The Pomp Podcast - #523: Chris Miller on Leading the Defense Industry During War

Episode Date: March 30, 2021

Chris Miller previously served as Acting United States Secretary of Defense. Before that, Miller served as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Prior to serving in civilian leadership at the Department of Defense, Miller was a Green Beret, commanding 5th Special Forces Group in Iraq and Afghanistan.  This episode is co-hosted with my wife, Polina Pompliano, the founder of The Profile.  In this conversation, we discuss the invasion of Afghanistan, America’s wars in the Middle East, leadership training, Special Forces, and what it is like to be the acting Secretary of Defense. ======================= Public Rec is the first to bring tailored sizing to leisurewear so that you don’t have to choose between comfort and style. They make leisurewear in waist and inseam sizes because they believe comfort starts with a better fit. And when things fit better, they look better. No tailors. No settling. No stress. Comfort and style, all in one. Check out publicrec.com/pomp and use POMP10 at checkout for 10% off your order. Step into a better fit today with Public Rec. ======================= As one of the largest and oldest Bitcoin exchanges in the world, Kraken is consistently named one of the best places to buy and sell crypto online, thanks to our excellent service, low fees, versatile funding options and rigorous security standards -- but this is only part of the story. We’ve been on the forefront of the blockchain revolution since 2011: http://www.kraken.com ======================= Coinbase Wallets are adding support for .crypto and .zil domains through their partnership with Unstoppable Domains. Unstoppable Domains provides an all-in-one solution for blockchain domains. You can send money using these new domains instead of long Bitcoin wallet addresses, while also storing your domain in Coinbase's collectibles section. Go to unstoppabledomains.com in the dapp browser to register and manage your domains.  =======================

what's up everyone this is anthony pompliano most of you know me as pomp you're listening to the pomp podcast simply the best podcast out there let's kick this thing off chris miller previously served as acting united states secretary of defense before that miller served as the director of the national counter and terrorism center prior to serving in civilian leadership at the department of defense miller was a green beret commanding fifth special forces group in Iraq and Afghanistan. This episode is co-hosted with my wife, Polina Pompliano, the founder of The Profile. In this conversation, we discuss the invasion of Afghanistan, America's wars in the Middle East, leadership training, special forces, and what it is like

to be the acting Secretary of Defense. I really enjoyed this conversation with Chris, and I think you will as well. But before we get into this episode, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is Public Rec. They're first to bring tailored sizing to leisure wear so that you don't have to choose between comfort and style. They make leisure wear in waist and inseam sizes because they believe comfort starts with a better fit. And when things fit better, they look better. No tailors, no settling, no stress. Comfort and style all in one. I've got to say, I've been wearing Public Rec and I absolutely love it. If you're looking for comfortable clothes that you can just wear around the house or wear out on the town,

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Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. All right, Chris, so you have an incredible story.

Can we start with where were you and what were you doing on September 11th, 2001? I got to tell you, I don't think I have an incredible story. I have a story and I did my job and that's what the country expected of me. And there are so many people that did way more. At the end of the day, though, the American people paid me to do my job. September 11th, 2001 was one of those days. And I think it's interesting you bring that up because a lot of people, the younger people now don't recall the searing experience that that had for so many of us. I went for a, it was in the morning and it was a beautiful, it was a beautiful fall day.

Just one of those magical days. And the non-commissioned officer that I was working with, Sergeant Major Mel Bynum, was my partner. And we decided to go for this beautiful run in the morning. And we ran around. We were at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. We were in the 5th Special Forces Group, which is the special forces group that's responsible. Special forces groups are responsible for different parts of the world. Our part of the world was the Middle East. And we went for a run, and it was just magnificent.

And it was one of those days that starts and you're just like, this is going to be a great day. You know, thinking about going home early, you know, take the kids out and got in the car and we're driving back to work because we were at an out. We were at this outstation called Clarksville Base. It's just one of those days. And on the radio, I was listening to this really probably inappropriate morning show. It's called the John Boy and Billy Show. It's only in the South. Right. It was really funny at the time. And all of a sudden, the announcer broke in and said, hey, something's happened. And it wasn't funny. It was like something really dramatic has changed in our lives. We have a report of a plane crashing in the World Trade Center. And it was just so striking the tone of voice. There was no joking anymore. You're like, okay. And as you recall, like back in 1942, I'm making that up, some plane, small plane crashed into the Empire State Building. so the pundits were like oh maybe it's nothing by the time we got back to work and i walked in

to our intelligence section in the in the unit i was i was in third battalion fifth special forces group walk in there and you know how sometimes history when you look back on things you're like yeah i really experienced that or did my mind create that after the fact well and so i've thought about this a lot. I walked in, they had the TV on and we saw the second plane go into the building. And I always have to think back. I'm like, did you really see that? Or have you just seen it happen so many times? I was, so that happened and I was like, is that live? And everybody goes, that's live. And I said, okay, our world's just changed at that moment. And it was funny. Well, it wasn't funny. That's a horrible word to say. We just, we knew that

we were going to go to war. I don't know why. And I was called, I was a company commander, which is a major, which is, I was responsible for six 12-man A-teams. And there were men at the time. Now, thank goodness, there are women in them. Biggest change we should have done 20 years ago, but that's neither here nor there. Thank goodness. But at the time, they were 12-man A-teams. And the 12-man special forces A-team consists of two medics, two engineers, two communications experts, two weapons experts, two senior non-commissioned officers that handle operations and intelligence, and then two officers. So I was in charge of six of those. And what I had was called, that's an A-team. I had a B-team, which is a headquarters element of

about 10 people. So we're like, wow, something just changed. I got called over to the battalion headquarters battalion headquarters there's a team company commander battalion so battalion has three companies each company has six a teams so in the battalion they're 18 a teams we went into the battalion commander's office and what i really recall was this hey there's nothing to see here you know things happen in the world all the time just dial it down a notch that's that's what i that's what I heard. I'm like, no, the world fundamentally changed. And here was the crazy thing. And this is the genius of special forces that I don't think I really appreciated at the time. We left that meeting and I walked over to the company I command and it was this old crappy

World War, it wasn't World War II, it was Vietnam era building. It was just nasty. And we had this long hall and I walked in and every A-team had pulled all their equipment out of their wall lockers and had lined it up in the hallway and everybody's going through checking their equipment checking batteries making sure things are maintained making sure nothing's broken and i was like okay game on they knew so our a teams were like they knew we're going to war and they're like what's up sir and i'm like keep going we're going to war but that was not the instructions i was given from my higher headquarters at that time but we all knew the game was on and we were going to be a critical part of that. We knew it was bin Laden. Don't jump ahead of yourself. This

isn't al-Qaeda. We're like, yeah, it is. So Chris, when you think about kind of the days after September 11th, there was a whole bunch in the public sphere of what happened, who did it, why, and kind of a crash course, if you will, on extremism, especially on the religious front in the Middle East and kind of why there would be such deep hatred for America and the American ideals. What was transpiring at the highest levels of our military over those days? So on September 11th, specifically, it was dial it down. You know, this isn't a big deal. But at some point between that and I think early December of 2001, we end up training and invading Afghanistan. And so kind of how do we get from the response on September 11th, which was maybe a little bit

more lackadaisical to actually going to Afghanistan. Thanks, Anthony. And so it was so interesting. I was like an eyewitness to history. I call it like the fly on the wall. Like, I don't know why I experienced all this serendipity, fate, karma. I really don't know what it is. And as the things developed, you've read in the books now that there was a Camp David meeting, like right after the 11th, where I think, who was director, George Tenet, I think was director of the CIA at the time. And there was this meeting with President Bush, where they're like, Tenet's like, we're going to get this on. And the other guy, Kofor Black, was the head of counterterrorism, legendary guy, let the flies walk over their eyeballs or something. I forgot that, you know, he had this

great line that still resonates. I just remember, so I didn't know that meeting happened. I was instructed by our group commander group a team company battalion group group has three battalions of you know three companies of six a teams i know it's confusing as heck but that's that's the big deal and at the time it was a guy named legendary guy colonel john mulholland he retired as a lieutenant general just absolutely legendary figure that i've just like been a mentor to me He's like, oh, my gosh, he's like my second father. I can't say enough good about him. I'd worked with then Colonel Mulholland prior and he goes, Chris, go down to the United States Central Command. That's the that's CENTCOM. That's the that's the military organization that's responsible for the Middle East.

And go down there. And his instructions were, get us in the fight. And I was like, I know how that means. Mission type order. That's pretty good. went down there, left on the 16th of September. The reason I remember that date is it's my anniversary. And usually my wife would be extremely upset with me for taking off on our anniversary. And this was the one time she's like, get the hell out of here. It was really, and that's when I knew it was serious. You know, I knew it was serious. Thousands of Americans were killed. I'm like, wow, went down there. And here was what I learned, Anthony. And people will now say, oh, that's revisionist history. I'm just going to try to relate to you what I experienced

at the time. I was a Green Beret. I was a special forces officer. The purpose of United States Army Special Forces Green Berets is to conduct unconventional warfare. Unconventional warfare is when small teams, 12-man teams or smaller, go behind enemy lines into a hostile nation-state that's controlled by a hostile regime, in this case, the Taliban. You go behind enemy lines, you link up with resistance forces, insurgents, guerrillas, and then you, we, Green Berets, will provide them training, advice, support, air support, logistics support, and help them take back their country from the reigning ruling regime. So, you know, I'd been in special forces at that point, 2001. I went in Special Forces in 93. Do the math. I'm not going to do public math

and just destroy your podcast. And went in there and we're like, this is what the regiment was created to do. The Special Forces Regiment, the Green Berets had never truly conducted an unconventional warfare campaign. The reason Special Forces and unconventional warfare, If you recall World War Two and you recall occupied France and small commando elements dropped in before D-Day and worked with McKee and the resistance forces and brought them together and help them and communicate. That's kind of what our thing was. And then after World War Two, there were these visionary people that Aaron Bank and some others that father special forces said, we can't get rid of this because the Soviet Union is going to invade Western Europe. So we're going to have these green berets, they're going to stay behind, or they're going to jump behind enemy lines. And then we're going to have this, this inflame, flames are going to build in the rear

of the Soviets. And we're going to, you know, take them out from behind. So that was, that's kind of the classic unconventional warfare. That's what special forces, green berets were created to do. And we'd never really done it. Some people will say, oh, we kind of did it here. And they're like we never did it so i'm gonna get hate mail now oh actually chris and 1982 in pakistan you know whatever i'm just saying that we really hadn't done it and so going down there was like we know what to do this is this is tailor-made for unconventional warfare here's the thing the military doesn't always like the weirdos special operators because they kind of like they don't wear uniforms all the time they grow their hair long facial hair stuff that the big

military typically doesn't like and the big military was like we have a plan what we're going to do is we're going to go invade the country and this is how we're going to do it we have all these forces in europe tanks you know bradley fighting vehicles tons of infantrymen artillerymen and what we're going to do is we're going to put them on trains we're going to move down to Uzbekistan. We're in a mass combat power through the winter. And when the spring, because you know, the mountains, you know, all this stuff you brought up, like we didn't know a lot about it. We'd heard you read, read, read your Kipling and watched, you know, movies and we're like, this is going to be really bad. So the military, the large military was like very conventional

approach and they were going to come down there and build combat power. And then in the spring, They do this big, you know, tanks coming across bridges and floating, you know, crossing rivers and stuff and and helicopters flying in and all this stuff. And we're like, yeah, we don't have time for that. And so it was one of those moments where the senior leadership was desperate for solutions. And I think the CIA had come up with some ideas, too, like I noted earlier in their meeting at Camp David with President Bush. so it this was my interpretation and i was there by the way was oh crap we need some ideas to secretary rumsfeld like yesterday anybody have them and all of a sudden those of us that were green berets it was like hey are there any green berets here like no you forgot about us here we

are we're just sitting here drinking coffee we got the call and they're like we need a concept yesterday. We'd already had it done. Bob Kelly, there were just some remarkable, remarkable people down there. And I think it became, oh, okay, well, we got to do something. Yeah, let the Green Berets go do their thing. Let them mess around. And then they'll kind of prepare for when the major military forces move in. And then when the spring offensive comes, they can help with that. So that was my recollection, and it's right, on how that thing went down. And so, Chris, when you think about the actual kind of initial invasion, for those who have watched the movie 12 Strong, it's, from my understanding, pretty accurate in the sense that we literally dropped off a couple

of Americans when they did their thing. And so when you're seeing that kind of in preparation, then it actually starts to happen. Talk a little bit about just the uncertainty and the unknown, And especially when you're in a position more of kind of command and control in the position of leadership and you're sending, you know, what is deemed to be the the most physically fit kind of our best warfighters into this situation. But fully understanding, you know, we haven't done this before. Right. And and there's going to be a lot of things that we're going to learn. And the people on the ground are going to have to use the training that they have and frankly, just their intuition to to survive and thrive in this environment. And so kind of as it's actually transpiring, what's going through your head or what are the memories that you have kind of being in that leadership position? I just remember a couple a couple things. Boy, I'm going to have to sleep well the night after this.

Oh, no. I just remember like General Colonel Mulholland at the time. He's a colonel. That's like that's like mid-level management. Right. and here he is in charge of the most significant military operation in modern history and he's the one who's making the decision i'm not making the decisions about who's going into harm's way and when they do it and how they do it he is uh i'm just i'm just the spring but if you will like hey we need to go faster and i i don't even know why he still talks to me because i was such a difficult young person at the time. How old were you, by the way, Chris? 30. Let's see. Don't do public math. I was born in 65. So what was I? 36-ish at the time. And here's the thing. The

brilliance of the Special Forces Regiment, the Green Berets, it's not the officers. It's these incredible non-commissioned officers. Non-commissioned officers versus a commissioned officer. A commissioned officer is commissioned by Congress, usually as a college degree. The problem with special forces is, you know, three quarters of your non-commissioned officers all have more better degrees than you have because they're just incredibly capable and self-starters. And they're like, well, I'm going to get my college degree and I'm going to get my master's while I'm at it. So it kind of puts the thing in the head of the military where the hierarchy, the powers with non-commissioned officers, the experts. And I got to tell you, at the time we

went into Afghanistan, it was a really rare time. And you brought up 12 strong. That team was led by Mark Nutsch. Mark Nutsch, great guy. He's a captain, right? He's got like six years in the army. He's the new guy. Bob Pennington is the next guy who is his warrant officer, his second in command. Bob had been in, he'd been an NCO. He'd been in a warrant officer. This dude had forgotten more about special forces than mark mooch ever knew mark's gonna kill me when he hears that and then i'm just kidding mark and then you had 10 ncos that were had been the team sergeant the head guy had been on that team for 15 years he had been a team sergeant probably for four years these folks had most of them had been in somalia or had been in desert storm in 1991

one, but they'd had 10 years where there was no money. You didn't get to do anything. And these guys were hyper creative, hyper creative. And these guys decided it's brilliant. They're like, Hey, what are the two things that we can't do in two weeks to prepare? You can't do language proficiency and you can't do physical fitness. So all they did was study language. In this case, We studied the wrong one, by the way, although Russian helped in some ways. But, you know, Pashtun, there are only a handful of people that spoke Pashtun. So you had this core, enormously talented, experienced people. And it doesn't exist right now.

And that's not a criticism of the regiment because we've been at war for 19 years. And we've had to cycle more and people get injured and killed. But it was a really rare moment in the history of the Special Forces Regiment of the Green Berets. So it's like, you guys, go. You figure it out. And Colonel Mulholland was brilliant. He would do the risk assessment, right? And so he was constantly dealing with Washington, D.C. But down and in, you just trust your people. You're like, hey, so Colonel Mulholland's key task was to determine, he had a great partner from the CIA, what groups should we support? because there's everybody coming to the table like, hey, why don't you come help us? We didn't want to embarrass the United States by supporting some horrible person. You can argue whether we got it right or not.

We were kind of busy at the time. So that was the key thing, was figuring out who that was. And then it's an act of faith. Colonel Mulholland would give them a launch order, and they would get on the back of helicopters and fly through these. Colonel Mulholland tells a great story. He was under unbelievable pressure to get in, get in, get in. It's like the weather's not right.

The weather's not right. They were flying through the Hindu Kush. And these helicopters were at max capacity, right? Like they're redlining. They're on the absolutely outside of the envelope for their performance. And Colonel Mulholland, I don't know how he did it, superhero to me. He was getting pressure from Secretary Rumsfeld and probably from the West Wing as well. Like, get going.

He held his line. The parameters are this. We will not violate the parameters. He told me later that Secretary Rumsfeld came in for a visit after things had calmed down. They flew him on one of the routes where literally the walls of the helicopters, or I'm sorry, the walls of the valleys are literally five feet from the rotor blades. And then it was like, you get it now? you understand why I was holding off. So that was the thing. You talked about physical fitness. So

you're going in there. You don't know how long you're going to be there. And Green Berets always over-prepare. The problem is that ends up being, you carry everything in your back. You have what's called a rucksack, a backpack. You're putting 150 pounds in there and then you have to move. So here, the guys came up with this crazy idea. They're like, hey, those John Deere gators that we see them driving around at range control so we're like sure why not so we cleaned out clarksville tennessee of every uh gator vehicle and what they did because it was really small they could put it back in the back of the helicopter and then they piled all their crap in there so they're very light they're just in their combat equipment so they can move and fight

And following behind is the junior guy who is the new guy. He's driving the Gator, which was another example of innovation. That's not in the manual. Like, hey, we got an idea. We called it a mobile mission support site. Usually you pile all your stuff up and you leave it there and then you can come back. And they're like, we can't. We don't know where we're going.

So they created a mobile mission support site using John Deere Gators. It was crazy. So that's how they afforded kept their fitness up, because when you're carrying 150 pound rucksack, it crushes you. I mean, it physically, mentally destroys you and your combat ineffective after six hours. Can you can you talk about I'm fascinated by what it takes that you just mentioned physically to prepare for a mission like that. but how do you get trained mentally? Like how, how can you prepare for uncertainty and not knowing what's going to happen at all? Well, first off these morons, and I say that with the, with great love, uh, our next level, they're always looking, the Green Berets are always

looking to improve their performance. So before it was cool to, you know, read self-actualization books and, and think about mental performance, think fast and slow or whatever that book is, I'm going to read that. I started it, but man, that's a long book. I got through the, I got through this, uh, introduction, you know, the one I'm talking about, they're always talking about, and it's like, what makes special forces special? And we came to the decision, you know, it's not equipment. It's not, um, it's not, um, it's not always training, but it's always looking for the next edge. So we, we'd identified that way before it was cool. Like mental performance is critical, but here's how it starts it's pretty brutal it starts with like i want to be a green beret

because i don't want to be uh i want to have some autonomy i want to have some authority i want to have some creativity so i want to leave the big military that doesn't always embrace it not sometimes it does but typically not and then they see like these you know green berets that you know get to drive wear civilian clothes and drive civilian cars uh and not have to get yelled at for, and have to pick up cigarette butts in the courtyard, et cetera, what the military typically does a lot of times. So these people volunteer and they go to this thing called Special Forces Assessment and Selection. It's a three-week Rube Goldberg insanity where you go in there and you've been brought up in the military where you're told what to do every single moment of the

You will be at this place at six o'clock. There are 600. You will be in this uniform. You will do exactly this. You'll walk in formation. And then you end up with this at this Fort Camp McCall at Fort Bragg. You show up there. They tell you you will have these are the required items. These are the things you can't bring. And then you show up there and you dump all your stuff out and the sergeant looks at it and make sure you have everything. And here's the crazy thing. You can like I took like two cartons of cigarettes and because it wasn't on the list of things you can't take cigarettes because in these training events, cigarettes are worth food. It's kind of like jail time. So the guy's like, the NCO is like, huh, haven't seen that. You smoke a lot. And I'm like, nope, starting now. And he just started laughing. He goes, well, usually people try to stop smoking here. I haven't seen that. And right there, you know, like I'm in a weird place, right? The guy actually laughed. So you're down there and all, everybody wants detailed instructions. They have a board and they're like, what do we do? Sergeant, what are we doing tomorrow? Take your instructions from the board. There's a board, and it'll say 0600,

this uniform, 35-pound rucksack. You're like, ooh, okay. No other instructions in that. You show up at 0600, you got your uniform, you got your 35-pound rucksack, and the sergeant gets up and goes, the next selection event is you will move under your own power over land for a set distance you're like okay what else how long we going how fast are we supposed to go because there's always standards in the army like you will do at this and you're kind of shocked and you're waiting so of course somebody's like sergeant how how how far are we going a set distance like what the heck did we get into then hey sergeant how much time do we have do the best you can. So it always became read the board, move over land and do the best you can.

So that takes that people, some people would collapse because they're like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. But the people that thrive in environments where it's, where it is flexible and not predictable, just thrive there. And so that's how they break it out is just you're put in this situation where if you're not an independent operator, you will either fail or you'll self-select and drop out. And so people are just constantly dropping out. And the good people, great people, they're like, I can't do this. I mean, this is ridiculous. I need somebody to tell me what the hell to do every day, which is fine. We need that in the army too. So that's really how that's the indoctrination. And then you go through a year long training program where

once you're through that, and it's really a gut check at the end of the day, it's like, they're looking for people that won't quit. And you get a point in those things where you just become angry and you're like, I'm not going to quit. I'll die first. You hear Navy SEAL teams in hell week. You know, I love watching the discovery channel where they do the hell week thing. And I love listening to the instructors when they go, yep, we know almost to the hour when the last person will quit. And then at that point, you know, we've broken them all down. And at that point, these people are going to quit the only way they're going to, they're not going to quit. They're going to be disabled, permanently disabled, or they're going to die. And at that

point, I love that part with the SEAL teams where they go, now we're going to rebuild them. We're going to build them in our image. And the same thing happens in special forces assessment and selection, you hit a point where you're like, you're just so doggone angry. You're like, hell with it. I'm not quitting. I don't care. They can do anything to me. I will not quit. That's what you want in a Green Beret. And so Chris, when you think about kind of the team dynamics and communication specifically, right? If you really think of what makes these great teams is each individual person has a certain amount of strength, both physically and mentally. They can shoot, move and communicate at a very, very high level of proficiency. But also they

have great ability to work within a team. And so it's not just about the individual strength, it's actually their ability and their cohesiveness with the rest of the team. And some of that is they may be naturally good at it, but also there's just the constant repetition and practice and kind of training that goes into it. But then you actually add another level of complexity, which is you have a team on the ground. And that team on the ground is probably better equipped than most on the battlefield, both with the physical gear that they have, but also all of the support, whether it's air support, medical support, and then also kind of the command and control that they can communicate with. And so how did you think about the idea of, you know,

at the absolute atomic level of the individual soldier, we have the best of the best on the ground. And then when they're together on a team, we need them to be able to work together. But then also we need them to be able to communicate with people who are not there on the ground and be able to do that effectively so that we can help them. And so when you get through those multiple levels of complexity, are there certain lessons that you've learned over the years or takeaways that you have that you say, look, whether it's, you know, on the battlefield or inside a corporation, or if you're the founder of a company, like these are the things that you learned from a leadership perspective to, uh, to kind of integrate across those different

perspectives. Wow. That's a, that's a heck of a question. That's, that's a big one. Uh, I'll take it by chunks. I'll try to take it by chunks. Uh, every situation's different. You know, that's the key thing I got. Here's where I love to go. And this is why I love special forces, hyper decentralized, trust your people, give them broad mission type guidance, give them a left and a right limit and tell them, Hey, listen, I trust you. Don't you can bother me anytime you can come and ask questions anytime you want, but you you're smarter than I am. just go do it. And this is the end state we want. And they'll create magic. And, you know, I could sit there and I could come up with my plan and think, well, you know, I'm a college

graduate. I've got a master's degree and I'm pretty, you know, I got this. And if you just give them some leeway and just tell them which direction to go and trust them and support them, they'll come up with something 10 times better. But that's not always the case. Because sometimes you do need to be hyper micromanage on them, but that would be because every situation is different. There might be a time where they're based on the political sensitivities that you really have to go into the details. I always felt though, if you told them the political sensitivities, they come up with the right answer. So assessment and selection is, there's also a week where it's all about teamwork. And I talked about Rube Goldberg. I'll give there, you'll show

up you got your 12 man a team man at the time like i said now thank god we have women in there and there's a jeep old jeep you know world war ii style jeep missing a wheel they're like you got to move this jeep uh the mission is uh you have to this jeep is critical it has critical supplies in it you have to move it back to the repair facility and there'll be like there'll be some poles and stuff and you're you're the team leader now and you're like what the hell do i do with this and but of course there's somebody well you know i had this problem when i was in montana when i was growing up and that's the leadership test is are you going to tell everybody what to do are you going to say guys what do we do so they'll come up with this rube goldberg thing

and then physical fitness it just kills you but the thing you learn too is the teamwork part that you brought up anthony who can work in a team who can take like weird orders who's willing to step up when somebody's not feeling well. And then you have this ruthless thing called the peer review. Oh my gosh. So you have to vote one to 12, who's the best and who's the worst. And if you're 12, you're probably not going to the next phase. So there's this ruthless meritocracy and culling process. And you just don't get to say like, oh, I don't like Jim. He's like, why don't you like Jim, Jim failed on this event. We were down and out and he, you know, he didn't, uh, he quit. So that's how that works now. Oh my gosh. High functioning teams. I'm just still amazed,

still learning, learn every day, want to learn more. And I think I really, my, my absolute, in my essence is like, give people their freedom and tell them, give them their expectation, but get out of their way uh it's not you know the key thing don't do anything illegal immoral or unethical other than that everything's up for uh negotiation so i felt that that was the best thing but so often it's uncomfortable when you're in a new situation and maybe it's a new product line or you're trying to get into a new business space and so your instinct as a boss is like i'm gonna i'm gonna hold on tighter the thing you i had a great boss one time uh ken tovo was like no at that point decentralize more decentralize until it's uncomfortable like oh geez um i think

that hasn't let me down but you got to really you got to be invested in your people because they will screw up sometimes and of course in combat that comes down to people getting injured or killed. But unfortunately, that's the way you learn. So after this mission in Afghanistan, you come home. And to me, it's so fascinating because it's kind of like you watch that movie, you talk to people and you've done something, I'm guessing because it was secretive, like nobody knows what you just went through in your back. How do you feel? Are you like, I can't believe that everybody's just going about their business and I just went through this crazy experience? Wow. You're triggered a memory there. What I found fascinating was when I was in

Tampa planning the war for, uh, for Colonel Mulholland. Uh, I went, like I told you, I went down there the 7th, September 16th. I was there for a couple of weeks. I remember going to the mall. I worked, I was working like 22 hours a day, but I had to go pick up. Colonel Mulholland was coming in. Like you're out of control. I need to come down there and see what the hell you're doing why are you going to the mall so i went it was the first time i'd been quote unquote you know not working because i was going to pick them up at the airport and i swung by the mall and people were in there uh you know just doing their thing and i was really i was like we are fixing to drop the freaking hammer halfway or halfway around the

world and like i know what's going on i know all the secrets and i'm like planes are moving people are moving we're going to go we're going to really really do some stuff and americans are going to be injured and killed and we're fixing to go to war the most most serious decision a country takes and that was just absolutely surrealistic to me and i remember i went and got ice cream with this and i was just like people are in there eating ice cream like holy that that was more surrealistic for me than coming home because coming home uh it was was before I even got in a plane coming out of Afghanistan while I flew out of Uzbekistan. I flew out of there. It was like, hey, got something else going on when you get home. Like, don't plan

leave because we're going into Iraq. So I had to go back and start planning for that and getting ready to go on that. So I didn't have a lot of time when I got home to really process any of it. So, Chris, when you think about kind of the American battlefield today, I think that there's still debate between unconventional warfare and the mechanized military and the more conventional types of combat that we've been engaged in in the past. What's your general take in terms of should we use technology and unconventional warfare to fight every battle? Is there a place for the conventional military and conventional tactics? How do you balance those two different things today? I think we're in an era of strategic transition. Obviously, China is the major

competitor. Everybody knows that. What's that mean for the military? What I experienced, my last job I was the acting Secretary of Defense in charge of that whole thing. You can laugh if you want, but I was. And, you know, we spent $740 billion and we build these huge weapon systems. I mean, four-class aircraft carrier, crown jewel of the Navy, $14 billion. That's with a B, billion dollars a copy or a one. We're going to build two or three of them. Typically for carriers, you have 10 to 12. That's a lot of money. Think about the aircraft that we're building right now. It's called the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, I think. That's $1.7 trillion. That was with a T, not a B. Trillion dollars. The F-35 is the largest military procurement program

in the history of the world. When I heard that, I'm like, come on, that can't be true. The Romans built an entire interstate system throughout Europe that is still being used. You go to England and you're on the M5 and they're like, oh, this is the roadbed that the Romans built 2,000 years ago. I'm like, that cost more than just dollars, didn't it? They're like, no, no. I'm like, wow, the Roman roads are still here. F-35 is not going to be here in 1,500 years. I mean, it's just not going to be. So I think our primary competitors, autocratic totalitarian regimes do not fear our conventional power because they learned in desert storm and in the last 19 years do not fight the united states toe-to-toe because we will clean your clock we'll kill

i mean it's done now winning winning the military battle the fight versus transit transferring that into strategic gain like winning uh we have not been clearly very good at because we haven't been able to convert military victory into strategic uh accomplishment in a long time so my thing is we need we can't discount special operations unconventional warfare they also in the military call it a regular warfare that's like information operations psychological operations back in the day. It's security force assistance where you go in and help friendly countries and try to develop their infrastructure and their forces. There's also this thing called civil affairs where these are brilliant people who, okay, well, we're having a problem in this country in Africa.

And if we don't get a handle on it, we could have to do large force employment later, which costs a heck of a lot of money. Send a dozen of them down there and they learn all about the culture and they find out the needs of the people and find out where the fault lines and the fissures are and try to try to strengthen the host nation government and connect them with their citizens for their needs that that to me is where we are right now is that's more important tool than to have large formations because if we ever ever fight the chinese toe-to-toe it will be the greatest strategic error in the history of america and it's ridiculous so you brought up here's where I am. And, you know, I'm probably going to get run over by some black limousine from Northrop

Grumman or something because, you know, the industry is huge and they have huge vested interest in continuing the paradigm. I see what's happening with startups and mid-cap companies out in Silicon Valley, up in New York. A lot of them are just in small towns right now that are developing, leveraging artificial intelligence, machine learning, you know, small, you know, the application, the maker mart stuff, where you're able to produce stuff individually and bespoke. And then taking that, here's where I am. The most important weapon system that this nation has is the six inches between our service members ears. And that is, there's not a lot of money in that, you know, like, okay. Yeah. Uh, so I really, really strongly feel that we are over about we've

the pendulums too far towards the conventional war fighting stuff. And we need to bring it back where we recognize the importance of non-traditional unconventional, irregular asymmetric gray zone. There's a whole, there's a whole liturgy of words that you can lexicon that you use so that's where i am and i think that uh the spirit and the creativity that hap is happening in america because remember the old days it was like the government told industry what to do and they did it and we paid him really well it's on his head now you guys know that it's on his head no the creativity is happening in the commercial sector with startups and small companies and so we department defense ashton carter ash carter was uh he was the first one him and uh bob

work. This is deputy brilliant guys. They're like, Oh, paradigm shift, get with it. Department of defense has not embraced it yet. It will, but it takes so long. I could ask a million questions off of that, but, um, I don't want to get run over by the black SUV. So, um, you, when we started, you mentioned you were just a guy from Iowa. How meticulously did you plan your career in the military? And did you know what you would do when you came back? No. No. You know, some people, you have a great line on one of your things about you would go to job interviews and they're like, oh, what's your five-year plan? I'm like you. I'm like, hey, doing something i enjoy feel like i'm contributing feel like i'm learning and uh feel like uh you

know paying the bills i so my i have my wife's name on my computer i'm really chris not kate that's fine sorry about that my computer broke yesterday long story uh so you know it was just like do things that matter and learn take care of your family so i just attributed i never had never had a plan oh i have friends so i learned this you know i had friends that would they had every year marked out i'll be at this stage here and then i'm gonna work for this person i never did that and i think i saw i don't know about you all but i think i saw the people that over planned boy never worked for him i was like yeah the big thing in the military would be i want to go to this unit. I'm like, I go wherever they tell me. I don't care. I just go, you know, work

hard. It sounds so cliche, right? Show up, figure out the network, figure out the incentive structure, figure out what's important, and then exploit and get some work done. So I saw a picture of you when you went to Afghanistan and you had the beard, you had the crazy hair. And how do you how do you transition from being in the field to being in an office, being more strategic and focused on policy? Because I feel like not a lot of people can transition like that. How did you do it and why did you do it? Survival. I, you know, I did 22 years in quote unquote the field and field units and always kind of thought like, I'm like this policy stuff sounds kind of interesting, but you'd never want to go to Washington DC if you're a field soldier,

just kind of one of those things. But ultimately, you're going to go to Washington, D.C. My wife likes Washington, D.C. So I was at that point where I'm like, I'm not getting a field assignment. Those days are over. You know, it's like kind of like, OK, it's a good run, but you're now going to have to go learn about the enterprise. That's what they call it. Enterprise assignment and ended up in Washington, D.C. in a policy shop. Not against my will. It was another thing I was told like, you're going, you're going to the assistant secretary of defense for special operations, low intensity conflict. This is what I knew about the Pentagon. I thought that I was going to work for a secretary, like in the secretarial pool. I mean, old school, right?

I'm like, I'm going to go work for a secretary. I'm like, whatever. I had no idea. So thank goodness we had the internet by that point. And I was like, I was supposed to be at work. I was actually mowing my lawn when i got the call and i got on there and i checked i was like oh i had no idea that in the pentagon i always thought like everybody was just a uniform person i had no idea there was a civilian side office of the secretary of defense civilian oversight and then you have the uniform services the joint staff and army navy air force marines now space com pretty cool space force uh so i had no idea and so i walked in there completely complete neophyte going what did i get myself into but man it was like fascinating because you when you're a green

beret all you love learning about new cultures like that's a new culture i mean new and different incentive system different language i was like hey this okay i'm gonna figure this one out so it was kind of just your typical gotta survive so i have to figure this one out and but at that point you're like okay i'm broken down now and i'm not gonna i had this dream that i'd retire I'm going to shave my beard, cut my hair. I had a dream I was going to go back and do that when I retired. I retired after 27 years in the service. You know, kind of got out my own terms.

I'm like, I'm still healthy. I'm going to go hostage rescue team, FBI. I could do that. And then I saw this video, one of their, you know, hype videos where this truck, this bread truck comes screaming up to this building. And there are all these hostage rescue team guys on the top of the thing. And they jump onto this roof. And at that point I was like, oh man, my back, I had sympathy pain. I'm like, oh, I guess those days are done. I'm not going to be carrying a gun anymore. That's what I wanted to do. But you also have to, and that's the key thing in the business is you have to recognize when your day's done and you need to hand it off to the next generation. generation. You also have to realize that if you go on target again, you're putting other people

at risk because you don't want to have your back go out when you're like, you know, humping, lugging out a casualty. So at that point, I'm like, I think I'm a policy guy now. So Chris, you eventually kind of rise to the ranks and become the acting secretary of defense, which is, you know, one of the highest positions of power and influence within the defense kind of sector. Just saying. Yeah. And so when you step into that role, what are the things that you're thinking about in terms of learning kind of the culture and the objectives, the challenges that you're facing, and then maybe walk us through like the first, you know, 60, 90 days, like how do you actually walk into a new role and from a kind of execution standpoint, actually tackle the job

without stepping on everyone's toes, but also kind of moving things forward? So my first job, in Washington, D.C., the coin of the realm is being a presidentially appointed Senate confirmed official. That's a big deal. In D.C., it doesn't mean anything at home. My parents are like, what? I don't understand what you are. But in D.C., that's a big deal. And I was selected and was confirmed by the Senate to be the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. And a dear friend of mine, Chris Costa, shout out, goes, you need to read this book. I'm like, oh God, I don't know if I can. He gave me the first 90 days. Forgot who wrote it. He's like, you got to read this. This is the book. This is your roadmap. And I'd always been a

little skeptical of some of that stuff because in the military, they always say, don't do anything for the first 30 days. Just learn your organization. I can never do that. I'd be like, oh god no we got to get moving so i decided learning organism at least i think i am or try to be it's like i'm going to implement the first 90 days so i read the book and i'm doing my listening tour and i'm doing all that stuff you know all this stuff you're supposed to do and it was fascinating there were some issues it was just i was like this is gonna be great you know i'm gonna get the like place needed to be transformed unbelievable workforce that was was ready to go but wasn't wasn't really being listened to as much so i'm like this is great and

then of course uh president trump decides to get rid of secretary asper mark asper and there are only a handful of us that are eligible for the job because we're senate confirmed we have national security experience and i get the call like hey getting rid of asper you know you want the job i'm like well i don't particularly want the job but it's not you're not asking me you don't go to the Oval Office for, oh, no, I'm really not interested. Thanks a lot. I took the king's coin and, you know, I'm just going to go ahead and, ah, thanks. I've got a good gig. You know, you're not allowed to do that. You're a public servant, you know, the president asked you to do something. You serve like that. Remember the West Wing? I served with the proletariat of the

president. I mean, I kind of take that stuff seriously. I'm nonpartisan and kind of, but, you know, that's what you're asked. So I go in there and I'm like, I only have 73 days. So that book, the first 90 days, not going to work. I'm going to write a book. Just kidding. Because in that point you were in a transition, you're in charge and it's chaos. And, but you got, you have your job to do and you have to, a lot of people thought I was just going to sit around for 73 days and not do anything. I'm like, Oh hell no. I was the guy who used to complain about all the morons that were in charge of the place and now i'm the moron and i said there's like that would be critical of me if i went in there and just didn't do anything because the only things

we really needed to do there were three things one no military coup two was no major war three don't have troops in the street beating up americans to argue all day about how the third one went down. But at the time, I was like, there's more that we want to do. So I had a job jar going in and draw down the war, end the war. I want to end the war. I'm sorry. I'm done with that. I'm like, we got to end this thing. We got to move on. Gave it a great shot. God bless everybody. Love them to death, but it's time to move on. That was number one. Number two was I really felt strongly and the president did too was the department of defense needed to do more 71 000 americans die every year from illicit drugs coming in from south of the border

and the department of defense was not doing what i felt was enough and so that was another thing i thought that was a national security issue a lot of people in the department of defense like no that has nothing to do with war fighting i'm like wow 71 000 versus how many people got killed by terrorism last year, 100. I mean, tragic for the 100. I'm not saying that, but I'm like, come on, $740 billion a year, 1 million people in uniform. Well, actually, it's more than that. 1 million civilian employees. I'm like, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can actually commit some resources south of the border. So that was the other thing I wanted to do. I felt like transforming the department for competition. I felt we were still stuck in the Cold War model.

we still are. And I knew I was going to lose, but I was going to be the one who forced the issue. So I moved special operations, low intensity conflict, the civilian people that oversee our commandos. I moved them out from underneath. They were like buried in the bureaucracy. I made them a direct report in the secretary of defense, but that was just a, that was a side hustle because what I really wanted to do was bring together information, cyber space, all these functional things, AI, security, all these things that are now like stovepiped all across the defense. I'm like, let's bring them together because those are the capabilities that we need to embrace. So those were the type of things. And then the mechanism I used, I read that

Innovator's Dilemma. I mean, that book changed my life. I know people probably make fun of it now, but playing Christian may rest in peace. I read that book when I was younger and I was like, okay, innovation, you know, you have your three models. So the model I used was I basically put a startup in the front office that reported to me. I had about 10 people that they were all career civil servants. They weren't political appointees because political appointees are kind of transient, right? These are all people I'd worked for and I trusted. And back to your point about like, Hey, how do you get high functioning teams moving? I was like, Hey, this is the end state. I'll give one example. I told you I was in Karshikhanabad, Uzbekistan,

and K2. That place was a toxic waste dump. We didn't know it at the time. And a bunch of veterans and service members had medical issues from it. So brilliant guy, Al Broadbent, buddy of mine, grew up in the military. He was a civilian lawyer at the time in the Department of Defense. It's like, I don't know what's going on. Go fix it. So we had about eight things that we wanted to do. But here's the thing. We knew all of us. I'd been in the Pentagon long enough. I talked about learning the culture. I knew how the place worked. So the whole idea was to play it back against them. I knew how the process worked. I'm like, okay, we're going to exploit the heck out of this. And I knew that we could move faster than the bureaucracy could. So we just decided to flood the system and just get everybody so, create chaos was what I was doing. And so no one could figure out exactly what our key tasks were. There were so many of them.

And then there were ways that you could keep pushing on your eight key issues and no one knew which ones to resist because the nature of the frozen middle of any bureaucracy, right, is like everything's fine. We don't need to do anything. So we would have the frozen bureaucracy so confused that we were bypassing and doing all that. So that was the mechanism I used in the Secretary of Defense's office. Okay. So when you were in the Secretary of Defense's office, you mentioned you were there for 73 days and a lot happened, including the storming of the Capitol. Is there anything you wish you had done differently or how do you evaluate it now looking back? i'm hyper hyper critical of my performance that's the nature of being a former special operator is that's the one thing you get done with you never did good enough i'm telling you it was

amazing growing up you would have you'd be like we did everything right the operation went perfectly and when you did the after action review where you did your hot wash after the person that led they would always find fault, you know, and, and, and I love that. And they're like, you know what, you could have turned left two seconds earlier. And you're like, yeah. So I love that. And I, I embrace that. And so I absolutely did a hot wash and all that. And the story has not been told. And, you know, that's where I realized, I thought national security was above partisanship. the criticism I have of myself was I was so freaking naive. I was like, well, no. I mean, at the end of the day, we're all Americans and we care about national security and we're not

going to politicize this. My experience from that was, oh my gosh. And that's what we're experiencing right now. The truth has not been told. The full story has not been told. When you say that, do you mean the whole story has not been told in terms of how politicized every action is? No, how the, what has not been told yet is in the complete narrative of what happened that day. And the department of defense, I, uh, have been, you know, harshly criticized and Ryan McCarthy, the secretary of the army have been, and my wife and others are like, wow, what do you, what would you have done differently? I'm like, you guys don't know the story yet. When the story comes out, I will stand by every decision I made and

Correct proper use of the armed forces. So that's not one. I'll tell you what I know when I screw up is I lose sleep over it. And then you have like some moral guilt. You know, we all have that, right? We all have that like, Oh yeah. Kind of like I messed that one up, but you know, maybe sometimes you're in a situation where you have to posture and say, Oh, we did it all right. I have not lost a single moment sleep about the decision-making and what the Department of Defense did that way. And, but, but it hasn't been told yet. And frankly, you know,

until Congress pulls their, you know, what out of there, you know, what their head out of there, you know, what, and has a honest, and I'm not being political right now. We're not going to know. And that's what I'm seeing right now is like, I, you know, I watched the testimony and I'm like, they're like, oh God, they're pushing me under the bus. That's fine. But we'll get our say. And I think when it's all said, the problem now with this entertainment media political complex that is just driving this hyper-partisanship even further apart and just driving wedges into our country, I'm sorry to get so emotional, but I live that. When they're attacking your children, I mean, come on, give it a break. For heaven's sakes, we're still Americans. We

should still have some respect for each other. And so I'm like, when this story is told, the problem is it's all the narrative's been established so now you're like page 26 retraction miller and mccarthy and the army and the department of defense were not complete morons that day actually when we looked at it everything they said was accurate so it'll come out one day but that was probably the biggest failure on my part was this idea that i was dealing with rational people that had the best interest of the country and that definitively is not the case Chris, when you think of that incident or others, and it's really interesting because the people in the story, if you will, always have more information. Is it something that you think, let's take January 6th or whatever, as an example, there are contextual things that eventually come out and that changes the way that people view it.

their specific, you know, ABC thing happened on that day. Um, and that's what changes kind of the, the evaluation. And I know that you probably can't share too much in terms of, uh, um, some of the, the things that aren't public yet, but just what are the things that you think? Um, and I'm asking from the perspective of, uh, there's a lot of people I think now understand they have the power of the internet kind of at their fingertips and they, uh, desire to be kind of independent thinkers. They don't want to just take the narrative that's fed to them from, uh, you know, various media outlets and kind of the mainstream talking points. And so any advice or kind of breadcrumbs you can leave them in terms of, hey, when you're evaluating a situation like that,

here's the things to look for to be able to think for yourself rather than just accept those narratives. I think you guys are thought leaders on this. And I'm not trying to, you know, give a shout out to you guys, but discussions like this are important. I have a son that's 20, a daughter 25 and 27. And they do exactly what you just described. They are so sickened by the partisan media. And so I asked them, like, how do you get your information these days? I think there's a huge business opportunity. Everybody's like, no, there's not. Nobody wants it. I'll tell you, I have a friend that's like, he just consumes all the political stuff. And he did for the longest time. He goes, I'm just back to watching the evening news. I'm like, what? Like, no,

that's what our parents did. Nobody, you know, you can see the ads for the evening news. It's clearly not our, you know, demographic. He goes, nope. I just want somebody to tell me what happened and I'll decide. But my kids, I mean, they don't even follow mainstream media. Isn't that amazing to you? The trust is eroding. It's destroyed. I mean, well, my kids, so they're my, you know, they're my touchstone. That's, they're my demographic, my market research. so you know i'm like hey how do you get your media these days how do your friends do it so that's really really critical uh but when you talk about and so i think there is a generational issue going on to tell you the truth there's a generation in my generation we're like the

last generation that was born before the internet or some crap like that right and we have this fixation and i'll tell you what it's really funny i've been in situations where people we're in we're in like decision-making form and they're plugged in on their phone getting all the updates and one of my truisms it's i didn't invent it but you know first reports are always wrong first report always inaccurate it's played out time and again so now you're in a situation you brought up decision making in the current environment information environment you're getting bombarded with information coming from all different directions and then you have this huge pressure to make a decision because everybody's like weak he's weak she's weak not

making a decision you know come on didn't you see what's on cnn right now or fox or whatever cool uh you know uh you too song come on we got to go there talks about bloody sunday where fact is fiction and TV reality. I mean, Bono and the crew wrote that way back when, and that still resonates with fact is fiction and TV reality. And that's kind of where that's where we are right now. And so it's really, really difficult. It's, it's, you have to factor it into your decision making. I'm not saying, and I did not do it as well, but by the same token, the worst thing you do is you do something or you respond in the information environment that's wrong. And then you're like, now you're cleaning that up. So that's, that's one of those things where I'm like,

first report's always wrong. Take a deep breath, do some planning. Just, it might be 30 seconds. So what's going on? What's next steps? Okay. What should we do? Then, you know, the classic, the plan does not survive first contact with reality. True that, but that's not the point. Eisenhower talked about, it's not the plan that matters. It's the planning. And even if it's 30, 45 seconds you've actually slowed things down take a deep breath unplug and think and so you know those are the the key factors and then the final one is like wait until the last moment to make a decision because information keeps coming in everybody wants to make a decision too fast and that's where you brought back anthony the information environment now instead of just your

subordinates or your peers that are like you need to make a decision you need to make a decision now you got this whole flood of people saying you're an idiot. You don't know what's going on. And it takes enormous, I don't think it's courage. I would say discipline. It takes enormous discipline to just hold, stick with your principles. So I don't know how people are going to do it in the future, but you brought it up. Young people are like, heck with this. I think there's a huge opportunity out there to break through. I think that's what this next generation wants, wants to serve, wants to believe. And they're seeing us, not you guys. They're seeing me and other people above us going, wow, that's just not right. I got a lot of hope. I got to tell you that.

Yeah, me too. And I think you're seeing it more broadly where journalists for media companies are leaving to go independent. And it's across fields. It's in finance. It's in media. It's all it's all across the board. One thing I want to ask you is that you've had a really long and rich career, even though you hadn't really planned it, but you mentioned kind of the importance of your family. You have a wife, you have kids. How did you balance your professional aspirations with making sure that you had strong personal relationships too? Not well. I mean, it's, thanks for that. And I, you know, special operators are by design, obsessive compulsive. I mean, and that's their greatest strength, right? But it's their greatest weakness too, because they are so committed to the mission. they're so committed to their teammates that that would oftentimes destroy their family life

and that was one of the biggest challenges i think we faced in the last 19 years where wars used to be like in a hundred hour war or whatever great deployed for six months back home you're off for next 10 years don't worry about it we only do wars every 10 years you're good you know but this last 19 years and that's why i was just so committed to ending this these damn things um actually there's only one war it's global war on terrorism but i guess i'll say wars because it's all over the world is that is so that was the leadership thing the transition from like you got to go why because the team's going because every every one of those people is going to go will feel guilty. So I would have to be the bad guy. And I loved it. I love being the bad guy in

this one. I don't mind being the bad guy to begin with, but you're like, you knew because my best partner was the battalion surgeon, our doctor and he client patient client privileges, you know, all that. So let's not, I'm not going to give his name because he'll put, well, he's, you know, but he'd like, Hey, you need to go talk to so-and-so that's all I'd say. And that was the queue you go down there like what's going on they were like everything's fine sir everything's great and you know then you'd have to be that empathetic listener and you just have to active listening you work through it and then finally you find out like this guy this person's in crisis you know and uh hey at that point you're like you're not deploying no i've got to deploy

like you just tell everybody like hey jimmy's not deploying you guys shut up and they'd be like And, you know, the team, they all know what's going on. They're like, oh, thank God someone cares, you know. But so that was the real tragedy. But my I was just blessed with my wife and I are, you know, are are solid. And she raised the kids and we talk about things. But I always tried to lead by example because that's the other thing, you know, you're supposed to kind of like set the example, but didn't do it as well as I would. i would wish but thank god and my wife raised the kids and you know they're all semi now they're great i mean they're in good shape so but that was the real that's the tragedy of war right i mean that's the tragedy of being at war for 19 years we destroy i mean nothing good comes out of

war nothing uh and it's just a tragic event you have to do it sometimes i you know that's i'm not like i'm anti-war everybody should be anti-war but there's some times where you know as a nation we have to go to war. And, but when you do it for 19 years, the costs psychologically, physically, emotionally, and family relationships. And so my thing would be like, the other thing I said, you will be home for the birth of your children. No, I don't care, sir. I don't care. I don't care about you, but your wife cares. And if we're going to keep doing this damn war, I need your wife to be partnered and part of this. So I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it. So your wife, when you need to re-enlist, she will support you. I'm doing it for the country. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was a real

struggle. One more question I have is we haven't really touched on like the mental aspect of going to war. When I met Anthony and he went to Iraq, I was like, so what, like, how can you sleep at night given everything you've seen and been through? And he was like, what you said, he was like, I had a job, I did my job. And I, to me, it's so interesting from the outside, seeing how people can compartmentalize some of this stuff. How, how did you do it? Like when you came back? You hear an Anthony, I mean, I'm just like a blowhard right now. I mean, uh, everybody has a different experience. I would, I would say, uh, and then for, uh, I got to tell you, I think mostly it's just a desperate situation and it's not like you're gunfighting every day you know

that anthony you're like you only have a couple times in a deployment where it's like okay this is for real this is what they pay me to do that's the other thing you know uh for in my situation you know volunteered they paid for my undergraduate my graduate my wife and i she gave birth obviously We had three kids in military hospitals. You want to know how much it costs you to have a kid in a military hospital? It's like $17.90 because you have to pay for the meals. I don't even know why. They're like, oh, no, all the health care is free, but you have to pay for the food.

And then, you know, when it comes down to you're going into combat, you're like, man, this is what they paid me to do. This isn't a social welfare program. that's not what the military is right it's like some people think it is it's not it is for one thing and that's going to fight our nation's battles fight our nation's wars so you're like and i mean anthony i know i'm sure you've been there where you're like oh man this might not work out right i might be dead before this day's over and you go through the whole i go i should say i i go through the whole cycles of mourning where i'm like begging god to like give me you know an excuse not to do this please let me you know break my leg uh and then you get to

acceptance and and you just go okay i'm getting on the helicopter i'm getting in the truck i'm going to do this because that's what the country paid me for signed a contract and you could say like that is so incredibly immature and how could you be such a blind loyalist but something's got to get you on the helicopter and you're like man uh so that's how i dealt with that but you know Anthony, the other thing I noticed, uh, the things that bothered me, the moral guilt, you know, it's, it's where you knew you screwed up. And, um, and those are the ones that, you know, what you wake up in the night and you're like, and, you know, you, you work through it and you process it some, you know, but everybody has to deal with it differently. And regrettably,

that's what we talked about. When you go to war, uh, you're going to lose some people psychologically and emotionally, and it's really tragic, but that's what, that's why it's so important that the nation has a really serious conversation about going to war because it destroys people's minds and their health and their families. And it's all right. But let's just have the discussion up front that we're willing to do this because people are going to be consumed by it. Anthony, over to you, sir. No, I think you're dead on. The only thing I would add is I've told plena and a bunch of friends many times that uh the biggest pacifists you'll meet are people who've been to war because they understand that uh you know what it entails and the destruction that it

causes and uh i think it's marcus latrell's got this great uh speech that he gives where he basically says listen you know if you're a politician your job is to be as diplomatic as possible and do everything in your power not to send me because when i go i'm going to bring hell with me. And, you know, the US military is better than almost anyone at doing it. But you got to understand that it's not a, you know, completely positive thing. And so if we can, you know, one, avoid wars, great, if we can end them even better. And I think that it kind of your line of thinking around our role as this like global police, and the constant obsession with going to war in a conventional way especially right technology is one thing but when you start to put

you know thousands if not hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the ground uh it's just it's dirty right that's why it's war that's yeah exactly you know it's like if it was peace it would be peace you know it's so it's like you nailed it and i mean those are it's hey we got to do what we got to do i got that but let's just do it and uh i just you know man i just remember the waste you know you're just like wow i mean it's it's an amazing experience let's be perfectly honest you're not supposed to say that you know mattis got in trouble like some people need killing i'm not saying that but some people need killing uh there's uh but that just like dawned on me and like you know it's super bowl right you've trained you've been and you're like of course

you want to go do your job. And that was my you're just like, wow, this is nothing good's coming out of this. It's just enormously wasteful. So, wow. Yeah, it's just like those are the and here's the other thing that I've been saying lately. We brought up January 6th and I remind people, I think if we were having this discussion about January 6th in 1954, we wouldn't be having this discussion because, you know, as you know, only 1% of the American public serves in uniform right now. I think about 7% of the population, I might be off on that, are veterans. And, but in 1952, you had every, probably 85% of Congress had served in one capacity. The American citizens had served. And if they didn't, they know someone who had served. They knew the nature of

military operations. They knew the nature of war, just like you were talking about. Everybody knew that right and now we have a situation where people you know my my tagline is you know this isn't halo or i always call it say call the duty but i think it's call of duty you know i got corrected on that i thought it was really funny somebody goes you called it the wrong game you totally lost credibility with that demographic i said i wasn't trying to get credibility with them again with the point i was trying to make was that you know anthony you know how military operations work it's just not like snap and so on january 6th you know general order one i still remember it from my army experience you know in 1983 you did not get to eat chow until you had

memorized general order one and you're like what the hell i can't eat i will guard everything within the limits of my post and quit my post only when properly relieved so this idea like oh poof we'll just take the National Guard from one side of town and plop them down at the Capitol. No, no, no, no. If people that had military knowledge and experience would go, you got to move people, you got to coordinate. You need to backfill them in because you just don't pull people off their posts because they're abandoning their posts. So you need to backfill people in. All this takes time. You move them, you're moving across town through a congested environment. And then, oh, gee, they re-equip and back to my planning point. American mothers and fathers send their treasure. We're not just going to throw them into a gunfight, or it wasn't a gunfight there, but into a flipping riot without some modicum of planning and coordination.

Anthony, you know, oh, well, gee, we're going into that intersection. Who owns it now? Metropolitan Police Division Department. Well, we probably should call them and tell them that we are going to be moving in from the West. There's going to be a convoy of bad MFers coming in because you don't want them now to think what the heck is going on. so those are the kind of things that really uh concern me about where we are is this this of lack of familiarity with the military and that's why i think this is an important show that you're doing and anthony's experience and others experiences i hate talking about this stuff i'm like i'm like i don't want to talk about this it was really hard to research you because you have never talked i just want to move on with my life but i also realize that there that we have

an obligation to try to educate our citizenry so that they're better informed about these really serious decisions. And back to your point about when they hear information, they have a little more context. I love that. My final question for you is now that you said you were unemployed, what is your next chapter? What are you going to do next? I started our own company. It's called, I can't believe you did that because I was going to send you a note and go, hey, can i give a shout out uh what i'm doing next so thanks for doing that of course these things work whether that's how it works i'm curious set up a we're sending setting up our own company here in dc it's called uh boundary channel partners boundary channel is the road that connects

national airport the pentagon to northern virginia and then then gets you to all the bridges and also in the potomac river there's a boundary channel which is this beautiful so we call it connecting the world but it's not going to be your classic you know lobbying influence peddling company like most people do here they leave government and like oh yeah i'll get you a meeting with so-and-so or a phone number we're not doing that what we really want to do is we so the team stupid stupid smart people and we know government but more importantly we know international affairs so what we're trying to do is we're trying to we don't want to go into government space like we're over that we want to support commercial entities that might not have

the mass to have a strategic planning team or a business development team for international stuff because we know everybody like a good country been there or i know somebody's been there so what we want to do and our real thing is mid-cap we don't want northrop grumman's not going to hire us because you heard my pitch about like we're going the wrong road we're going down the wrong road on this so my thing and our team's thing is uh to look at uh companies that have innovative stuff that want to scale and you know hey give us a call and we'll we'll give you some risk assessment we'll give you some ideas you might decide like like now that's or if we don't know we're not going to keep taking money from you and like wrong person call them so we're doing that i'm also

writing a book um coming up that's a whole new experience lifelong learner well somebody offered like would you write a book i'm like sure if you can sell it so we're in the process of doing that now uh for the purpose of trying to educate the american people but it's going to be more forward-leaning the things that we talked about you know china i got one of my plugs is here's the other one i'm sorry to now i'm on my soapbox i gotta tell you i i've done my survey of the young generation my kids generation and we have got to put expand universal service and i'm not talking about just like oh you got to go in the army no no no no no freaking environmental health care schools infrastructure have an overseas component if you want to go carry if

If you want to join the military, that's fine too. 18 months, do that. And then you're lined up almost like the GI Bill where you'll have opportunities for college or to start your own business. So those are the things that I'm taking on because I'm not giving up on America yet. We got problems right now.

We know that, but I'm embarrassing. And my friends and family would just never be able to tolerate me if I just walked away from the thing. So I'm with you guys. That's why I think it's really important. that what you're doing and having these conversations. Thank you so much, Chris. This was excellent. I learned a lot and we'll, we'll do it again. Hopefully.

All right. Good luck. If you need anything, let me know.