3:12
  Speaker B: That's an interesting path.
• 3:13
  Speaker C: Yeah, that's. And it was hard too, because they call it simultaneous membership program. Yeah. What that meant was you went in the Guard because you were learning a lot of different things. So you got commissioned as a sophomore. So you did everything with the juniors and senior. Okay, so imagine a pleave having to do everything that a third and fourth year.
• 3:30
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, so is that kind of like you're doing Bullock your junior year a little bit or.
• 3:34
  Speaker C: No, not really. Bowling. Because I didn't go to. I didn't go to the course because I stayed in school. Okay. In rotc, I was in the third and fourth year classes with third and fourth year students as a freshman. So I had to mature pretty quick.
• 3:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, no doubt.
• 3:47
  Speaker C: Yeah. So it was good. So I. I got promoted early to lieutenant captain.
• 3:53
  Speaker B: Good deal.
• 3:53
  Speaker C: And the rest of them. We could talk about that. So, you know, fast forward to being the Inspector General. The inspector General responsible for inspections, assistance and investigations for 1.2 million soldiers and civilians. Most people think it's a bad few, but going after get people. No, it's about efficiency, effectiveness, and it's everything to the left of what the TJAG or the CID is. So there's really a lot of administrative things.
• 4:16
  Speaker B: Is it. So dealing with EO Sharp, et cetera, or. No, no, no.
• 4:20
  Speaker C: It's about his good order and discipline when it comes to. But it's really about how you look at the efficiency, effectiveness of it. They work for commanders. Okay. So the commander decides on what he wants his inspector general to focus on. There's a school that's there, so this could be something that they need to target that's again, less than what a CID criminal or the TJ from the UCMJ perspective, but it's really for the good order and discipline of the organization.
• 4:45
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 4:45
  Speaker C: Your best IG is know what the commander's thinking about. They can help them see that across the board and help the organization build it. I got a great IG story if you want to know it. Want to know about it?
• 4:56
  Speaker B: Go ahead.
• 4:56
  Speaker C: Okay, so as a young Captain in the 82nd was we're responsible for having a unit ready to execute in 18 hours.
• 5:04
  Speaker B: Yes, sir.
• 5:04
  Speaker C: But before that time frame, what happens is they have the brigade ready for us. So when I was combat commander, chemical guy had a platoon that supported a brigade, right? So. But these young. These NCOs squared away. NCOs will come around and say, hey, this thing needs to be like this. This thing needs to be like that. We're like, who are these guys? Those were the inspector generals. Right? NCOs. And that's really the power. Just like everything else we do. And they check to make sure they were doing an inspection to make sure the unit was ready to go do its mission. So they checked it. They did efficiency, effectiveness, across the board. From that. So fast forward, when I became the ig, that's the story I always tell. Because if they're helping you as a lieutenant, make sure your stuff is right so you can be ready to execute the task.
• 5:48
  Speaker B: That's why that's an important job. When you put it like that.
• 5:50
  Speaker C: Exactly. Absolutely.
• 5:52
  Speaker B: Okay. Good to know that. All right, sir. So obviously, you led troops at every echelon from the platoon level to the Maneuver Support center of Excellence to the Army Inspector General. What lessons about leadership under stress do you see as universal across such diverse asylums?
• 6:07
  Speaker C: There's several. But a leader's presence only matters when you're present. Do you remember the first time you met me yesterday?
• 6:13
  Speaker B: Yes, sir.
• 6:13
  Speaker C: What was the interaction? What did you think?
• 6:15
  Speaker B: Thought you were a real nice guy.
• 6:16
  Speaker C: Yeah, but was I focused on you?
• 6:18
  Speaker B: Yes, sir.
• 6:18
  Speaker C: Yeah, you were right. So right. We got a lot of things going on, just like we demonstrated today. But the. The point is, your presence only matters when you're present. So when you're interacting with a soldier, whether or not something good, bad, or anything else, they're going to be like, yeah, you got to be present at that time, even though you got 15 other things that's back here, you got to be present. And especially in combat, especially in tough times, people want to see how the leaders deal with a tough situation. So, for example, we had a soldier when I was a brigade Commander committed suicide at basic training. So I knew that's where I needed to be as a colonel. The battalion commander got it, but the young company commander could not overcome it. He got it in the army, but the army was the best place for him to be in. So I have not had a chance to engage them after the fact. But you have to be in the toughest places where those things are happening across the board.
• 7:08
  Speaker B: As a leader, be where your feet are.
• 7:09
  Speaker C: Be where your feet are, but be where the toughest place is.
• 7:12
  Speaker B: Yes, sir.
• 7:12
  Speaker C: You know whether that's a late night
• 7:13
  Speaker B: point of friction, right?
• 7:14
  Speaker C: Yeah, point of friction. You know, the decisive point.
• 7:16
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 7:17
  Speaker C: Late night, when you know it's raining, you gotta be out on the line with the troopers, even though you don't have to necessarily do it, you know, and that it applies even as a staff guy. That's how you learn, that's how you understand. And we learn that from our non commissioned officers because they show us what right looks like.
• 7:31
  Speaker B: Yes, sir.
• 7:32
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 7:32
  Speaker B: Thank you for that perspective. Yeah. Reflecting on the evolution of CBRN threats over your career from post Cold War concerns to obviously global terrorism and WMD proliferation, what are some of the emerging unconventional threats that we might expect to see in the future?
• 7:47
  Speaker C: Yeah, it's a very interesting time right now. When I commanded the battalion, my battalion was responsible for biological defense around the Pentagon. Do you know the background behind that?
• 7:59
  Speaker B: Not really.
• 8:00
  Speaker C: So there was a concern of anthrax attacks. Interesting because there were anthrax letters that were mailed to Congress and other places. So they were concerned about the same thing around the Pentagon. So we brought our unit out of Fort Polk, Louisiana. That's another story. It was at Fort Bragg, but it moved to Polk. If we have time, we can come back and talk about it. We were there to do a mission, but that was a threat that we didn't know that was going to happen. That's how I see large scale combat operations now. So we went through 20 years of counterinsurge, so now we're revamping it. Large scale combat operations, that means big formations doing big things with the obvious threats, Russia and China. Right. So what threats do they have? They have cbrn. Right. So we gotta be ready to not only mitigate that piece, but how do we help exploit it if there's something that ever happens? And North Korea, I mean, I don't wanna forget about those guys.
• 8:50
  Speaker B: Right.
• 8:51
  Speaker C: And valid extremist organizations. That's a cheap way to get after those things.
• 8:54
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 8:55
  Speaker C: So what our army cannot forget is the Basics that soldiers have to be able to do, but also how they employ the units in order to mitigate and protect against what those things are. Sure.
• 9:05
  Speaker B: Maybe, maybe almost largely going back to, like the Cold War doctrine. That has kind of.
• 9:09
  Speaker C: Yeah, it's back to the future.
• 9:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, Right.
• 9:11
  Speaker C: That's what large scale combat operations were right now. I was a young lieutenant in Germany before the Wall came down. So whoever thought that we'd be back where we are, but whoever thought that Russia would have invaded Ukraine.
• 9:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, right.
• 9:23
  Speaker C: Oh, you know, and China's thinking about all these different things, about how they're going to stop us from getting to Taiwan, how do we do operations there. But if you study history, as we were talking about upstairs, what's happening in the past is coming back again. So we got to be ready across the plethora of things. And as a leader, we owe it to our soldiers and their families to make sure we do everything that keeps them ready to accomplish the mission. Firing a weapon, doing physical training, dealing against a CBRN threat, whatever it is. We got to know that they have the ability to execute the tasks that they've been called to do. Absolutely.
• 9:58
  Speaker B: Kind of shifting gears.
• 9:59
  Speaker C: Sure.
• 9:59
  Speaker B: Looking back on your career now, advising organizations outside the. Outside of the military, what is the single hardest decision you've had to make
• 10:06
  Speaker C: in your career and in the military or outside?
• 10:09
  Speaker B: I would say, in your whole career. What lessons did you learn from that?
• 10:12
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think two. One was, as a 20th Subornian commander, we had units, you know, 16 states, 19 installations, three to five countries comprised of explosive ordinance disposal, Sebring soldiers, nuclear disablement teams, guys that supported them. But to send those soldiers into places where they knew, especially during the surge time frame, we lost 13 soldiers in that timeframe, you know, small units. So every loss was a big deal.
• 10:38
  Speaker B: Everybody knows each other.
• 10:39
  Speaker C: Yeah. And everybody knows, even though they're in different states, you know, small unit pieces. But I think I was able to make nine of those funerals because I was in town. So, you know, to give the flag to the family of a fallen soldier was an important thing to do. And then the second hardest thing was probably to relieve a command sergeant major who was doing something incorrect. Right. But as leader, I was responsible for doing that because it was for the good order, discipline, and not only the unit, but the entire organization. We started peeling back the onion. We said, oh, my. All these things were going on. And then now you started to see if I didn't do it, then I just accepted a lower standard.
• 11:17
  Speaker B: Sure.
• 11:17
  Speaker C: And that's what leaders have to do. And even today, I was concerned is not the right word. But I was not as sure when I left the military what I did, would it be applicable to corporate America? But it is. It's about how you build trust. How do you help people with vision? How do you help people understand what purpose is? How do you give them a strategic plan? It's all things that we learn. We just have to translate that into commercial speak. Like, what's your profit and loss? What does your income statement look like? But it's like, hey, you got revenues, you got expenses, and you've got a bottom line. Our bottom line is to be able to support and defend the Constitution.
• 11:56
  Speaker B: Obviously, AU says, you know, doesn't get much better as far as outside the army for, you know, applying those lessons, telling the story.
• 12:03
  Speaker C: It was. It was a great transition. But I will tell you, every job that I have from leaving the army all came from relationships. So when I left the Army, I already had a plan for what I was going to do. You want to know why?
• 12:18
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 12:18
  Speaker C: Because I plan to leave the army just like I planned to come in. So for your listeners, be all in, but when it's time to leave, plan to leave just like it came in. Like right now. You're a student, right? You're a student at West Point. You've gone through a certain period of time in order to get ready to come in. When you get ready to leave, do the same thing, right? Your family deserves that, the army deserves that, and the people who know you deserve that.
• 12:43
  Speaker B: Yes, sir.
• 12:43
  Speaker C: So when you transition, well, people like, oh, well, I can do something, right? But you got to plan to leave just like you plan to come out, right?
• 12:50
  Speaker B: That's good advice. Thank you, sir.
• 12:51
  Speaker C: It's free.
• 12:53
  Speaker B: We had some time. So you had the story from your time in 82nd. I think I said you might come back.
• 12:58
  Speaker C: So, yeah, a lot of stories. No battalion command. So. So my, my battalion was stationed at Fort Bragg, right? It was the 18th Airborne Course, Seaburn Unit. So I'm at pre command course, and I get a phone call from the guy who's in command. It's like I got great news and bad news. The great news is, is that you're still taking battalion command. The bad news is that not only are you losing jump status, you don't wear the maroon beret anymore, you don't wear that core patch anymore, but you're moving to Fort Polk, Louisiana. I'm like, what? What do you mean? So I was at Bragg, right? As A as a captain. So I wanted to go back there. We knew all the people, all our buddies with cgsc, you know, had come through from their time frame. But the battalion moved to Fort Polk, Louisiana about six months. From six to nine months before we showed up. Right. But we took the same mindset as I tell you about what we talked about before having units ready. But that was the summer of 2001. 90 days later is when September 11th happened.
• 13:59
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 14:00
  Speaker C: The reason why the army pulled those units together is because they had a biological detection unit and a chemical recon unit that were in two separate organizations. When we brought our battalion headquarters down, it brought those two units together. Right. We didn't know September 11th was going to happen, but once we had those units, they were ready to perform because you had oversight that could give them instruction, what things they needed to do, right?
• 14:25
  Speaker B: Yes, sir.
• 14:25
  Speaker C: Fort Polk. I love Boudreaux and Thibodeau. I love zydeco music. But I was never there because we were spent all over the place doing the things that we needed to do. So the army and its infinite wisdom was putting us in a place to get us ready. So I always tell people about be comfortable when you get sent to a place. Another. Another example would be, I'm the CG of Fort Leonardwood. You know, when you have a. You're commanding general, you got a driver, you got an aide de camp. You got a listed aide. Yes, sir. Right. And sergeant major, whole team. You're waving like this, you know, to the phone. I get a phone call from GOMO and says, hey, we want you to become the Deputy Inspector General. What I tell a four star at a Army senior leaders conference around December time frame, this was 2014. And I says, hey, Bice, who did I piss off to go to this job? He said nothing and walked away. Oh, yeah, I thought I was in trouble. I didn't know was I going to get fired or not. But what I found out later was they were trying to change the culture. Okay, okay. But if I hadn't become the Deputy Inspector General, I would not have become the Inspector General. So a series of different things happen. But if I would have said, hey, I'm just going to retire, right? And there's a difference between battalions. A two star and a three star light years. When it comes to opportunities because of. There's a lot of two stars. It's like only 45, three stars. You.
• 15:49
  Speaker B: When you say opportunity, sir, do you mean opportunities outside? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:52
  Speaker C: You know, and it's because it's a different. It's a different. Different echelon of things you need to do, but it's. It was. You just gotta serve in the place where you need to serve, and the opportunities will come from there.
• 16:04
  Speaker B: Absolutely. That's great advice.
• 16:06
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 16:06
  Speaker B: All right, sir, we're just going to finish this off. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you offer your younger self? Yeah.
• 16:14
  Speaker C: Several things. One would be have fun.
• 16:17
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 16:18
  Speaker C: And what you do, Take more vacations. Try to bring more people with you and the places that you go and the things that you do. But also, I would tell for my listeners, I do this all the time. Meet somebody new every day. I don't know if I mentioned that to you guys the other day, because it's important that when you find out from the person who's emptying the trash to who's the professor to the dean of the su, everybody has a different viewpoint about things. But not only that, everybody has worth. Everybody has relevance. And then as a leader, our job is to figure out what that is. And if you don't get to know your people, you don't know what the worth and relevance of what it is and how can you pull each one of those pieces and parts for the team. So. But again, for your listeners, thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for raising your right hand and say you're going to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That's a big deal. Don't take that for granted. But also don't take yourself so serious.
• 17:18
  Speaker B: Yes, sir.
• 17:19
  Speaker C: Take your job serious, but have fun.
• 17:20
  Speaker B: Yes, sir.
• 17:21
  Speaker C: Your soldiers were where will emulate what you demonstrate to them. So your audio and video match across the board.
• 17:29
  Speaker B: That's good.
• 17:30
  Speaker C: Invite me up anytime. I'll come see you.
• 17:32
  Speaker B: I will. We'd love to have you up at West Point.
• 17:34
  Speaker C: Sure.
• 17:34
  Speaker B: I come up. Yes, sir. Well, that's good. I think more people need to, you know, have fun at the end of the day. Right. All right. Well, gentle Smith, thank you for your time today and for an excellent discussion about professional education, military strategy, and preparing for tomorrow's wars today on behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan, the director of the Modern Warfare Institute, and Dr. Charlie Fate, you know of this podcast series, it is my pleasure to present you with this rare and coveted.
• 18:02
  Speaker C: Thank you, bro.
• 18:02
  Speaker B: Thank you, sir.
• 18:03
  Speaker C: Thanks.
• 18:06
  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 at. 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.