An Evening With Admiral William McRaven

[Applause] Bill welcome back well thank you Mark good to be back it's been six years and let me saying Jr for that that very kind uh nice introduction I appreciate it thanks chair well Jr talked about the wisdom of the bullfrog and and alluded to the fact that you became the bullfrog much I think you were surprised talk about the bullfrog and his significance in Seal culture yeah so um the bullfrog as the dean mentioned is the title given to the longest serving Navy SEAL on active duty and I received it when I was at the 34 year mark because remember as Navy Seals we are first and foremost Navy frogmen so when you are the senior frog man you are the bullfrog but but just to make sure that your head doesn't get too big they give you this trophy for being the bullfrog and it looks like it was made at the Five and Dime Store and on top of it is a toad a very ugly short squatty Toad and I think the point of the trophy when they give it to you is okay you're the longest serving Navy SEAL on active duty but don't let it go to your head um but uh but also the the reason the title is the wisdom of the bullfrog is it is about you know 37 years of having the honor to lead you know remarkable young men and women uh throughout my time in the service and then again as the dean said in my time as a Chancellor so you as Jared mentioned you've got a degree of Journalism here at UT what did you expect to do with your career and when you graduated from the University of Texas yeah so back in in 1977 you really didn't have a career as a Navy SEAL there were two Navy captains the thing about Army Colonels and that was it in the entire seal Community there was one on the east coast one West Coast so the idea that anybody could become a Navy captain and a Navy SEAL Captain was so remote you just wanted to be a platoon commander and that's the kind of the fighting unit of a seal element and and you thought you know I thought once I got to be a seal platoon Commander well I am at the you know the peak of my career here and uh and that's again the time you spend with the the young guys in the field the most but there was no chance to be anything beyond a Navy Captain we didn't have Admirals at the time and we didn't begin to get Admirals until a really you know late in the 90s let me uh let me talk about your book the book is comprised of 18 mottos that as you write in the book have storied histories that drove leaders at the time to make certain profound decisions and I know they've guided your career right in the Navy and Beyond as a leader and one of those mottos is when in command Command right and that's something you heard when you were here not not when you were in the Navy but when you were here at UT um what was what's the significance of that phrase bill yeah in fact uh I was a midshipman here going through the naval ROTC program and in the very first semester of Naval ROTC you get Navy history and so we talked all about all the great Naval battles out there but the young Lieutenant who was teaching the class at the time talked to us about Chester Nimitz and of course Nimitz born and raised in Fredericksburg so there was a connection immediately with UT but he told us about the time in 1942 so the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor in 1941 in 1942 now Nimitz is debating whether he is going to engage the Japanese Fleet at this tiny little island in the Pacific called Midway well most of his staff thought it was a bad idea I thought it was a trap and by the way if we lost any more ships after Pearl Harbor it could be disastrous and frankly the Pentagon at the time did not think it was a good idea either so Nimitz is really grappling with this should I try to engage the Japanese Fleet in Midway and he goes to see one of his closest friends Admiral Bull Halsey and Halsey at the time had shingles and he was in the hospital in Pearl Harbor so Nimitz goes to see him and he tells him about his dilemma and he says you know I just don't know what to do and Halsey was this kind of gruff old emerald and he says well Admiral you used to tell me when in command command and the point was you're in charge take charge make the hard decisions because that's what people expect when you are the commander if I can fast forward just for a minute so fast forward about oh 40 plus years from that point in time I am now the commander I'm a four-star Admiral I'm the commander of U.S Special Operations Command and it had historically been an army command I am on my way out for about a three-week trip and and again there's a lot of army paraphernalia and although the the guy before me was an admirable predominantly Army paraphernalia round so on my way out I kind of of the office I kind of dismissively said to my I said get me something I don't know Naval I need something Naval in here I'm a Navy guy give me some Naval and she just kind of nodded and I took off on a three-week trip well I come back after three weeks I walk back into my office and there's this big desk in here and there's a conference table and I said uh walked back out I said Dana what is this she said well you told me to get you something Naval it's Nemesis desk I said what and she smiled and she goes yeah the naval archives gave us his desk and his conference table and the reason that was important to me for three years I sat behind that desk and whenever I thought about the difficult decisions that I had to make I thought how they paled in comparison to the decisions that Nimitz had to make and it always came back to me a one in command command and you write in this chapter as and you had to make some pretty tough decisions yourself but you're right as a leader you must always be in command even on those days when you struggle with the pressures of the job you can't have a bad day you must never look beaten no matter what the circumstances so as you say in the subtitle of this the subtitle is leadership made simple but not easy that is a simple statement but not easy to follow how do you adhere to that on the most difficult days particularly when you're under the kind of pressure you were under in in your command yeah I think is we were talking uh beforehand Mark I mean when you are in a leadership position and I don't care whether you're you know leading two people at Starbucks or whether you're leading a giant Corporation whether you're leading you know Navy Seals you get a certain energy in command and we used to talk about it in the military there is the energy of command and people a lot of times think that that energy comes from you know the clouds or from it comes from the people you're leading you know that as a leader you have a responsibility to the men and women that you are leading and when things are they're toughest that's when they need you the most that's when you have to show up and if you show up and your head's hung and your shoulders are slumped and you don't look like you have a plan for getting through the tough times that will spread through an organization like wildfire and so your responsibility as a person in a leadership position is when things are their worst that's when you have to step up and you can't have a bad day on those days no we all have bad days I mean we all have bad days but you take those bad days and you keep them in your office or you as I talked about with your swim buddy you you talk to somebody about it but when you have to address the people that are serving you that you are serving that are responsible for getting the work done you better make sure you are you know clear-eyed shoulders back head up uh look confident and make sure you've got a plan to move forward through the tough times you talked about swim buddies yeah and and that's uh one of one of the other lessons here is always have a swim buddy it's another chapter here uh and as you just talked about with Nimitz and Holston right yeah the swim buddy that says what does that mean in in again in the culture of the Navy Seals what does a swim buddy mean but but the broader meaning too yeah so when you go through SEAL training uh for safety purposes you are never by yourself and and frankly when I went through they were all Vietnam veterans that were they were my instructors and they made sure you understood look I don't care where you are you always have a partner you always have a swim buddy and and when you are actually going through training and you are diving scuba diving you are actually attached by a line a short line to your swim buddy and so you have to work uh you know together but your swim buddy is also there to make sure if you're underneath a ship that you don't get tangled in lines that if you run out of air he's going to take his regulator share his air with you and this idea of a swim buddy in the SEAL Teams it you know it starts with your swim buddy underwater but it's also when you're parachuting you know in the middle of the night it's your swim buddy who kind of parachutes beside you and lands in you know enemy territory together and so by the way it's your swim already that checks your parachute before you jump when you are kind of patrolling and you're out on the ground you know who your swim buddy is they're the ones that are checking your six to make sure the enemy doesn't come and it is this idea that I don't care who you are you need a swim buddy in life you know whether it is your spouse whether it is your close colleague you know no matter who it is you have to have somebody you can you know trust implicitly and oh by the way you know you've got to be prepared to take the criticism um you know I talk about in this chapter I had this command sergeant major very senior Enlisted the senior enlisted in my organization named Chris Ferris and Chris uh fought at uh in Mogadishu during Black Hawk Down uh he chased Pablo Escobar in South America he fought in Bosnia he fought in Iraq and Afghanistan probably one of the most experienced enlisted men in the Special Operations community he was my right hand man I didn't make a major decision without talking to Ferris but there were times when you know I needed somebody I was having a bad day most the time it was tough love it was like hey suck it up Admiral you know they're guys out there that are dying on the battlefield we don't care about your you know your little problems and sometimes you needed that and then every once in a while it was the man hugged by the fire it'll be all right boss you know that didn't go well but it'll be all right you need those guys uh another uh chapter is titled run toward the sound of the guns and to illustrate this you talk about a a a main Professor a professor from Bowdoin College go to college named Joshua Chamberlain who played a vital role at the Battle of Gettysburg uh tell us a little bit about Joshua Chamberlain and his significance yeah so so the point of the chapter of run to the sound of guns really I think is exemplified by Joshua Chamberlain so as Mark said you know college professor gets called up uh to lead the 20th Mane during the Civil War and Chamberlain not a not a career Soldier but he gets put in charge of the 20th main kind of pulls them together as a fighting unit but in early July of 1863 the Union forces arrive at this small town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg and within the next day the Confederate forces show up in Gettysburg as well and the Union forces have arrayed their men their soldiers along what's called Cemetery Ridge it's a little bit of The High Ground in Gettysburg and the Confederate forces under John B Hood show up uh Robert E Lee and Hood really where Cemetery Ridge is and tactically for the military standpoint you know if you can break the center then you can split the forces and your chances of defeating the enemy are much larger so John Gary realizes that hood wants to break the center so he takes the folks from the flanks particularly from the Left Flank where the 20th main is and he moves him to the center but in doing that he exposes the Left Flank of cemetery Ridge deeply exposes left lane will Hood sees an opportunity because the only thing worse than Breaking the center is turning the line again tactical terms if you can get to one side of the enemy or the other and you turn them where your forces are sweeping down and they're in line perpendicular to you you're going to win and So Hood realizes here's a chance he gets uh three or four times the force necessary and he charges up what's called Little Round Top at the Left Flank of cemetery Ridge and Joshua Chamberlain is there he has already been wounded by shrapnel once maybe twice at that point in time and now the rebel forces are making their way up the hill they are about to take little round top and turn the line Chamberlain realizes he has got to lead his forces into the teeth of the Confederate forces he draws his sword yells to the men to fix bayonet and he leads the charge down the hill against the rebel forces and pushes back the rebel forces that day and Saves Little Round Top now you think about that for just one minute so Joshua Chamberlain one man because he ran to the sound of guns because he attacked the problem head-on didn't Retreat he knew he had to go right into the teeth of the problem he saves a little round top and saving a little round top he saved Cemetery Ridge in Saving Cemetery Ridge he saved the Battle of Gettysburg and saving the Battle of Gettysburg he probably saved the union and in Saving the union he saved America and saved the world think about that one man one man's decision so the lesson from this particular chapter is look as a leader you have to run to the sound of guns when you see a problem you can't decide that you know what if I start to try to solve that problem then people are going to blame me on it sorry about that you're the person in charge move to where the problem is because sometimes only the leader can solve the problem yes you're going to get dirty yes you're going to get tainted tainted yes you're going to painted with the same blood brush but sorry that's your responsibility move to where the problem is and do the best you can to solve it only about a quarter of those who go through Navy SEAL training actually make it yeah it's an astoundingly low percentage what's the difference between those who succeed and those who fail yeah there's only one thing that we all have in common um and it is in our physical fitness it's the fact that we didn't quit that's the only thing we have in common because when you take a look at the young men that graduate from SEAL training um I mean I'm I'm six foot two and I was six foot two about 195 when I went through training I was actually big for a seal most seals are between about five eight and five ten they're kind of medium build wiry guys but we had of course the munchkin crew the little guys five foot four five foot five uh which were a terrific boat crew and in my class we had an American Indian we had you know African-Americans we had you know polish French we had a lot of first generation kids um and the only thing that that we had in common one was all done was we didn't quit and the reason that's so important I think for a for a seal is not about the concern are you going to quit on the mission because the mission sometimes fills you full of adrenaline and you just keep going but you're going to have a thousand opportunities to quit in your career you know in the military you move every couple of years it's hard on your family you can always find reasons why you're just not going to move another time it's hard on your family it's hard on your friends it's hard on everything and so there's a lot of opportunities to quit on your family to quit on your friends to quit on the mission but if you have learned early on that the one thing that sets you apart is that you don't quit then you can make it through those tough times and those are the men we need to continue to lead the seal community that that training has to be excruciating at time it has to be really really difficult what what do you summon in order to get through in the in the toughest times because it's one thing to to have a tough job it's another thing to go through SEAL training right that's got to be the most rigorous imaginable yeah what gets you through yeah I think it is at least for me I can't speak to everyone uh but for me it was um as simple as it sounds I didn't want to be a quitter I didn't want someone to think that I wasn't tough enough to make it through and so I think for a lot of these young men um it is to them it's a validation of I mean this in this day and age it sounds uh you know cliche maybe or maybe it doesn't sound inappropriate but it's a validation of their their manhood in terms of their their toughness you know are they tough enough to make it through but they summons it from everywhere uh you know you I mean I'm a man of Faith you summons it from you know from God you summons it from your family a lot of them summons it from the men around them I mean the thing that we call ourselves the sealed teams for a reason because it takes a team to get the job done and when you go through Seal training you know that day that you're stumbling your swim buddy will pick you up and go come on brother we need to keep moving and then when he stumbles you pick him up and so that it it all kind of comes together but I don't think there's any one thing that you can say this is what everybody has in common that allows them to make it through training except that they were convinced when they came in they weren't going to quit can you teach somebody to be courageous can you train somebody to summon courage and overcome fear I don't know that you can train somebody what you can train somebody to do is to do their job and and there are so many times when you are uh you know you're doing an after action report and you're talking to a young soldier who you know charged a Machine Gun Nest or saved his buddies or whatever it was and invariably when you talk to them they say look I was just doing my job I was doing what I was trained to do and I would offer that that's a large part of it you know when you're being trained that okay my job is to do this and I'm going to stay here you know fighting the enemy in my field of fire whatever it happens to be but then there's a point where it is the fight or flight and that's when you see the real courage come out if there's a way out of the problem set those that don't have the courage will run those that do will stay and fight and it is always you know again this this may not come out quite right but a lot of people think it is about you know the values we hold dear you know the flag and yes that is part of it but it is more about this connection it's about the man or the woman on your left and right uh how much do you care about them uh are you willing to sacrifice your life so that they can live and it is in the quieter times where you reflect on why you did that and you realize it is about America it is about our values it is about the fact that we grew up with similar values which is why I want to save your life um but it is more the connection I had a general I used to work for talked about kind of the four stages he said look we all go through this stage when we're young men in particular you know and I went through it with SEAL training you have this challenge okay there's a challenge before me I'm going to overcome that challenge and then the challenge becomes an adventure and for me I'm sailing around the world I'm jumping out of airplanes locking out of submarines I'm doing the sorts of things that I always wanted to do and then it becomes a profession and when I was about 15 years in I became a commanding officer and it's a profession it is the profession of arms and you value that profession of arms and you learn everything you can but at some point in time it becomes a calling and it is when it becomes a calling that it has this you know this effect on you that is hard to explain to people and you used to see it the young men that came young men and women that came in after 9 11. for me it probably took me 20 years to get to that point where it was a calling for those that signed up after 9 11 let me tell you they went from challenge Adventure profession to calling pretty quick because they're in combat they see the importance of the work they're doing and it quickly becomes a calling form so but it's clear that team building is an essential part absolutely what you do and team building necessitates leadership many uh have been inspired by your leadership who inspired you during your most difficult times yeah it um you know it's it's not one person for me I mean again this it was always the troops it was always the troops and and Georgia and I used to say all the time you know here we were particularly as I got more senior I mean when I was a commander or maybe captain or particularly an admiral I mean you know I was getting a decent paycheck from the military you know my kids are doing well and and here I am in charge and yet I'm leading young men and women that are you know e1s you know semen recruits or privates and they're married with a couple kids back at Fort Bragg or Fort Campbell or you know Naval Station Coronado and they're forward in a wartime environment sacrificing for the country uh and their families are sacrificing back home but if that doesn't inspire you then nothing will so whenever I had those days when I was down when things weren't good I'd just go talk to the soldiers you go talk to the soldiers man it's hard not to be inspired yeah I'm gonna say three words which you're all going to know immediately and associate with the Admiral make your bed nine years ago you made the commencement address uh here at the University of Texas and that Commencement Address went viral it's become iconic everybody can summon those words as an admonition almost uh how did that speech come to you Bill yeah so uh Bill Powers when he was the president here had invited me to be the commencement speaker I don't know three or four months before May and obviously you know anytime you're invited to be a commission speaker it's quite an honor uh but I had a day job so I was still I was running the university I was I'm sorry I was running the Special Operations Command so I started writing the speech about uh you know maybe two weeks before uh I was supposed to give it I'd kind of been mulled some ideas over my head so I started writing it on the weekends a little bit here a little bit there and I had this great theme and I thought I was going to pull it all together and then the Wednesday before the Saturday that I was supposed to give the speech I realized the speech didn't work I mean it wasn't it wasn't a good speech and I I went downstairs I've been writing upstairs I went downstairs to see Georgiana went oh my God it it doesn't work it's not a good speech I said I don't know what I'm gonna do I mean I'm giving the speech in a couple of days and she says to me she said well why don't you write about something you know I thought well there's an interesting concept um and I told her I said yeah but the only thing I know is how to be a Navy SEAL and she said well right about that but at the time you know you may recall there had been a number of kind of administration officials that had been you know scheduled to give commencement addresses and then the student population kind of voted them down and they didn't end up doing it and I thought you know if I talk about being a Navy SEAL to uh University students here and you know 8 000 students were graduating I think that year and 25 000 family members I thought I'm going to be in uniform I don't know how that's going to go um but I decided to go ahead and do it that way and the reason I did was it occurred to me that SEAL training which is six months long really was a microcosm of life I mean it was about the challenges that you had every day in Seal training were the same sort of challenges you were going to face in life uh you were going to fail you had to build relationships there were going to be bullies out there there were bad things that happened in that six months that to me after you know now almost 37 years after I had gone through SEAL training I realized that it really was a reflection of Life at Large so I started drawing on the lessons um you know from SEAL training to write the speech and then of course I had to put in kind of chronological order people always ask me why did I put make your bed first and the answer was because that's the first thing we did every day I mean you had to get up every morning the Seal training and make your bed because it was going to be inspected and as I've told folks before the value of that of the idea that um you know you're going to get up you're going to take a little pride in it and it encourages you to do another task in another and also about the little things in life and that was what one of the instructors said look if if you can't even make your bed to exacting standards how are we ever going to trust you to lead a complex seal Mission learn to do the little things right and you'll learn to do the big things right but what I didn't say in the speech and I reflected on it later um was really later in my life and of course I made my bed every day in the military but in Iraq and Afghanistan it actually took on a little bit of a different meaning particularly when I was in Afghanistan so I was a three-star Admiral in Afghanistan I was the second ranking guy in Afghanistan and I lived in what we referred to as a Bee Hut made by the Navy Seabees it was just a plywood room about you know half the size oh shoot about a fourth the size of this stage and in my plywood room was a bed that was it the latrines the heads were outside there was no shell just a bed a rack by Navy parlance and every morning I would get up I'd go do my PT I'd come back and I'd make the bed because outside my bee Hut was a wartime environment unfortunately every week we lost kids in combat uh you know civilians were inadvertently killed some Admiral some general some president some prime minister somebody was yelling at me about something outside that door and my days were long I mean my average day was probably 20 hours a day and some days you'd go days before getting back to that room but when I got back to the room and I opened my plywood door the bed was made and it gave me some sense of control of my life and and it I mean in again hard to kind of Square the circle on why that's the case but when you open the room and the bed is made there's a sense of order and I've told folks look it's a simple task but I really do think it it makes a difference certainly makes a difference for me so we owe you for the speech but we owe Georgia that's right for the inspiration George Anne mcraven is here tonight a handful for George also here tonight is Lucy Johnson and backstage she asked the same question that I'm going to ask you now had you any idea when you gave that speech that it would become as iconic as it has become it is considered as you all know one of the great commencement addresses of all time and consider how many commencement addresses are delivered every year so that's remarkable did you have any idea it would become as big as it has no of course not but the uh not only did not have any idea I didn't understand how these things work so remember I'm in the military I'm in a secret organization we had no social media I'd never heard of Twitter uh you know I didn't I wasn't on Facebook or any of that sort of stuff so after the speech I have a security Detachment that was kind of protecting me and and these young kids they they know this stuff and we're heading back to the hotel and one of my young soldiers comes up to me and he says Hey sir your speech is going viral well I don't know what the hell that was I'm thinking is that a bad thing I mean a virus is spreading what's going on he said no no it's a good thing I said no okay and I didn't think much of it um but it has obviously uh you know gotten a lot of traction and I'm always flattered by that you know people um and I've I've made this it's a little philosophical Maybe but uh I made the point at one point in time I thought you know as you look back in your life and you try to see you know why are you here and where has Destiny LED you and and I remember thinking for years when the bin Laden raid came and at that point in my career I mean I'd been in you know 34 years I'd done more than any seal around I knew how to lead the bin Laden raid and I thought this is my moment this is why I was put here on Earth was to get Bin Laden and and the bin Laden raid happens and everything goes well and I thought I mean I have met my destiny you know okay maybe a little full of myself but I have met my destiny there it is I got bin Laden and I realized that wasn't it at all that I got Bin Laden but because I got Bin Laden Bill Powers asked me to be the commencement speaker and that commencement address has been viewed over 100 million times um I get people writing me every day about it and a lot of people particularly even here in Texas have no idea I was even in the military and I say you do know I was in uniform when I did that you saw that speech oh yeah you were in the Coast Guard right yeah yeah okay um but I've told folks you know what I'm okay with that if if my legacy is telling people to make their bed I'm perfectly okay with that I am perfectly okay with that my wife Amy is here too and we can tell you it didn't stick with our kids but but the message just didn't resonate with the kids I want to come back to Bin Laden who you you mentioned a moment ago but before I do I want to quote you from our conversation six years ago you said at that time I will tell you unequivocally unequivocally the greatest threat to our national security is how poorly we are educating our kids pre-k through 12th grade we need to figure out how to fix this system do you still think that's our greatest security threat absolutely you know when I was Chancellor uh and there I know a number of friends from the Chancellor's Council for my time at UT um I would do you know meetings with the alumni and kind of town halls and invariably because of my background as a Navy SEAL somebody would always ask me what do you think the number one national security threat is to the country and they always thought that I would answer you know Iran North Korea and my answer was always the same K-12 education and they would say no no I mean it's the number one national security threat and I would repeat K-12 education and the reason I think that's important is because if we are not teaching our young men and women how to think critically having the right stem skills understanding Civics understanding how to behave well in a in a tough contentious environment if we're not teaching in the basics of math and science and reading and these sorts of things then they're not going to be good decision makers when it comes time to make decisions on National Security so it is very important to me that we invest in the education of the Youth of America in a way that we've you know probably haven't done in a long time and I know every Administration comes in they want to do that it becomes challenging for a whole lot of reasons but we can't give up on that I mean it is it's our Legacy or our children and grandchildren and you know we have to do right by them are we doing better today than we were six years ago are we doing better today um if it's just if it's a systemic systemic issue or are we fixing the system no I don't think so um and it's not that there aren't great people out there trying um you know we have a lot of friends that are Educators um and a lot of them at the you know High School junior high Elementary School level and I mean I don't understand why we are not investing more in teachers I don't understand why we are not you know holding teachers up uh I mean and again every organization has got you know um you know areas that need Improvement the teachers are no different but at the end of the day the teachers are teaching the Youth of America we should invest in them we should invest in our schools we should invest in school safety uh I can't imagine what it must be like to be a young kid going to school and worried that you're going to have an active shooter I I just I can't get my head wrapped around it um so this all Impact obviously the with covid and being out of school so I think we've got a lot of catch-up work to do and again just like the book says some of these things are easy let's invest in teachers let's make sure our schools safe let's do this you can put it up on a whiteboard it's just hard to do but we have to we have to invest our time and our energy and our resources to make that happen if you were a chancellor of our national public school system are there quick wins that you would put into place if you could and I don't think there are quick wins and I think this is the problem people are always looking for quick wins yeah I really do think we have to the first thing again I just I have kind of a parallel path uh one you have to invest in the teachers you've got to make sure that we have quality teachers uh in the classrooms uh you know again that are that are raising to some degree when you think about you know six eight hours a day raising our children um so that is one path that we've got to figure out how to take better care of teachers and put teachers in a better position the other thing again today I think is just school safety and I don't just mean active Shooters I mean just the the the nature of schools in certain areas where it is just challenging for kids to go to school and to learn and it's everything from our are the young men and women coming in are they are the young boys and girls coming in are they well fed uh you know do they feel safe in the environment are they in an environment where they can learn because if they're not in an environment where they can learn don't do a lot of good again our kids were all in public schools and when we would move someplace new there was always this bright shiny object out there which was the brand new school and of course it's like wow a brand new school and and the you know the school looked beautiful and all that but you always have to be careful about the bright shiny object because that didn't necessarily mean that the faculty were going to be the the right faculty for the for the kids invariably when you found an established school that had a great principle and one of the things I found actually when I was Chancellor the things that make the difference uh are the principles if you have a great principle you are probably going to have a great school you know leader great leader right invest in the principles so I will go back you you asked what would be a quick win invest in the principles invest invest in the superintendents of the individual of the independent school districts invest there and I think you will begin to make a difference Bill what were your thoughts on January 6 2021 yeah I mean I think like most of America I hope I was stunned um I remember I was on a phone call with somebody a friend of mine he says uh hey you need to turn on TV see what's happening and he says you know something's happening at the Capitol and frankly I'm a little bit dismissed but first of that okay he said no there's some people protesting out in front of the capital I said okay and then of course I turned it on and I didn't even know what to make of it I was kind of transfixed and could not believe that this was our capital and that this was happening um and you know and frankly I've spent a lot of time on the capital at the capital as I know you have Mark and uh you know the Capitol Police are you know some of the finest we've got there and when I would see kind of after the fact the pressure these you know policemen and and women were under and the the threat from the you know the people that were storming the capital that was a tough day for America and I think it it should rightfully Force us to you know think about a whole lot of things what is the state of democracy today in this country in your view yeah I actually say I'm actually an optimist um for a lot of reasons I mean part of it is I I put things in a little bit of perspective so uh and you know I can't quite see the audience here but I think there are a lot of folks out in the audience that are about my vintage or a little older um and and we remember the time in the 60s and the 70s when you know JFK was killed when Robert Kennedy was killed when Martin Luther King was killed when four students at Kent State were killed when there were you know uh anti-war riots and protests civil uh civil rights uh protests and riots um I remember those times and I was young but I remember them so yeah we have problems today but here's why I am optimistic I have great faith in this Young Generation take it from the Millennials to the Gen Z to whatever's blow the Gen Z the Gen X and I think people are always surprised by that when I say that because there's this narrative out there that you know the Millennials of these you know soft little entitled snowflakes um and of course I've said it a thousand times but then you've never seen him in a firefight in Afghanistan or going to the University of Texas to make a better life for you know themselves and their families is it's a great generation of young men and women and I you know I'm with uh one of the funnest things I do is is teach at the LBJ School because I generally have you know 22 25 of these uh young men and women in my class I learn from them every single class people always ask me about leadership every time I go in I learn something new I learn something new about leadership but I also learn that they are just as patriotic just as committed just as hard working as their parents and grandparents before we just don't give them enough credit for that I started to tell you the story but I held off on it earlier today when I was a chancellor I was I finished up my times Chancellor I'm getting ready to leave I'm moving out of the Bauer house which is where the chancellor lives and we're packing up boxes and in this box I find a letter and it's a letter from my mother who died back in 1986 but I look at the date on the letter and it is the date that I went off to Seal training it's August 1977 and I realized that she wrote this letter the day that she dropped me off at my aunt's house because she wanted to drive me to Seal training I said mother you're not going to drive me to Seal training so she drove me to my aunt's house in Scottsdale Arizona and I was a convinced her to stay there and then I continued on but she had written this letter when she was at Scottsdale and now I'm seeing it for the first time again she died in 1986 and of course I see the letter it's got her handwriting and no kidding and I think my sisters are here in the audience I could still smell the scent of kind of cold cream and whatever women use back then and so I'm opening this letter and I'm getting kind of emotional I'm like oh again I open the letter and it's and my mother would always start the letter dearest bill you know she had beautiful curse of writing dearest bill you know you're heading off to she didn't know what SEALs were but she are heading off to this training I'm thinking you know my mother thought the world of me you know she knew I was just the most competent most capable young man in the world and she starts off she says you know you know I I really worry about you I don't know that you're tough enough for this military training so I'm reading this she goes you know this is I think her words were this is Harsh military training and you've lived a country club life we lived on a nine-hole municipal golf course actually we didn't live on the golf course but we were close to it and but somehow we live the country club life and so as I'm reading this I'm going on what and then I get to the you know the punch line she goes and oh by the way you're spoiled underlined like what I thought my mother thought I was the toughest most competent Cable Guy and she thought I was a little snowflake because she and my father and a lot of folks were part of the greatest generation and to those men and women that served in World War II and Korea and Vietnam those of us in the 70s we were soft little like I said little snowflakes and thank God I didn't read that letter before I went steel training so I'm not sure I would have made it through um but what it did was it reinforced with me the fact that every generation thinks the Next Generation isn't good enough because they didn't walk three miles in the snow to get to school or whatever well I'm telling you this generation is absolutely good enough to get us out of whatever problems we're in and I think they will and so I always remain optimistic you have to and all you got to do back to why was I able to lead so well I said I was inspired by the soldiers same reason I've got you know faith that will be fine because I'm inspired by the young folks that I meet at LBJ School I'm inspired by the kids I meet you know whenever I'm traveling so we're going to be fine we're going to be just fine foreign let me go back to the subject of democracy we've had challenges here at home January 6 was an example that but there are also challenges abroad uh turkey just re-elected regime uh exactly uh to another five-year term as their president despite his clear authoritarian bent why does democracy seem to be failing at certain places abroad because it's messy and so you see there are you know whether it is China or turkey or anywhere where there's an authoritarian government I think there's the belief that hey this is you know it's clean it's uh you know efficient it doesn't have the ugliness of democracy but democracy is always tend to outlast I think the authoritarian governments uh and I think we will see that again it is it is one of the reasons why I am uh you know so passionate about the war in Ukraine I do believe the war in Ukraine is a little bit of an existential fight for the free nations of the world now you know Ukraine's Got a lot of the Ukraine's Got a lot of problems make no mistake about it uh like a lot of you know burgeoning democracies they've got a lot of problems but they are a democracy uh and and they want to be a better democracy and so now you have the sense that it is this a little bit of a surrogate fight between uh the the Western ideals and values against the authoritarian governments um and my concern is if Ukraine loses this fight uh whatever that might look like and I have some thoughts on that but if they lose that fight then you will begin to see a block begin to develop China will become more aligned with Russia and more aligned with Iran and more aligned with North Korea and that's not something that will serve the world well if Russia fails to win this fight and I think they are failing to win it right now if they fail to win the fight then China reels back a little bit and says maybe not so fast and I think you will begin to find others that might have sided with Russia are going to back away a little bit and that will be better for the world um so I think we need to continue to support Ukraine with whatever it takes for them to defeat Russia and what does Victory look like so if you think about Putin when he first invaded you know February year and a half ago almost um his initial plan was we're going to move to Kiev the capital we'll be there in about three or four days or so they came in through Belarus to Kiev Harkey if they came up from um from Crimea came from from the donbass area in the East and they were gonna it was gonna be about a two or three week War well that didn't work out quite like they'd planned and initially Putin said you know we are going to overthrow the the you know Nazi government uh in in Kiev and we're going to replace it with uh you know Russian government um and uh and that didn't happen and then as the war is drug on now he's moved the goal posts and the goal posts now are well we just need to build a land bridge as we call it from the donbass area down to Crimea basically a a land Avenue so that Russia can move all the way down to Crimea to get to the Black Sea so right now they have a tenuous hold on that but the ukrainians are every day trying to make sure that that's not a solid line as long as the Russians are unable to build that land bridge and hold it then I think Ukraine wins and and you know Putin after a while you think about the number of people they have lost so we lost I think 58 000 men in the Vietnam War they have already lost that many in a year and a half ten years I heard estimates of a hundred thousands so well a hundred could be up to 200 000 killed and wounded yep so a lot of them are wounded I don't know that we know the exact figures of killed in action but it is you know north of sixty thousand killed in action uh and then so many more wounded so uh and frankly the ukrainians probably have maybe a little bit lower number but they have sacrificed a lot for this as well um but it's still going to be a tough long fight let me just drill down for a moment uh despite a major standoff between Ukrainian and Russian forces Ukraine lost uh just last week right uh and now it seems like Ukraine is going to mount a major counter-offensive what does that look like over the next several months yeah so let me take back mood because that's an important uh topic so uh about two months ago uh zielinski's generals came to him and said look we need to do an orderly withdrawal from Buck mode it has no strategic value there's a little bit of a Crossroads of some railroads and some roads there but it really has no strategic value let's just let the Russians take it we'll do an orderly withdrawal so we don't lose so many guys and zielinski I think did the right thing which he said nope we're going to hold Buck mode as long as we can and I think it was the right signal to send it cost a lot of lives but it wore down the Russians they lost again a hundred thousand killed or wounded in a five-month period of time five month period of time it created this division between um pregosian who runs the Wagner group and Putin right um and and oh by the way it convinced the allies of the seriousness of this because I think if they'd withdrawn the Europeans might have thought well do I really send them the leopolds do I send them f-16s do I but because they held on for so long and actually they still hold a small part on the outside um I think it really reinforced the fact that they're good Fighters and and they can they can do a lot so now where do we go shaping actions whenever you're whenever you're doing an offensive or counter offensive you're going to shape the battlefield that means they're going to be looking at communication sites so they're going to try to take out communication sites they're going to try to take out Bridges they're going to try to take out areas where the Russians can begin to maneuver to engage them right that's how you shape the battlefield once they have shaped the battlefield then they will find their kind of point of entry and it'll be obviously in the softest part of where the Russians are and then you've begun to see I don't think we know whether or not they are ukrainians or whether they're Ukrainian sympathizers there was an attack on the Kremlin of course yesterday drone attack there have been a number of attacks actually inside Russia by Ukrainian sympathizers that will also be part of the kind of the shaping operation so uh but remember we have just given the ukrainians uh well the Europeans and us but Leopold tanks M1 Abrams which is the most capable tank in the world that's American tanks they're going to be getting f-16s they've got high Mars which is a very sophisticated rocket system so they've got some pretty good lethal Aid that's been supported talked about Osama Bin Laden a moment ago I want to go back to to him for a moment and and the raid that you successfully organized around his his death uh the audience saw on the Montage before the program that famous photograph of the White House Situation Room that includes Barack Obama Joe Biden Hillary Clinton Tony blinken uh Bob Gates and several other very prominent individuals it's almost it's a tableau of of democratic politics in the past two decades you're on that speaker yeah telling those people including the president United States what's going on with the raid what's going on in your mind as you're doing that yeah so a little back story in fact Lucy had asked me before he came in here a little backstory that a lot of people don't know so here's a little backstory on that so the picture you see there the iconic picture taken by Pete Souza is not actually The Situation Room so no that's all right because it's a common thought that that's a situation room the gentleman in the middle there is uh General Brad Webb Air Force officer so you see the Air Force officer on the blue uniform sitting there and General Webb was my liaison to the White House and um but Admiral Mullen who was chairman of the joint Chief staff had told me he said look Bill I'm going to keep the president and the National Security team in the Situation Room and General Webb will just update me as the missions going on and then I'll update the president that way the president's not kind of looking over your shoulder I said okay I didn't really care but that's what they ever wanted to do so as we launched the mission I'm I have I'm on a chat uh with General Webb and you know we've launched the mission General web goes tells everyone sir we've launched submission Admiral tells president Mr President we've launched the mission two minutes later you know uh you know Mr President we're a quarter of the way there Mr President we're halfway there Mr President finally the president goes I'm sorry Apple where are you getting this information from and Abel Mullen says uh well uh you know there's a guy here and the President says there's a guy here what guy well he's uh and the President says is he talking to mcraven Emerald Mullen says uh yes sir is he seen what mcraven's seen yes sir so well where is this guy right next door so Brad Webb was literally in a little ante room right next to the Situation Room so as we are about two minutes out from hitting the target I get this text from General Webb sir the vice president just walked in the room said Brad I'm a little busy brother you're going to have to kind of have sir the president just walked in the room brat sir they're all in the room and so I said Brad you got to handle this and he did a magnificent job he's just a fabulous officer and just retired here recently um but that was when they all came into the little situation room or the little uh side room there and of course that's right at the time where the helicopter went down so you see the the look of concern on everybody's face I think secretary Clinton has got her hands up here nobody looks particularly happy um and so now they are looking on a screen at the same thing essentially that I'm seeing and and then that's when I you know started communicating with the president at that point in time but the helicopter goes down uh I wasn't overly concerned because we had planned of you know that potential you know that that could potentially happen we thought it might get shot as it turned out when the helicopter came by when we had done the rehearsal the CIA had built us a mock-up but the mock-up had a chain link fence because we had to rush through this the same dimensions as the compound but a chain-link fence so in the practices when the helicopter came through the down Blast from the helicopter went right through the chain-link fence but on the day of the mission the helicopter comes over the down blast hit this 18-foot High concrete wall and created a Vortex a vacuum over the helicopter blades and so it had no lift so as I'm sitting kind of watching on my big screens I'm watching the helicopter and it's kind of doing this I'm thinking oh that that does not look good and I'm listening on my headset to the pilot trying to get control and then all of a sudden he careen's off into what we refer to as animal pin but I knew pretty quickly that the guys were saved it was a hard Landing um but I could hear on the radio guys were not too happy obviously but um but I knew everybody was alive and then they just kind of carried on with with the plant and they shift to plan B clearly the the the the mission succeeded thank you for that but it's not the last time you heard from the president of the United States here who's shortly thereafter sent you a tape measure affixed to a plaque well can you tell the story of that present from the president United States yeah so as the mission is concluding now I'm on a video teleconference with the present presence in that little room and um you know I'm talking to him and he says well Bill do you know whether it's Bin Laden I said sir I don't I need to go physically I'm in Afghanistan so I need to go physically see the remains before I'm going to tell the president United States that this has bin Laden so my the runway was just uh about five minutes from my little Command Center so I I drive over to the runway the seals are Just landing in the helicopter they bring out the the body bag and into the hangar Bay and and I get down I unzip to rubberized body bag and I won't get too graphic here um and I looked at him and obviously doesn't look too good he's got a couple holes in his head um and and the beard is a little shorter than what you normally but it was pretty clearly him but I realized look I'm about to tell the president United States this has Bin Laden or not so I I pull the remains out of the body bag and um I knew that Bin Laden was six foot four so I kind of stretch out the remains well I'm six foot two and I thought well what I'll do is I'll lie down next to the remains and see how tall he is but I thought you know I am a three-star Admiral maybe that's a little undignified so I saw some young Seal Stand nearby I said hey son how tall are you he said sir I'm six two I said good come here I said lie down he's like what he said lie down and he he actually immediately knew what I was doing so he laid down next remains remains were a couple inches longer it was okay I didn't think much of it so I go back to my little command headquarters and I'm on with the president the president says Mobility what do you think I said well sir I need to that could be 100 sure got DNA and this sort of thing I said but you know looks like him and I said No by the way I had a young seal who was six foot two lie down next to him and and the remains were about two inches longer and there's this long pause [Laughter] on the other end of the video and he says okay Bill let me get this straight you had 60 million dollars for a helicopter and you didn't have ten dollars for a tape measure and I've told folks look it was a serious night with serious implications um but it was absolutely the right thing to say at the time to kind of you know lower the temperature if you will in terms of the anxiety well the next day uh I head back to Washington DC I get there about a day or so later and I have to go Capitol Hill to brief all the Committees and my Aid gets called says that's where the White House called president like to you know say hi to you so we zip over to the White House and get into the Oval Office and would come in the President says you know Bill thanks thanks well thank you guys he says I got something for you so he goes behind the president's desk and he pulls out a plaque and on the plaque is a brass plate that says you know from President Barack Obama to Vice several bill mcraven if we have 60 million dollars for a helicopter we ought to have ten dollars for a tape measure and there's a Home Depot tape measure on this on this plaque so it is uh all right always appreciated that give you a quick addendum it speaks volumes about Bill mcraven that that President Obama didn't give him that plaque once but twice because he gave it to Bill and Bill in turn gave it to his unit to give them due credit for the mission the president finds out that bill is given it away and gives him another one for his family for posterity so it speaks again this is one who talks the not only talks to talk about walks the walk when it comes to team building it's a remarkable reflection of your leadership though what do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment as with all parents it's your kids you know it's uh I mean George Ann and I celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary two weeks ago um and uh you know we've been fortunate to raise three great kids they're all doing well they're and my daughter got married the week before that so they're all off the Dole you know well maybe that's not true but they're all married that's um uh you know I mean at the end of the day you know the fact of the matter is nobody will care about the bin Laden raid that will be you know history you know you know the make your bed will stick around a little bit longer but at some point in time that goes away too I mean the only thing the only the other thing that's worthwhile is you know did you do the best you could by your by your spouse and your kids and and it's hard you know back that it's hard um you know I mean we've been lucky that uh I think we we did a lot to raise our kids but our kids were just we're just good kids too and we're very fortunate in that regard we had our conversation six years ago and the vice president supplanted you on that chair before we got into our conversation he acknowledged you with these words he said this is a man of enormous enormous capacity and judgment in all the things I've done in my career and I've met every major Head of State in the last 42 years because of the nature of my job I've met a an awful lot of impressive people but I've never met anyone with the Courage the gumption the values that Admiral mcraven possesses possesses it's been an honor to have worked with him ladies and Gentlemen please join me in thanking Joe thank you thank you thank you very much thank you

Channel: TheLBJLibrary

Views: 158,045

Keywords:

Id: F2Jdz255114

Length: 62min 24sec (3744 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2023