The Daily Stoic - Elliot Ackerman on Writing, Military Service, and Polarization | People Do Well When They Can

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Elliot Ackerman about his book Green on Blue, how he became a writer, his tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, the problems of radicalization and polarization, and more.Elliot Ackerman is the author of the novels 2034, Red Dress In Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, as well as the memoir Places and Names: On War, Revolution and Returning. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in both fiction and non-fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize among others. His writing often appears in Esquire, The New Yorker, and The New York Times where he is a contributing opinion writer, and his stories have been included in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Travel Writing. He is both a former White House Fellow and Marine, and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C.Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of delicious flavors. Visit gomacro.com and use promo code STOIC for 30% off your order plus free shipping on all orders over $50.The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episodes right now (1, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.Talkspace is an online and mobile therapy company. Visit talkspace.com and get $100 off your first month when you use promo code STOIC at sign-up. That’s $100 off at talkspace.com, promo code STOIC.LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Every week, nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/STOIC. Terms and conditions apply.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Elliot Ackerman: Homepage, TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating, and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and

habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace in wisdom in their actual lives. But first we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors. Hi I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. People do well when they can. Going back to Socrates, we have this idea that most people are doing the best they can,

that almost nobody does the wrong thing on purpose. No, they believe what they think is correct. They're doing what they think is right. What they think they're capable of doing in the moment. When I interviewed Dr. William Sticksrud and Ned Johnson about their book, The Self-Driven Child, which I carry at the Painter-Portrait Bookstore, they paraphrase an idea from Dr. Ross Greene that's worth committing to memory. People do well when they can. People are usually acting with good intentions, so when people wrong you or frustrate you or their actions perplex you, remember that you yourself

are not seeing the whole picture. People have other stuff going on. They don't have the tools or the resources or the education that you have. They don't have your same sense of good. They aren't perfect. They can't do the impossible. So as Marcus said, you shouldn't ask the impossible. Understand this.

Commit it to your memory. People do well when they can. Most people are doing the best they can. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stove Podcast. You can tell him congested, I've been sick the last week. It was not COVID, although I took my share of COVID tests.

I think one of the reasons I've taken COVID seriously, and this was a nice reminder of it when I get sick, man, I'm just sick forever, it was like 10 days. And then I get this like sinus thing for like weeks after, which messes up all my recording, it makes me sound like I'm kind of weird voice or something. But you won't hear that on the actual episode today because I recorded it a while ago. This was an interview. I was very much looking forward to my friend Dan Barkoff at the Veterans for Responsible Leadership made this introduction. So I feel very grateful. You should listen to my interview with him. He's awesome. And today's guest also co-wrote a book with another daily stoke podcast guest, Admiral

Stavritis. They wrote a book called 2034, which is a novel about sort of the future of warfare. The first book I read from today's guest, Elliot Ackerman, was called Green on Blue, which I, it was a really haunting novel. He was a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he really wrote a book from the perspective of a young boy in Afghanistan, like who becomes sort of radicalized and drawn into the sort of tribal warfare there. I just, as I talk about in the interview, it's sort of a remarkable exercise in empathy, seeing the conflict that he was in

from a perspective so different that his own, it makes a beautiful novel, a haunting novel that I very much enjoyed. It's called Green on Blue. I'm reading from the cover, which I just pulled my book off the shelf. To save his brother, Aziz must join the special lash car, a US-funded militia.

As he rises through the ranks, Aziz becomes mired in the dark underpinnings of his country's war, witnessing clashes between rival Afghan groups, what US soldiers called Green on Green attacks, and attacks on US forces by Afghan soldiers in clashes between rival Afghan groups, what US soldiers called green on green attacks, and attacks on US forces by Afghan soldiers, violence known as green on blue. Trapped in a conflict, both savage and contrived as these struggles to understand his place, will he embrace the brutality of war or leave it behind and risk placing this brother

and the young woman he has come to love in jeopardy? It's a great book. This is a great interview. Eliot Ackerman is not just the author of 2034 and this book also red dress in black and white waiting for Eden dark and dark at the crossings as well as the memoir Places and Names on War Revolution and Returning. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in both fiction and nonfiction and and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, among others, is writing, Appears in Esquire in the New Yorker in the New York Times, where he is a contributing

opinion writer. And he is both a former White House fellow and a Marine. He served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, and where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valorant and the Purple Heart. It divides his time between New York City and Washington DC. You can go to his website at leotacrimon.com. You can follow him on Twitter at leotacrimon and enjoy this interview. It was I opened in one and we really nerded out and I'm looking forward to having him back on, which had happened here shortly. So when did you, did you always know you wanted to be a writer or walk me through the tension or I guess complimentary nature of soldier, writer

as part of your journey? Sure. I'm probably hardly, you know, I'm hardly the first to combine those two. But, you know, I always grew up, you know, I liked books, reading, my mother's writer. So I grew up around, you know, knowing other writers. So, you know, it seemed like something that was possible.

When I was in the military, I sort of suspect, I was having experiences that I expected. Maybe at some point, I might wind up writing about these, but I really know how to do it, operationalize that. Sure. And I think actually psychologically, I was in the place where I could do it, either. I actually tried once or twice to write

while I was in the military. And I maybe got like two sentences out. I was like, this just feels weird. And but once I left, I think that created the psychic break. I needed to start writing seriously. Well, I'm jealous that your mother was a writer. I've talked about this before. I think when I grew up, my father was a police officer.

My mom was a school principal. And I don't think I knew anyone, I certainly didn't know any writers. I don't think I knew anyone who didn't have a job. Like I don't even think I knew anyone that had their, there are any of my friends, parents, like, didn't work for somebody. Like I don't think I knew anyone that was an entrepreneur, I didn't know anyone who was a comedian,

anyone who was a movie producer, just like they were all regular people. So that must have been interesting to see your mother, right, and you're like, oh, this is a thing that people do. And you don't have to be like some special genius to do it. Right, and she started as a journalist and then, so kind of went through, went that route. But you know, but that, you know, all that being said when I when I started writing

my, you know, what was my, my first book, which is actually never published. Not that one, that's actually my, that's my first published book. But I felt very silly to like say I want to write you know I had nothing to show for it. It felt like saying you know I want to dance you know like you know I'm not going to say this to anybody until I feel like I've got something to show for it. So I kind of was writing for I don't know a couple of years almost just sort of quietly until anybody I was doing it until I felt like I was kind of had enough, you know, just success or validation where I could kind of say, you know, tell people what I was doing without feeling like I was setting myself up for some type of massive

disappointment or, you know, sense of embarrassment. Yeah, I think ego can be adaptive there, right? Because like, you sort of have the confidence to say, oh, yeah, I'm a writer, even though you have no right to say that. I was more in your camp. I wrote my first book, I didn't tell a single person I was writing it. I remember I moved to New Orleans to write my first book because I thought that was a writer,

or the least city to live in. And I remember when the announcement came out, a bunch of my friends were like, oh, like the people I didn't met in New Orleans, they're like, oh, we didn't know you were writing a book. And it occurred to me that they thought I was just a bum, basically. Like, you know what I mean?

Like, I was like, what did you think I was doing all day? Like, I assumed they knew. But I do feel like you need that period to figure it out, because if you think you just get it by declaring it yourself, you're probably not actually going to put in the work to be any good at it. Certainly. It's a, as you, as you have, you noted, it's a fine line between being a writer and being a bum. But, but you listen, I think writing, you know, writing unlike other art forms, one of the things

that I think recommends it is that you can fail private, pretty privately as a writer. Like for instance, I've watched me for actors. If you're an actor, think, first of all, you're just trying to get roles. And for many actors, there's sort of that horrible, it's not horrible, there's a lot of time, they gotta spend, I was classically trained at Yale in Shakespeare,

but I'm on the dumbest show on television because I got to take this role because I got to make it happen and everyone sees me in whatever low-budget movie I'm acting and it's not a very good role. So one of the things that's nice about writing is listen, I mean, I think you do, you do have a great deal of agency for better or worse in terms of the work that you are at least trying to do. No, it's a great creative field in that sense. And when I interviewed Matthew Mukana, hey, we were talking about this, like even something like him, he doesn't have any control of what the other people do.

He doesn't have final cut on the movie. He doesn't control the marketing budget, right? He doesn't control the direction of the public relations campaign. So like you can do amazing work and they can still make it terrible and you have no control over it. The one, the other nice thing about writing, not only of agency, but you have a lot of creative control over it. So it's like you can make it good and other people have relatively little power to ruin it for you. You have a certain amount of power that way.

You can will it into existence to be whatever you want it to be. The downside is then it's all on you whether it's good or not, but you also have the power to just shape your own destiny in that sense. It, for me, transitioning out of the military, those sort of an interesting component of it. In many ways, my writing life and my military life couldn't be more diametrically opposed to one another, and so much is, obviously, when you're serving in the like, you have, you know, you need to have no agency, but you do a very little agency you know like what unit you get assigned to I mean you could say this is what I want but it's you know you always have 49% of the vote as to where you're going to be sent and what you're going to do and who you're

going to work for you know you don't get to pick your boss you don't get to interview at a company but go I like this guy I'm not going to go there you know, get an interview at a company, go ahead like this guy, you're not going to go there. I actually remember when I transitioned out of the military and I worked over at CIA for a couple of years doing very similar work, but I was now, you know, Mr. Akramin, not Captain Akramin. I remember the first time I was going in, I was sort of getting my deployment orders and being told I was going to go and they said, all right, well, we've got you, you're going to be deployed for these two and a half months here,

and then you'll come back and you'll be gone for these months here. At the end of that, they sort of said, does that work for you? I was like, what do you mean, does it work for me? They're like, well, is it work for you? Just like going on, I was like, I took me a long time to get my head around the fact that I could say,

no, this doesn't work for me, and I'm a civilian. I don't have to, I don't have to. I'm not legally obligated to do what you tell me to do. I mean, I should go along and be a team player, but it took me a long time to get my head around that. And then additionally, one of the things that's just obvious to some different about writing is, you know, it's a credibility lonely endeavor, not necessarily, but you know, you, you know, I'm sitting here at Soundle and the East Coast.

It's 2, 12 in the afternoon. Today I have seen my kids as I shut them up to school and I've seen my dog. And that's about it. And those are probably, and that's I think those the only people I'm going to see today. And that's how many, many, many of my days are. And I'm fine with that. But it's a lone wolf profession. Sure. And in the military, I mean, I was, you know, with 40 of my best friends, 24-7, you know, around the way, you know, we were always together, and that was great, too. So I just say, you know, you're engaging with different facets of your personality, different times in your life.

I remember I gave a talk at Fort Bragg several years ago to go to your point about agency, and, you know, it was some, it was for veterans transitioning out of the military or something. And there were these officers or whatever that were part of the event. And they said something like, thank you to all the volunteers who came out. And I was talking to one of them. And I said, oh, what made you agree to do this? Or whatever?

And he said, I'm not a volunteer. He said, I was volentalled to be here. And I was like, that is the perfect expression for most of what life is, where you have agency, but actually you don't have any agency. Yeah, sure, absolutely. What made you enlist in the first place? Did you also have service members in your family

and you saw both sort of avenues? Or was that actually the more rebellious traditional career path No, I don't I don't come from a I don't come from a what I would consider a military family I mean, you know my my grandfather served in the Navy for a couple years in World War two Mike, you know my dad would joke with me He was in the New Jersey National Guard It's a typist clerk during the Vietnam War.

And he made it to corporal and he got busted down to private for sneaking out when I'd go to a movie. I mean, you know, he sort of laughs about his, his in-us-bridge, his military career. So, but I grew up overseas. So I grew up, when I was born in Los Angeles, I moved to London when I was nine. And I came back to the States when I was 15.

So I just think having, even though it was the UK, having that experience as sort of being outside the US gave me, you know, kind of a perspective of many of the things that were great about the US and the desire to want to give back. I wanted, I think, a job coming out of college, where whether I was good at my job or bad at my job, really matter. So I want a lot of responsibility at the young age. I couldn't think of anywhere else where 23, it's an officer that would put you, you know, as a marine infantry officer,

they put you in charge of 45 people. And then the last thing I was like, I was like that kid, he never stopped playing with the GI Joe's. Like I always had to innate fascination with the military. So like you can combined those three elements, you know, it led me into the Marines, but I did ROTC in college and I started that program

in I guess it's 1998 and then 9-11 happened while I was at school. So sort of the peacetime military I was sort of going into my expectations for what I would do. Now I was like, oh, I'll do five years in the Marines, and who knows? Maybe I'll go on one deployment, and maybe we'll evacuate and see somewhere that would be exciting, skewed radically. And I got all that I bargained for, and then some.

I had a very positive experience in Marine Corps, but that sort of would drew me into it. Yeah, that's interesting. You did get more than you bargained for. How old were you when you enlisted in what year was that event? So I started ROTC when I was 18, so it was 1998. So the big thing going on the world then was like Kosovo and the Marine Corps, you know, there was very little combat experience in the Marine Corps. And 9-11 happens when I was at the end of my college experience. But even then, the trajectory of a war is really interesting. Every war, the two wars I fought in, each one that I showed up to I showed up

And I felt like I was late to the party So like I showed up in Iraq in 2004 and I showed up in Afghanistan in 2008 and I was in and out of Afghanistan 2008 to 2011 both so both showing up in those wars in Iraq in 2004 the vibe early on was very much like well The war was the invasion of three and we're kind of all here doing peacekeeping duty. And that changed very quickly. And now amongst like Iraq war veterans, you know, bump into Iraq war veterans and saying to them like, oh man, when were you in Iraq? I was like, oh, you know, I was in, I was in Flaudjab back in 04.

I mean, that's like the equivalent of Vietnam guys, like, yeah, I was in, you know, I was in nomin' 65. Like, they're like, those were the early days. And then the same thing with Afghanistan, you know, now you talk to guys over, you're in Afghanistan, you're in Marine, we're in 2010, 2011, 12, like, no, they're back there, I was back in 2008. And it's so crazy that you could be considered at the beginning of a war. So, why should I, but Afghanistan, the war has been going on for seven years.

I mean, like, of course, we were at the end of it. Yeah, little did you know they would be quickly and tidily wrapped up after you, after you show up. Yeah, not so much. So was it, what I found so fascinating about Green on Blue, and I mean, I've read a lot of books by soldiers. I've written a lot of, read a lot of books about war. I don't know if I've ever read one where the soldier was effectively writing from the perspective

of the of the enemy, right, in quotes, because I know it's somewhat loosely defined, but was that the point of view you got from your mom's journalism background? Was it like, like, how did you not how did you come to write the book? I'm just, I'm making up that that's a perspective that I can't imagine clearly because of how the words turned out. That's not a perspective, an empathetic perspective that was particularly calm. Yeah, like Green on Blue is the story of an American who is killed by an Afghan, but the entire story is told from the perspective of the Afghans.

And I think that came, I mean, the desire to tell that story came from a place of just recognition that the wars for those who fought in them were defining events. Unlike previous wars, I think we're about the same age, they were not generationally defining events. So when I look at the people that I feel like I have the most in common with in my generation, I mean, obviously it's veterans who are Americans, who are Americans, you know, we've tons in common. But it's also like Afghan veterans who fought alongside us, but then you take one step further. And I also work as a journalist. I was my own journalism. It's Afghans who fought on the opposite side. It's members of Al Qaeda in Iraq who are now my age.

I mean, I'm not ab brighting along piece of journalism. It's a, it features in a book I wrote called Places and Names. It's basically a series of conversations with a guy named Abu Hussar who fought for Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the precursor to ISIS, and he and I met in a refugee camp in Turkey, and kind of sat around for hours and became friends basically talking about our war.

So we fought on opposite sides of it. So with green on blue, I mean, I think that's sort of what was driving this like this, is I like, I want to explore the other side because I know, coming on the war, it's like the war, it's like being in the war, you know, you're like, you're in a shadow dance with your adversary, you know, you go out on patrol, you're on missions, you can feel them pushing against you, just as you push against them, but you never see your partner in this dance. And you get to the end of the dance and you're thinking about that experience. I mean, it's very logical.

You start saying, well, who is this partner? I was dancing with like, who is this person? And that book is, you know, my attempt to kind of really imagine and put myself in the shoes of that person. Is it inherently that they don't, they don't want the, you know, the rank of soldier that you were thinking about that because it makes it harder to do the job? Or is it, I think when I interviewed General McMaster, he talked about, and I know he's written about this idea

of strategic empathy, like actually thinking about the perspective of the person on the other side, is it that that wasn't common enough or is it deliberately kind of don't want you to think about the person on the other side, is it that wasn't common enough or is it deliberately kind of don't want you to think about the person you're shooting at because it makes it harder to shoot at them? Well, I don't think there's some they here, right? There's no like collective they.

Culturally, yeah. Culturally, yeah. No, I would say listen, inside the military, like, you know, people sometimes will, I think it sometimes surprises folks that people who come out of the military, like even right books. Like, you would be, I think you would be surprised. And like, the military, at least, you know, officers and less senior and less did, folks who really do this are professional. Like, it's a pretty intellectual group. And so I gave a, I gave a talk to the Marine recruiting command ones, and they were like, they were like, what you need to know about us is like,

we are trying to steal kids from Harvard and Yale. Like, they're like, that's who our office or core is, is people who would, they're, we're wanting to go after the best and the brightest with a much less compelling proposition. So it's a specific type of person for sure. Yeah, and that being said, so you know, if you're in the military,

you spend a lot of time obviously thinking about who your adversary is. And like, okay, I'm fighting against this person. I need to be thinking about who they are, how they're gonna react to what I do. So you're spending all this time trying to put yourself in your adversary's shoes. I mean, that's not like a new thing.

That's, you know, go back to like, you know, Alexander the great, you know, he's sitting there trying to put himself in, you know, the Persian Emperor, Darius' shoes. Yeah. So if you spend your professional like doing it, and then you get to the end, it's not that much of a jump to be doing what I do, which is sitting there trying to imagine the thoughts of others and how they react in certain situations. Yeah, I just felt like in the book, it was more than just like,

well, what's my enemy thinking? It's a very humanizing portrait. And you go, oh, this isn't like some evil, awful person. You're like, oh, this is a, and this isn't just, oh, somebody responding to incentives. I mean, he's effectively the hero of the book, right? In the way that someone could have written the exact same book, but you would have been the hero, right? It's, it's a tragic, he's a tragic hero, I think. Yes. Because it doesn't, it doesn't work

out well from, but listen, that's, you know, that's something I think, you know, I can tell you many, many a time, you know, in Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, after being out all night on a raid and the sun's coming up and we're leaving the target, and you know, in Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, after being out all night on a raid and the sun's coming up and we're leaving the target and, you know, these things are tricky and messy and, you know, we're going back to base and I was kind of looking at them and be like, hey, I get it. I get what they hate me. Like, you know, if someone came to our neighborhood and was trying to roll up all the bad guys in our neighborhoods, like, you know, we all know every American that, you know, that we're in touch with we put in i.e.s on the road and shooting at us with the ray are fifteen so it's not like you can't get it's very obvious

uh... and so they're sort of i think you want to explore the complexity a little bit if you want to understand the experience yeah that's uh... that is the weirdness of those two wars where it's sort of like even culturally i think we're i mean obviously we're not all on the same page, but we're sort of like, yeah, we get it, but it doesn't actually change the policy, right?

It's like, we get it, and then we just kept doing it anyway. Right, well, I mean, you know, we get it, and then there's also, listen, I think there's, I'll just be for myself, you know, I think there's also just a bit of fatalism that goes into being a soldier. I mean, at a certain point, you're going to say, listen, I think this is worth doing. I have a whole host of reasons like why I wanted to be in the wars and most of them were local. I felt on a very personal level like, hey, these wars are going to be in the wars and most of them were local, you know I sort of felt on a very personal level like hey these wars are gonna be happening

Whether I want them to happen or not because there are forces that are far larger than me Pushing us to a wreck in Afghanistan. So that being said. I'm in my early 20s I am like a young man of a certain age and there's a my generation has a war So the thing I can control is am I gonna fight it or not? You know when I'm an old man and I look back, am I gonna wanna have, will I feel like I should have been there and should have, you know, participated?

And everyone can make their own decision about that. My decision was like, yeah, if they're gonna be 45 young Marines out there and they need a platoon leader and I've, you know, come from this, had all this opportunity through my family, I've gone to go to grade schools. Like, you know, I wanna spend my early 20s,

not just like it's the right to be a platoon leader. I don't wanna go to Goldman, or I don't wanna be a lawyer, or like, this is the thing I wanna do. This is what gives me meaning. And I very much got that, but that's not like a policy decision, that's not like me saying, like, you know, and Ergo, 20 years of war in Afghanistan was a great idea. Yeah. Do you still, do you still feel that is that personal feeling hold

up for you? Or do you go, if I could do it again, I might have done my 20s differently? No, totally. Absolutely. Because it's not because it's not an abstraction. When I was going in, it was a little bit of an abstraction. Now that personal feeling are like my dearest best friends who were corporals, you know, there were corporals in the platoon that I was a lieutenant, where they were, you know, the staffs, artists and gunnery sergeants in this special operations team where I was the captain and the team leader. And we talk every day, you know, we talk all the time, we swap text messages like these are my, you know, not to be hokey, but like these are my brothers. So, so the idea of being like, do I want to push a button and be like, oh, I've never

would have met you guys and we never would have gone through what we went through together. Like, and there would have been, you know, Schmelley and Schmaferman would have been your team leader. Like, no, I'm glad I was there. Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the day and partying at night with your best friends and have it be 100% paid for. FTX Founder Sam Bankman Freed lived that dream life, but it was all funded with other

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From Bloomberg and Wondery, comes Spellcaster, a new six-part docu-series about the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of FTX and its founder, Sam Beckman-Freed. Follow Spellcaster, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, prime members, you can listen to episodes Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Yeah, let me ask you things. I was reading something recently and you might be the perfect person to ask about this. So obviously I read about stoicism and so it was sort of one of the heroes of stoicism is Adamel Stockdale. And I read this article, they were sort of

pushing back on the idea of Stockdale as the stoic hero because not because of how he performed in the prison camp that's sort of unassailable, but lesser known about Stockdale, is Stockdale was in the Gulf of Tonkin during the incident, right? And he would reflect on it, and he was like, no, no, no, no, we were shooting at nothing, he's like, I knew it was made up.

He's like there on the ship at night, basically watching the pretext for a war get created from whole cloth that hundreds of thousands and millions of people were ultimately die from. And so they were sort of pushing back on this idea of what you kind of expressed there that you're like, look, the war is going to happen regardless. My job as a soldier is to be there for the people next to me. When you think about an incident like that or a moment like that, we're effectively this guy watches this thing happen and then still serves in the war, doesn't say anything about

it, still sacrifices so much, gives so much of himself in, you know, what in retrospect was a less than justified thing. How do you, how do you think about one's role or obligation in that sense? Was that a betrayal of his ideas or ideals? Was it falling short or is it, is that just part of being a soldier that you're like, all that stuff's above my pay grade? I just go where they tell me. Well, it depends. For me, I often will think of this serenity prayer. Right.

You know, God give me the, I'm gonna put you right here, but you know, the way you know, the wisdom to accept the things that I can't change, the patience to, or the courage to accept the things that I can't change, the patience to, or the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference between this. And so it's sort of like,

the delta here, like in explaining that, it's like, okay, but who was Adam O'Stockdale in the Gulf of Tonkin? Yeah. Was he an Adam O'Stockdale? Yeah, it's great. Yeah. You know, what's he? Commander, Stockdale. Yeah, it's great. Or whatever, like, what's his job? What could he change?

Like, there's something like, no, it's Stockdale. He'd done X, Y, and Z, the Gulf of Tonkin, never would have happened, or really wouldn't have gone to bid. Oh, I'm, it's like, well, yeah, I think you should, one might be more critical then. But sometimes we have a, you know, we kind of, you know, yada, yada, yada, that bit over and just assume he's someone who had he like been like, not on my watch,

before we were going to have happened. He should have called Johnson and Right and call it like like he had a mother red line I don't think he had all the commander stockdale had the president on the red line So he's sort of doing the best he can in the moment and and also I mean does he know this is what Vietnam's gonna become like we're we're imperfect're imperfect. We're seeing the world narrowly. So, do I think that when I look at myself as a 23, 24-year-old college graduate, do I make more of a difference participating in the war? Or I don't know, protesting it.

I mean, know protesting it. I mean, I'm sure people's conscience tells them they should protest the war, great protest the war. Good on you. My conscience told me there is something I know I can affect here and I can be a good leader for these folks and I can make my contribution that way. And I also don't think there's like a moral equivalence between... and this is the thing that's been crazy watching this for the end of

Afghanistan. And frankly, very disperity to me. You know, people are saying that we never should have been in there in the first place. What was that war with those Arabs about? You're like, all right, first of all, they're not Arabs in Afghanistan. Like, second of all, it's like, I guess, you know, I guess I'm just old. Like, we went there because of 9-11. Like, everyone forget, like, because of 9-11 like everyone forget like like yeah yeah because of 9-11 and conveniently for like I'm sorry after 9-11 there was no way we weren't going into afghanistan like it was it was a righteous war now I can trap you know and two and then three and how we take our eye

off the ball then how the Taliban resurgis and, and it's probably more than going to go into on this podcast. But that story is a much longer story. But there's been this sort of like conflation and folding of time, it's just like Iraq, Afghanistan, all one word. We don't care. It was all the same thing for the trash can. And I think that does a big disservice. Everyone has to make their peace with the decisions they make over the course of life. There's a whole swath

of my generation that never dealt or thought about these wars. And of itself is a choice. Yeah, no, it's very easy to be glib about profoundly personal and moral decisions that individuals have to make at the point they were in their life with things that were going on with the information that they have inherently, as you said, blindness to the inevitable outcome of that thing. And you don't know what it's going to become. And you also, as you said, don't control what it's going to become. You just control what you do for the small group of people that you're associated with. Yeah. Or if you're someone who assumes a larger position of power, then you're on the

hook if you can change things, they can influence things if you decide not to or you make their own call. Just 23 and 24 year old me, that wasn't where I was. And so, Todd, I've always felt like very good about that. I said, I'm very proud of my service in Iraq and in Afghanistan. I don't say like I'm proud of myself. I just feel like I think of that time and I think of who I was with. I'm very proud to say I was with those people and I'm proud of the work that we did together.

No, and I certainly don't mean to imply that you should not be proud of it. I just wondered how you're not. I just say I'm just affirming that. Because I could also imagine a scenario in which one is proud of how they individually imported themselves. Like there was that officer on January 6th, who someone said like, hey, what do you think about the people, the protesters who were helping you after you got hurt? And he said, well, it was nice, but fuck you for being there.

You know, like, I could see an argument where you're proud of your individual service, but still feel upset or resentful or whatever the word is for the fact that you were ultimately in the position that you were in. I could see that being a point of view as well. Yeah, although I think there's like, I'm not saying you're doing this, but I would be very hesitant to equate our the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

with a debacle on the order of January 6th. I'm sorry, yeah, I meant the logic of that. I know, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, but the logic of that. Yes, but I think that what I've experienced, people like quickly are very, I have found in this weird sort of now post, you know, forever war moment,

there's sort of been this quick desire to categorize, okay, this is what the wars were, we need to put them in a box and put a bobo on them. And we just sort of go back, lazily to, well, it was either a good war or a bad war. We've only had one or two good wars, and the rest of them are all just mashups of Vietnam or some other atrocity, and we're just going to throw it in the corner and say, oh, horrible, it wasn't. Forget about it.

And I don't think that is a fair accounting of what happened in Afghanistan or Iraq, which is a war that was fought on pretty bad pre-tensives. Well, you look at Iraq, you're point about in action being a choice also. You look at Iraq and Afghanistan. Let's say you somehow turn back the clock and America decides not to be involved in either country. It's not like the last 20 years wouldn't have also been tragic and devastating and costly in lives and pain for all sorts of different people. Do you know what I mean? It's not like those were, we broke something that was working.

Right, and I think that's, you know, and I think that is a fair point. And it's, I think, a little bit foolish to, you know, the case of Iraq and I've seen this sort of logic that, like, in a desire, in a desire to pudiate the US war in Iraq. There is this percolivity to Paint Saddam Hussein as As some type of benevolent leader who was leading his people You know in a healthy way, which is like I'm sorry. It's not the case like there was Suffering that was occurring in Iraq and would have continued to occur in Iraq had the US not come out. Now I had not invaded. Now I myself wasn't, I didn't, you know, I mean, again, I was all 23s and early matter what I thought.

But like I was not a fan of the Iraq invasion of 23. And I remember having a conversation with a Marine captain at the time, it was a mentor of mine. And we were, we were but missing the Iraq invasion. Like, wow, you know, we're gonna, we're missing this, you you know we're marines like we want to be where the action is and we both looked at each other this was like in early april of a three is the ranger blitzkrieg towards bag that was for shragma said I mean there's at least a fifty fifty chance that there's going to be an insurgency yeah and we were right and i've always had to rock like the criminal thing there is it the only plan was but we'll be greeted as liberators what if we're not and there was no backup plan for that which goes back to to the thing about strategic empathy, like really actually understanding how one's actions or presence

is going to be perceived, not just by people, but by different forces. And what's the opposite reaction going to be that the action you take that requires a certain amount of self-awareness that those years of American foreign policy seemed to lack on a fundamental level? Right.

And I think this is interesting to me to see how pathetic impulse that is cultivated. Many people I knew who served, started to manifest now that they've taken off the uniform, or frankly, even amongst many of my colleagues who still wear the uniform, but are sort of older now. I like to give you sort of a parallel example. So before I joined, sometimes people will say to me, Elliot, it's like it's so odd that you people will say to me, Elliot, it's like it's so odd that you were a marine and then you became a writer because you're sort of an artistic profession now and those marines don't do that. The people who've known me long, they've knew me back when I was a skater punk in my early

teens, that totally defined who I was around 16 or 17 years old. And I wanted to know, I mean, the longest boy said, Elliot, it's so odd to us that you became a Marine, seeing as you were like this artistic skater, Pump Kid. And to go back to that idea of some of your houses, empathy kind of bubble over, it's been interesting to me to see my friends who when I was like a skater growing up in London now, were all grown up, have like two a tea,

are all in these artistic professions. professions like one of them is a very accomplished painter there's a couple photographers come out of the mix one is a filmmaker like to a tee it's like nobody won and no one became a lawyer and and it's caused me to look back on that experience of like when we were skaters and like oh like we all thought we were a bunch of skaters but like we all gravitated to that sport because we sort of had these like generally creative artistic dispositions that said that's how it's manifested in our lives here. And I would say with military folks, it's similarly kind of manifested,

I see many of my military colleagues in this sort of just deep intellectual curiosity into like others, like who is the other? But that's another I fought against or just like a person who is across a cultural divide that seems unreachably broad. And that's manifested in lots of ways, but it's definitely a through line that curiosity. Yeah, Jerry Seinfeld has a good bit about skateboarders.

It's like, you know, about how he's like, you see these kids trying to figure this thing out over and over again, willing to fall, willing to get hurt, willing to crack this puzzle. It's like, those kids are going to be all right, you know? And it's like, I think you think of the reputation of skater because I didn't skate but I was really into snowboarding. It seems like kind of a stonerish thing and it's actually a puzzle that you're trying to crack. It's not that different than trying to figure out your way into a book or an article or an argument that you're making.

It's a physical, the manifestation is physical, but it's an intellectual pursuit, first and foremost. And a big thing I took away from that experience too, is you actually learn like great leadership skills, because not that you're, you know, you know, you know, you snowboards for the same thing, like like skaters like run and, you know, crews and I think the crew is just like another word for like a very aggressive click. And so like you had to figure out like where you were in the crew and how you kind of maintained yourself in that crew and the interpersonal dynamics.

I think one of the things people miss about the military is they feel like, oh, it must be easily the military. This is a hierarchy. Just tell people what to do and they have to do it. It's like, no, that is not how it works. I mean, watch a movie like a platoon, which does a great job of showing the unspoken hierarchy, barns and allias and news and charges of the platoon and the lieutenant is, but he's weak and that stuff's always going on. Who's really in charge in a unit and who are the big personalities? That's stuff that I had to deal with in every unit I ever went to. You know, you show up and you're the new lieutenant and how are you going to earn everyone's respect.

So you carry the authority you need and I first learned how to do that as a skater. Well, I think people think they're jealous of the idea that you get to give orders. I think like an order is feels so, like you said, about the civilian world, you know, like they're asking if you want to do it. I think in the civilian world, we make up that people in the military

get to order people to do things and that seems much clearer than how we get to do things. Even though in my experience, I found that that's not actually how it was, I'm sure. Yeah, I know, I mean my experience was it was the people who are the most effective often you know, would give their orders in very gentle ways. And they were the most effective because they were deeply respected. So when the colonel, who everyone loved, or the captain, who everyone knew, is a bad ass,

would just sort of make their suggestion and say, I think maybe we should do it this way. Everyone would execute. And the people who are running around screaming, I already do this, and I already do that, usually won't get much done, because nobody respects it. To just because I'm a big fan of work to circle back,

I wasn't trying to say fuck you for being there. I was saying I could see your point of view being fuck you for putting me there. Do you know what I mean? Oh, yeah, I'm not saying it that way. I'm just, I'm, yes, appreciate that. Yeah, the idea, the stereotype of military people not being writers is an interesting one in my experience because I feel like I've met like, I feel like all the ex-military people

I've met are writers or want to write books. It feels, and very good ones, or start companies. It seems like this generation of military leaders learned a set of skills, and also just generally have a kind of togetherness that actually functions quite well in whatever this economy and life we're in now where you're like, you sort of have to figure out your own stuff. It's not like you go into a company and you just work at GE for 30 years. Like now it's sort of like,

no, you're your own little team over here and you got to figure out what, where and what you can contribute. It seems like a lot of those attributes have actually carried over, particularly well into civilian life. Yeah, I'm going to have two observations I would make is that I think that people underestimate

how entrepreneurial being in the military can be. You know, like when I worked in special operations, you know, I was part of a team. There were 14 of us. We were leading 800 Afghan commandos. We were about 70 miles away from our nearest adjacent US unit. And you know, we had a budget that was in the millions. I mean, we had a locker full of cash to do what we needed to do. And we were all like, the oldest guy was in his early 30s.

I was in my like, I think I was 28 back then. So people, I don't think people always understand that there is often a very significant entrepreneurial side of being in the military. I think one of their observations I just made is that you also have people who come out that there is often a very significant entrepreneurial side of being in the military. I think one of their observations I just made is, then you also have people who come out of the experience, particularly coming out of the wars, and you've been, you know, you've spent a good chunk

of your life proximate to like a lot of, you know, just destruction, wars, destruction, loss, and death and all those things. And I think it's actually very natural that then people kind of come out of that with like this really strong craving After being proximate to some destruction of wanting to then create Like create create create. I want to create and I felt that myself

And you know, and I know I know others who you know who said they they felt similar You've gone into creative fields either in you know business or the arts or whatever on a two creative fields, other business, or arts, or whatever. Yeah, and I've got to imagine, dealing with uncertainty and instability are two skills that you are forced to acquire very quickly. Yes, and I would say,

it gives you a good perspective. You learn not to sweat the small stuff. Yes, yes. And to go to the serenity prayer to just focus on what you control inside of a chaotic or dysfunctional or overwhelming situation, whether it's a pandemic or a company that's spiraling towards the drain, you learn where to get to work. And I've been listening on Audible to this biography of Napoleon by Andrew Roberts.

I've had Andrew Roberts on. You got him on? Incredible book. Yeah, yeah, okay, good book. That's great. One of the things Robert writes about is he writes about kind of Napoleon's mind and how people would say, one of the things Napoleon was incredible when you would watch him at doing was compartmentalizing himself.

The drawers. I think the drawers, yeah, if you have those actually, the drawers. And so, our society, we compartmentalization is it has real negative connotations that you're getting compartmentalized and somebody's just gonna lose it and like your desk is gonna fall apart

and you're just gonna have a big lump of papers. But I think there's something to be set for compartmentalization, you know, as long as you're opening all the drawers, you know, as often as you need to, you know, the ability to be like, okay, that just happened, that's very upsetting, but you gotta deal with this right now.

And I have the ability to refocus, deal with this, and I'll get back to that. And so it was interesting to do kind of when I was just reading that, that really resonated with the thing about the drawers. I feel like that's something that I learned in the military as well, is that just the ability to take things as they come. No, I think generationally that's a problem where I feel like a lot of people I know are very all or nothing about things. So if they don't like this, they're like, I can't focus on this until this is made to go away.

Right. I think politically we're very, we want people to be all good or all bad or things are totally broken. And actually life is really complicated and people are complicated and you have to work with different people on different things and you have to accept something for now knowing like, okay, I don't like this, it's not okay, but I got to deal with X, Y, and Z first and then I'm going to come back to this later.

Yeah, compartmentalization is psychologically probably not super healthy, but as far as like dealing with life, very essential. I remember when I was, when I was in college, I read this memoir, maybe you're familiar with it, it's called, it's by Ernst Younger, he was a German writer in the first world. He was in the first world war, and he was a very well known German writer after he was called the Storm of Steel and it's a memoir of the First World War. Unlike Eric Marie-Romark, or some of these other writers like you, who were all square on the west of front, like, Ernst Younger fought in the trenches from 1914 until 1918 as

a storm troop commander with the Germans. It's like a miracle that Sky's survived, because we had to like 14 times. And he has this part in his book. It's a very mundane thing But he says you know after we would go and do raids and the trenches We will come back to our trenches and I would have everybody I would have I would always order all of my men to eat everyone needs to eat and And he said he would do that because by the physical act of eating It would like prove to them. They were alive still because some of them couldn't believe like after everything that they just seen

They like you know it was so disorient slightly disorient and they need to like reconnect with their body And I sort of put that under thing. It's like the compartmentalization. It's like okay This just happened now you need to go do this To continue moving forward because at the end of the day we all you know, yes, we've got to take care of ourselves We also have to move forward. I remember when I was in Iraq, I fought on Fallujah. I remember, my guys do the same thing. It's like, we're going to eat now.

Everybody needs to eat. And we just sort of watch each other eat. And I remember, oh, I said, it kind of became mantra in our platoon for better or worse, where people would start talking maybe what it happened that day man He did this and he went that and blah blah people will be getting into a trinkers are trying to like make sense Psychically everything that they just seen and we kind of had this discipline We'll be like listen you're gonna have the we're gonna have the rest of our lives to like sit around and bars and tell these stories and

Understand them, but like this is not the top. Like we need to focus on the next thing right now and just put that in, so that's gotta go in the drawer and we can, and we have since, like we've gone to that drawer many times, but now we gotta go forward. Speaking of strategic empathy, I actually just read, do I have it here? Maybe I went through it already.

I just read Andrew Roberts' biography of King George, which is fascinating to think about, like obviously being an American, I've read many, many books on the American Revolution. I never read like the British take on it. And to see it, you're like, oh, this guy was like, kind of doing the best he could. And like also Thomas Jefferson was like a fucking liar.

Like, he goes through the Declaration of Independence, which I've read, and then he's like, you know, there's like 28 causes of complaint in the Declaration of Independence. He's like, all of them are alive. Like, he's like, literally everyone, except for like these two have no basis in reality whatsoever. And you're just like, oh yeah,

like this makes a lot of sense. And it was just a, to, after all this time to experience a historical event, I thought I knew from a different perspective. It was just like, it was very liberating and refreshing and I actually really enjoyed it. Yeah, I'm glad to hear you said I have that book on the show, great title, The Last King of America.

Yes, it's a lot to sit through for someone who you don't actually care that much about, like who's not that interesting, but it was, I don't remember a lot of the specifics, but that was the main thing I took about it. It was like, no, this guy was, if this guy was a tyrant, he probably would have won the war. It's that he wasn't. That was the problem. Well, it's interesting, you know, we kind of get, because, you know, we get served, you know, we get served up and we think of the American Revolution.

And many of our wars, we often will, epic wars, we disconnect them from the ones that come before. I feel like too rarely is the connection between the American Revolution and the French Indian War is not made often enough. They're not in the French Indian War which strain the purse strengths of the British. Then we wouldn't have been screaming about taxes because the British were trying to tax us and we didn't like that kind of precipitates the American Revolution. It's like the same thing,

you know, to the American Civil War. The American Civil War, you know, we talk about it's about slavery, and yet, yes. But like, we don't talk about how the Mexican American War, which was fought right before, the territorial acquisition from that war is what precipitated the crisis that led to the American Civil War

and how all the personalities are the same. I have always found this fascinating as you know just thinking that from the veteran perspective is like you look at George Washington. At the end of the French and Indian war, George Washington is like a relatively kind of failed military officer. He surrendered once to the French. He's not in the best position. And he becomes like this. So I was like, I was kind of like a disgruntled veteran and he becomes the founding father of America. You look at like the American Civil War, you know, in Appomattox when Lee surrenders, and

this is one of my favorite historical anecdotes, Lee walks into Appomattox, Courthouse, and he's wearing, you know, his best uniform, his savers glimmering. And he had fought in the American Wars of Lieutenant Colonel and was a rising star in the US Army at the time. Grant walks into acceptably surrender. And he's not wearing boots. He's wearing a pair of beat up shoes. He's covered in mud. Covered in mud.

And Grant, they're doing it in Grant of one moment, and it looks over to Lee. And Grant had a far less distinguished military career. I would say he was like a disgruntful better buddy of the Mexican America, where he looks at Lee. He's like, you know, we met once before in Mexico. And he looks at him and says, oh, I'm so sorry. I don't recall ever having met you.

You know, like, I just, like, that's, yeah, it's great. But they're so often like we don't make those emotional connections of how the central characters in these wars, like the most similar experience from their youth, was the war that precipitated the one they were defined fighting it. And then geographically, we don't think about it enough, too, right? So one of the, I think this is Bruce Catton's book on, maybe it's a stillness at Appomattox, that I never really thought about before, but he was like, we think of the Civil War as

North and South. And he's like, but actually Grant is coming in from the West, right? And that this is actually the West conquering America. So it's effectively a new kind of America that's not really North. It's not like Grant is some military officer from Boston, right? Like he's, he, this is the frontier. This is a new version of America coming through from that. And then even reading the King George book,

you're like, oh, this was like Benjamin Franklin predicts at first, but he's like, America will outnumber Britain in population like by this year. He's like, it is a certifiable fact. And so it was either America was going to break off or Britain, America would become the capital of the British Empire. It was one of those two choices. And so yet to think about it geographically is also this other layer on it because we so often think about

it as personalities or we think about it as who had the most troops, but it's always layers upon layers. Absolutely. You said, I couldn't agree more, brings to mind a favorite Shelby foot coat of mine when he talks about Gideas Bergen. He says, I'm even going to do my Shelby foot impersonation. Please. At Gideas' book, the Noloath came from the South and the South came from the Noloath.

You know, because he actually forgot that the whole reason Gideas Bergen was promised because the South decided to south came from the north. You know, because you have to go for a good death. The whole reason he's broke his promise was because the south decided to invade the North. Well, I thought of, I almost did my show befoot impression earlier because as you were talking about that I get it, there's a line in the Ken Burns documentary where he said it's probably not true, but you know, some northern soldier asked the southern soldier, why are you fighting here?

And he said, because you're down here. And you're down here. Yeah, that's not how the Civil War actually happened. So it's a historical nonsense, but it makes sense. Well, I think one of this it gets for the motivations. And I think we look at our own Civil War and people still, you know, hotly debate with great emotion today, what the Civil War was about.

And with all sorts of bringing all sorts of freight to that question, I just always thought I'd sort of remarkable that like, you know, that there's some belief that eventually we're going to argue our way to some consensus about what that war was about. The fact that there was no consensus about what the Civil War was about was the reason you had to fight the war. Everyone agrees what the war is about. You don't fight the war. Everyone agrees what the war is about, you don't fight the war. One of the greatest novels I've ever read is called The Theory of War.

It's not actually about war, it's this weird fucked up dark novel that you would love about a white slave in America, like a basically a poor white kid that gets sold. Anyways, she has this great line in the book, the author's Joan Brady, I think. She's saying, you know, Gwen Klauswood said that war is the extension of politics by other means. And she said, but the converse is also true that politics is the extension of war by other means. And that's shaped my understanding of history going forward. And I've talked about this on the podcast before. Like the South loses the Civil War, yes. But then immediately because of the strad, because of the, the, the concessions

we make, the, the South immediately becomes a political force in America once again, because they're like immediately accepted back a lot of the same people hold office. And so effectively, the South just continues to wage some version of the Civil War via normal politics, right? They still replace Blackbeard. And so essentially the war still mates out for a hundred years afterwards until the Civil Rights Movement with the South fighting with gangs and politics and all this stuff. And I've just come to realize that these wars happen, and then there's still this energy, this dark energy from whatever one of the opposing sides was,

and it just moves around. It continues to exist. And they win the peace. But I think this is interesting. You know, I take it all the way further as we're talking about Iraq. You know, now looking back at Iraq, the Iraq war, the consensus is one of the greatness strategic mistakes that was made during the Iraq War was

the debathification of Iraq and the disbanding of the Iraqi military. How can we have been so stupid to have done that? It's like, okay, I'll tell you how you're so stupid to have done that. We invaded Iraq, had this sort of sense that we will be read as liberators, kind of as we were in the Second World War. and one of the things that was critical to do in the Second World War was to de-naughtsify Germany. So we de-naughtsify Germany and then rebuilt it because we had to do that.

You know, we're going to de-naughtsify Iraq. So you can make the art, you know, so you, you can, and I would agree that it was a total disaster trying to de- the debathification of Iraq in a disbanding military, we're fighting all the same people again. But you can flip that just the other way and be like, okay, well let's say, you know, we're saying in 2003, well what happens if we don't, you know, debatify Iraq? Well you're just going to have like reconstruction. You know what I mean? It's failed reconstruction.

It's just going to be like our civil war. It won't work. And then the bathists will win the peace, and this will's all been for not. And it's so difficult. So it's like for every historical narrative as to why you should do something. Like there is also the opposite argument that could be made. And it's pedoubling to try to find the right example on what's going to work. We do this with everything. We're like, well, why didn't Pete Carroll just give the ball to Marshawn Lynch and have him run it through to a touchdown? Right. And it's like, you know, he thought

about that, right? He might have made the wrong decision based on the results, but he did consider, like, it's not like he was unaware that there were a handful of different possibilities for what he could do. He just made the decision based on what he thought would make sense. And if he was right, you would have agreed with him. Right, and it sort of comes to this, and I'd need to go a little bit full circle, it comes to this, like, the serenity prayer. It's tough, like, you know, I mean, come on.

Like, no, imagine if you're the person who's making that call, do we or do we not debat, do we or not, do we or do we not engage in the debatification of Iraq? Do we or do we not act punitively to the South after the Civil War? Or do we act like you do the Lincoln-Malice towards them? What is the right course of action here? I don't think those are easy questions because it can always go either way. No, and if you think they're easy questions,

you're probably wrong. Yeah, and I'm terrified of you. If a person thinks they're easy questions. The argument is probably that we weren't, I think the thing we could all agree, we didn't necessarily have the best people in the position to make those decisions. You know, we weren't necessarily have the best people in the position to make those decisions.

We weren't necessarily putting the most qualified accountable individuals in the position to weigh those two terrible variables or possibilities. But it's interesting, it's again, and it's one of the reasons that Lincoln, as I think I remember so fondly as a president, is because he didn't have to preside over reconstruction. So if Lincoln had lived and presided over failed reconstruction, is he still Lincoln? Yeah. No, there's a great novel I read called The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln. I'm forgetting who it's by, but it's from the perspective of Lincoln survives the assassination

attempt and then is impeached by the radical Republicans for not being extreme enough in reconstruction. It was a fascinating, it could have gone so far. I think it's like, and people forget that ad apematics, one of the things Lee was confronted before that by his generals who were like, no, let's keep fighting. We can wear them down in a guerrilla war. We know we can. And frankly, they very well might, this up, very well might have been able to do that. keep fighting, we can wear them down in a guerrilla war, we know we can.

And frankly, they very well might have been able to do that. If you go about 50 years, we're talking about the Andrew Roberts Napoleon book, you look at how Napoleon did in Spain. It was a disaster for him. So could the South have done that and Lee is the one who's like, we're not going to do that. We're not going to destroy America. It's done.

We're done. I'm telling you, I'm using all my credibility to say where, you know, at least this part of the war ends here. Or maybe Lee was thinking he'd come back like Napoleon a few years later and try it again. Maybe. You know, yeah. Who knows. No, I do feel like that dark energy thing, the more I think about it, the more it holds

up Iraq and Afghanistan being a good example, which is like, yeah, you do this, but you don't address the underlying issue and so it just goes over here. And it feels like we're kind of like so much of the 21st century is us convincing ourselves we've solved some problem, but really we just shoved it down and now it's popping up over here. Do you know what I mean? Absolutely, it's funny.

I've had many a conversation with a different, you know, just friends who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan will kind of say, I wonder how our wars will be remembered. And I think, you know, a general consensus, I would say I've heard from many of them. You know, I think in the grand sweep of history, we're going to kind of be remembered like the veterans of the Boer War.

Like, we were part of this thing that was sort of like a kind of a niche war, but that presaged some bigger thing that was sort of thought, you know, as we were entering a new age. And I don't know what that bigger thing is, we'd probably like that dark energy again. It's like, you look at the end of the First World War. That war ended and there was a lot of dark energy. They got thrown off of that and defying the entire 20th century through the Second World War and the Cold War that followed.

What do you think of the argument that one of the tragedies of the sort of 20 years of the global war on terror is that we went out to fight radicalization and terrorism extremism and radicalization at home. Oh, I think Spencer Akerman had a book. I think they came out late last year that kind of deals with this directly. No relation. No relation. But the I don't think it's like we went to those wars and those wars caused the radicalization at home. I think you're seeing, although I do think the way these wars have ended

and the civil military divide that has been created is something like, it concerns me, particularly as we go from contested election to contested election. And I think it's worth keeping in mind that like when you were the uniform, you know, who the president is, it's not just like, you know, the president you vote for, that's your commander in chief. So all of your orders flow from that individual's authority and legitimacy.

So, you know, if you were the uniform and someone saying the president is not legitimate, like, we've got real problems in the chain of command. That'd be a head for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, we're setting our, you know, we could be setting ourselves up for some type of a crisis there where, you know, because people in uniform have got political beliefs. You're just a culture of omerta when you wear the uniform, but you get pushed hard enough

people will say what they believe. We have not done enough, you know, to do radicalization or polarization at home. And I think, listen, I think the greatest, I think hands down the greatest national security throughout the face of the United States today is our polarization and destruction and health and sound. No question. Yeah, I mean, you look at, I was looking at a study of pandemic responses and the, America, at the outside of the pandemic is predicted to respond best to a pandemic.

Now currently has the highest death rate of any developed country. It's not access to the remedies. It's not any of that stuff. It's almost entirely rooted in the low levels of public trust. And that's really what's responsible for the failure of the vaccination effort, the failure. It's that other countries were like, their government was like, hey, this is what we should do.

And here is why we think we should do it. And more or less, everyone got on the same page. You can't solve, you can't solve difficult problems with a 50, 50 majority, you know? Like, you can't, you can't, you need more people on board. You do. And I think it'll be interesting to see, I mean, I imagine you've had these conversations, I've had them in the past, you know, pre-pandemic where people are like, wow, we're so polarized.

What's it going to take to get everybody on the same sheet of music, kind of how we were after 9-11? Yeah, and then we got hit with the pandemic and I let you probably know the most divisive year I would say in American history, we were in American political history in recent memory, which is 2020, at least since 1968. So the question becomes, is when faced with an external threat can America like, you know, to fists, like we've been able to do in the past, even if most of the time we're kind of like jazz hands and everyone's doing their own thing? Because if you go into a fight like jazz hand, you're going to get punched in the face.

And I don't, you know, I don't know if like some type of existential party nation state threat would cause us to all get on the same sheet of music again, unlike a pandemic, which is sort of faceless, but I don't know, I don't know. And we, and it's, again, that's why I say it's the greatest national security threat we face. It's like we can disagree, but we can disagree to a point and we're living

in totally diversionary realities. Yeah. And by the way, I'm not like saying this as a partisan because I'm frankly, I'm an unabashed both sides. I think they're both fucked. Yeah. I'm assuming I can say on your podcast, but I've already said a minute times. Okay.

I'm not a fan of either of these parties. And I think they are stoking, division in order to secure our rage and through our rage to get our votes. And I mean, it's just it's not taking us in a good direction. So what's the solution for that? It's difficult to know because I think it's a combination of how our politics are organized these days, how we consume our media, how we live our lives. You know, it's really stress testing our republic.

Yeah, so you and I got connected, obviously I read your book, when did Green on Blue come out? I read, I bought it right when it came out. I heard you on MPR and I bought it, and I really enjoyed it. Thank you, 2015. 2015, so I've known about you, I've known you for, or known about you for a while,

but we got connected through Daniel Barkoff and veterans for responsible leadership He and I talked about because you and I've talked about You know writers from the military and then we're just talking about polarization and then veterans and going out in the world He and I talked about Eric right and because I know him a bit I did the marketing for one of his books. That's been an interesting thing for me to watch. I don't wanna say a cautionary tale, it's an interesting for me to watch. Like when you just watch someone you know,

just change. And it's like, what is that? What forces are acting on a person that makes them become a very different kind of person? I was curious if you had a perspective on that, both being White House Fellows and writers and veterans. Yeah, I think people want people want to hold on to what they got, right? Yeah. how are they willing to contort themselves and compromise themselves to hold on to it?

You know, and it's like it can be disappointing and sad to see. So I think, oh listen, I think there's this idea that, you know, if you're a citizen of our country like ours, citizenship comes with certain obligations. And, you know, if someone is really willing to compromise those obligations to advance themselves over the collective, and if that becomes like the organizational culture of the nation, the nation of true narcissists, it's very difficult to hang together. Yeah, I'm always, and I fear that's where, I don't know, I fear that's like where we're at,

or at least not all, at least our political class, it seems like there's a very healthy majority that like that's where they're at. And I'm not saying everyone, you know, like I have friends I know who saying everyone, you know, like I, you know, I have, you know, friends I know who hold office, who I really admire and think are doing a good job in a very tough situation. But there certainly, I think it seems like a majority now who kind of have gone the other way.

Yeah, I'm always interested. I think it's a helpful exercise when you, when someone has a very similar background or history than you, and then you see them go in a very different direction. I try not to be judgmental. I try to go like, how could that happen to me? Like, how does one prevent that from happening, right? And so it struck me that you guys have similar backgrounds,

but have gone in very different directions. And I think there's a few sort of avatars that I have for people with different backgrounds than me. And I just, I try to be sort of a there, but for the grace of God, go, I kind of a take on. Sure. Sure, you know, just like at a certain point, it's like, I don't know, just like, come on, man.

Yeah, it's weird. I don't know what to say. I'm just like, come on, man. Yeah, like, you know, don't know to say I said come on man. Yeah, like you know You know not to do this is it is it power is agreed? Is it fear? Is it desperation? I can't quite figure out what compels a person to go that way I think it's a desire to you know to people cling to power I mean they and it's not even like insane power.

I mean, if you're a congressman, it's a good gig. And it might, you know, and it might let the only gig you got, and you can't believe you like badness thing. You're the congressman, you know, you, this, yeah, oh my God, I want. Yeah. And you like that.

And then you're told, you know, well, you want, but you gotta do this, you gotta do that, you know, and you like that. And then you're told, you know, well, you won, but you got to do this, you got to do that, and the compromise is a crew. So, again, I'm not like saying this with judgment. I believe like people, the problem, and I don't, I firmly believe that the problem that we're dealing with in that country isn't that we don't have good people. I think you get people individually, but I don't think the majority of these people who are behaving this way are bad people, I'm sure some of them just are horrible, icky, but I think the majority are actually pretty good people.

They're just stuck in a system that is like, this is not a good, this is not a healthy system. And we've got issues, whether it's the way our social media, and all of our media rewards outrageous behavior and rewards rage, the way politicians have to earn money and constantly be going after money, raising money, all of it. It's not leading to positive outcomes. I hate that because I feel like it's such a cop, but it's the system. It's not leading to positive outcomes. I hate that.

I feel like it's in your cop, it's the system, but it's sort of, there are parts of the system that are creating the outcomes that we get. I'm worried about. The one thing I will say that, again, I touched on this before, that worries me the most is, I feel like we have this civil military divide.

And you're not talking about the 500-pound gorilla in the room when we're like saying that someone's a Russian agent and no, you're not legitimate and this person's not legitimate and the president's not an American citizen and like all this crazy stuff is like, you know, and people, you know, and I've seen this sort of thing, you might have seen this like this spade of like, you know, American Civil War books that came out late last year, like what would it look like? And I've read a couple of them. And the thing that kind of struck me is like,

there was always one scenario or there was like, well, you know, the right wing will have an advantage because they'll have the most AR-15s and they're the most heavily armed. And like, that's a refrain. I think that's a foolish refrain. It's like, listen, if this thing were to go, you know where all the guns are gonna come from,

it's not gonna be all the people with their AR-15s. It's gonna be our massive, you know, more than one million strong military and all of these bases, like AR-15, put an AR-15 up against a Bradley Bradley fighting vehicle, see what happens. And when these things, you know, I covered the war in series, a journalist,

like the thing that sent the Syrians to the war, high order, because it start his air-screen protests was you got about three or four months into those protests and that military, which was also had a divide, you know, Sunni Shia divide, the Sunis, after, however many times it being told to crush these protests or be told open fire on the protesters, and a bunch of them finally said enough,

like we're not doing this. And oh, by the way, we're not doing this and where do you want our tanks and our troops' protesters? Because you have a right to protest and where would you? And we go contest an election, a contest an election. And again, I'm talking to you from DC today. In 2020, DC was boarded up. Like head Trump won the election.

There would have been protests. And had those protests happen, they would have equaled what happened in the summer of 2020. And you probably would have had Tom Cotton probably would have penned another op-ed saying, we got a you, you know, calling, you know, evoke the insurrection act sending the 82nd Airborne Division. And like, what happens if you send those guys in? And what happens if at a certain point, one of them is like, I'm not opening up on these protesters with rubber bullets or CS. I'm not clearing a lot of wayette Park a second time

in the same year, no way. Do it yourself, Mr. President. Well, I don't know, that's the stuff that scares me. Went to go to the US Civil War, what happened is the South seized those military bases, right? They weren't fighting with weapons that they had on their farms, right? They seized weapons from the federal armory,

and then now you had two armies. You had two United States armies that were fighting each other. Absolutely, and look, and every, and every facet of our life right now, you've got someone telling you that you have to choose. What are you? You're gonna wear a mask, are you not gonna wear a mask?

Are you for the green new deal? Are you not for the green new deal? Like everywhere, everything you do, there's some political choice you're not for the new deal, like everywhere, everything you do, there's some political choice you're happy to make. When you read like the US Civil War, yes, some people, but many of those people particularly they like the active duty army officers, when it happens, like, you know, the lies and the others are, they're not like, all right, Civil War, just really wanted, they're like, Jesus Christ. Yeah.

Can't believe it's come to this and I've got to choose. And they sat there and like they all are having like had this like dark night of the soul. What do I do? Is my allegiance to my country or to my state? And by the way, like before 1861 that was like a very active, you know, constitutional issue in the United States. And they all chose.

And they had to. And so I don't say it's to be overly alarmist, but I feel like, how's we've just totally created this military subclass that exists in our society? We take it for granted. It's like, we take it for granted, and we're driving drunk politically. Like, we have no idea.

And we've got a 500 pound gorilla in the car next to us who you know if we screw this up could just level our society. So when I hear people talking about an American Civil War and which side has the most AR-15s I'm like dude you are missing the point. And it's yeah not highly militarized aside it's not how it's going to go down. Yes yes. No and I think what's interesting about that idea of the choice, though, and you're talking about the system that makes a person away, I think that's, again, back to the empathy

that I think characterizes your work, but it's also interesting about it, though, when you look at someone like Eric or some of these other people that I think you and I both know, it's like, the system is all there, those incentives are there, but but ultimately the individual has to make the choice. Are you going to be, of course, are you going to, are you going to be that person, are you going to make the thing worse, or are you going to go the other direction? It is interesting to see, it's interesting and tragic and sad and also I think cautionary when you're like, hey, some people, they just, they make the choice. And it's the scary thing.

Yeah, absolutely. It's a very human thing, too. Yes. So, you know, I feel like it was, it was, it was ever thus. But I don't know, listen, I hope, I hope we pull out of this spiral and I think we can. I remain optimistic about America. I don't think anyone really likes living like this. I don't know, maybe we'll come out of this pandemic and we'll all remember that we like seeing each other. And that we don't want to go back to hating in the way we've been hating

the next few years. But I don't know if it's a failure complete. And frankly, like, I think it takes leadership. Like, you know, we need good leadership, and I don't mean just like, you know, the, our American obsession with the presidency, like there are many other leaders in our society who are not whoever's sitting in the Oval Office, and perhaps the president sitting in the Oval Office can't really be that leader. No, any more. No, and that's what makes it so alarming when those lower level leaders drop the obligation

of leadership to pursue personal interest, or, you know, I don't really believe this, but it's what I need to do to get to the next level of leadership, you know, that sort of abdication of responsibility. Well, in a sense of like, I mean, listen, I have four kids. So it's this sort of, you know, you realize, like, you have to raise and teach people to like love and value the country country or else guess what? They just don't. We're how the country works. Right? Like, yeah, how the country works and right. For like how it works, like, I feel like this old cadre, but I'm like, civics, we need more

civics. And who's celebrated? Yeah, for sure. Who are heroes? This country. Like who are heroes? Yeah, for sure. Who are heroes is country like who are heroes? I mean, and it makes me sad like to see that I feel like my generation like of my kids like they don't have those. You know, my, you know, my son goes to school every day wearing a number 17 O'Cala and hockey jersey because his hero is O'Hala hand from the 1980 miracle on ice. And the Olympics are going on right now and there's no one he's looking at the Olympics like that's my hero. Right. Yeah, no, that's a good point.

Yeah, and then even your point about civics, I've read an interesting piece there. Everyone says, let's just teach people civics. And they're like, that might be a fantasy because we might just politicize the teaching of civics, the way that we're currently politicizing critical race theory and the debate about how to teach history. Of course.

And the thing that's been interesting to me in the last couple of years too, is as I travel the country, I feel like I used to travel, I travel around America and I'm in America. Now, I actually really feel like I'm crossing borders and I go to different parts of America. I'm not trying to put one part of America.

I'm just like, wow, I'm in a different place right now. I was in Utah a few months ago. I don't like, man, Utah is not the East Coast. I might sound like really dumb and I'm sitting here saying this, but it's not the first time I've been to sound like really dumb and I'm sitting here saying this, but like, you know, it's not the first time I've been to Utah, but this time when I went in, when a couple years, I was like, oh, man, I just like I really felt the difference

in a way I hadn't felt before, as I think our subcultures are becoming much more defined in this country. Who in the pandemic has turned things that ordinarily wouldn't be indicators of anything into like I drove from Austin to the Gulf Coast. And the difference between Austin, Houston, New Orleans, Gulf shores, Pensacola, it was like each one of those, even in the South was it's totally different community

that lived with very different understandings of the same pandemic that's killing the same 2500 people a day, it's just like, wow, okay, this is, if we can't agree on this, how are we gonna agree on other stuff? Yeah, so I just think there's been a real vulcanization of our culture. You know, and that's no good.

I mean, culture, particularly in democracy, culture is everything. Yeah. Well, you're a country ruled by public opinion. So, if you don't have a consensus in public opinion, it doesn't mean it has to be one way or another. But if you can't get to a majority, the whole thing grinds to a halt. And a real majority.

Right, not a four, not what Republicans are trying to do, which is effectively rule as a majority from a small tent minority. That's what I think again, again, I'm on both sides, it's like, either if we're in elections, we're year to year, whoever wins is winning by like three percentage points. And then that side rules as though, like from the extreme of their party, from their right or their left flank, that's how they rule, it's like you just have this like flip flop

and tyranny of like 47 over 53, then it's 53 over 47, and everyone else is miserable. Like there has to be more of like let me just Well when I was a kid when I was growing up, you know, I remember I don't know the 1996 Bill Clinton Bob the whole election. Yeah I don't think anyone really cared who went that election like it wasn't a big deal You know, we were like we were kind of good like country, you, you know, there's now, I mean, it's an existential crisis. And we swing serratically, and it's tough.

Like you wake up on a Monday and you're living in Obama's America, you wake up on a Tuesday and you're living in Donald Trump's America. Like it's tough to get your head around that. It's nuts, man. And the system is not designed to work without a majority. And so it's unique and senseless, like real consensus. If you look at the major pieces of American legislation that passed in the 20th century, things like, you know, civil rights, the highway bill, you know, like a big marquee ones,

they were all passed with the majority of the minority parties supporting the legislation. And because of that, when the minority party took power, the majority of that minority had voted for legislation, so they didn't run on trying to, like, there's no one running on trying to overturn civil rights, or like, I'm going to overturn the highway bill. But now, because the way we govern is you gain a super majority, and you cram through your legislation, like we see in the Senate now, you know, it's like, well, they cram it through and then literally the next thing that happened is the other party's like, no, we're getting rid of this legislative achievement, it's all going back.

And the result is like unstable governance for all of us. That is a- You still don't know if you're going to have your healthcare. Yeah, that's not good. It's not good. Not good at all. Well, man, this was really fun. I can't wait to talk about the new book and will you come back on for it? That would not good. It's not good. Not good at all. Well, man, this was really fun. I can't wait to talk about the new book.

And will you come back on for it? That would be awesome. Yeah, absolutely. That would be a pleasure. You know, the Stoics in real life met at what was called the Stoa. The Stoa, Pocula, the Painted Porch, and Ancient Athens. Obviously, we can't all get together in one place.

Because this community is like hundreds of thousands of people, and we couldn't fit in one space. But we have made a special digital version of the stove. We're calling it Daily Stoic Life. It's an awesome community. You can talk about like today's episode. You can talk about the emails, ask questions. That's one of my favorite parts.

It's interacting with all these people who are using stoicism to be better in their actual real lives. You get more daily stoke meditations over the weekend, just for the daily stoke life members, quarterly Q&As with me, cloth bound addition of our best of meditations, plus a whole bunch of other stuff, including discounts and this is the best part. All our daily stoke courses and challenges, totally for free, hundreds of dollars of value every single year, including our new year, new you challenge.

We'd love to have you join us. There's a two week trial, totally for free. Check it out at dailystokelife.com. [♪ Music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, music playing, You can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.