LIVE: The Military Today with John Kelly, Carlos Del Toro, and Kathleen Miller

This past November 7th and 8th we hosted our annual George Washington Symposium

at Mount Vernon This year our theme was the 250th anniversary of the American

military, and we were lucky enough to host a series of fascinating conversations

with expert historians, researchers, and folks involved in the military today.

We are excited to bring you two of those conversations in podcast form.

The audio will be a little different than our usual podcasts, as these

conversations were recorded live, but we hope you'll agree that the

content more than makes up for it.

Today we're bringing you a panel conversation I moderated on the American

military today with General John Kelly, former Secretary of the Navy the Honorable

Carlos Del Toro, and former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Comptroller,

the Honorable Kathleen Miller.

I hope you enjoy this conversation.

Okay, that was a very excellent scene change.

Good job team.

Thank you all for following instructions and not disappearing.

Um, as you can tell, I am not David Preston.

Uh, David Preston, unfortunately, as you heard this morning, was unable to join us.

Um, we are very grateful that the Mount Vernon Ladies Association

runs Mount Vernon and does not shut down like air traffic control.

Uh, so, uh, because I am not David Preston, if I haven't met anyone,

my name is Lindsay Chervinsky, I'm the Executive Director of the George

Washington Presidential Library.

We're thrilled that you are here, uh, with us tonight.

This is our final panel of this portion of the program and our penultimate

panel, uh, or conversation of the entire George Washington Symposium.

I suspect that my, uh, stage mates don't need much introduction, but I

will give one anyway just in case.

The Honorable Carlos Del Toro was sworn in as the 78th Secretary

of the Navy on August 9th, 2021.

He was responsible for over 900,000 sailors, Marines, reservists, civilian

personnel, and an annual budget that exceeded 210 billion dollars.

That's with a B, not with a D.

His priorities included securing the training and equipment successful naval

operations demanded and addressing the most pressing challenges confronting

the US Navy and the Marine Corps.

Prior to that, he had a 22 year naval career of his own, uh,

numerous tours of duty at sea.

And after retiring at the rank of Commander, he founded SBG

Technology Solutions in 2004.

He holds a master's in National Security Studies from the Naval War College, a

master's in Space Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School,

and a master's in Legislative Affairs from George Washington University.

So, like so many of us, he just couldn't quit going to school.

Next, I have the Honorable Kathleen Miller, who is a distinguished

leader in national security.

She is the former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Comptroller.

I will have her explain what that is for those of you who don't know.

Um, but she oversaw a 2.46 trillion, with a T, budget in the Department of Defense.

Prior to her appointment to this position, she was a career member

of the Senior Executive Service with 16 years experience as an Army

executive in the fields of financial management, logistics, and operations.

She holds two Presidential Rank awards and currently serves on number of advisory

boards in both the industry and academia.

And lastly, General Kelly was born and raised in Boston.

He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1970.

He was later commissioned as an Infantry Officer of Marines and saw service

overseas and across the globe, including wartime service in the Middle East.

Other duties included time spent in legislative affairs serving as special

assistant to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, and serving as the senior military

assistant to two secretaries of defense.

His most recent and final assignment was the Combatant Commander,

United States Southern Command.

He retired after nearly 45 years of active service on February 1st, 2016.

Responding to the opportunity to serve the nation yet again.

General Kelly, after confirmation by the US Senate, assumed the role of

Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and then for nearly two years

as the White House Chief of Staff.

So there's been a lot of discussion about the Continental Army today and, uh, not

naming names, but there has been a request to at least discuss a little bit the Navy.

So, uh, I'm going to turn it over to you, sir, to give us a little primer on the

Continental Navy, and then maybe you could transition from there to explain what is

it the Secretary of the Navy does today?

You said I could speak for about an hour, right, Lindsay?

That -- you'll be standing between people and alcohol.

So I'm not sure that's a choice you wanna make.

I'll be, I'll be brief then.

Uh, first of all, thank you so much for the privilege of allowing me to serve

as your 78th Secretary of the Navy.

And let me say what a great honor it is for me to be here today

with my distinguished colleague Kathy, and with General Kelly, for

whom I have the greatest respect.

Now, let me say that during my three and a half years as Secretary of the

Navy, I often said that I expected our nation's admirals and generals to

be primarily strategic thinkers like President Washington, you might say, as

we've heard throughout the day today.

I completely expected that they understood how to deter and fight

both tactically and operationally, of course, on the battlefield and at sea.

However, what I really needed them to do, what America needed them to do was

to always be thinking strategically like General Washington and how to deter our

adversaries from going to war and have called to war how to win decisively.

To facilitate that approach, we invested much time and resources in their training.

More importantly, we invested more in their education from the time they entered

our military to the day that they retire.

We focused on continuous life learning throughout their careers, from bootcamp

to basic officer training, from service academies, ROTC or OCS, to

postgraduate school, to our senior, uh, studies at advanced, uh, or colleges.

I always knew, and I said that the difference between us and our adversaries

was the quality of our service members.

They script their soldiers to fight.

We educate our soldiers.

A fundamental difference that makes all the difference, and one that I believe

made a difference as well during the American Revolution, as we've heard today.

And as discussed today, equally important to our democracy, is

this fundamental principle of civilian control over the military.

In preparation for this panel discussion, since I'm not a historian, I decided to

do a little bit of additional research to refresh my own recollections of how this

theory was applied throughout our beloved Navy and Marine Corps, in the early days.

Much of what I rediscovered is now going to be paraphrasing the words and thoughts

of more accomplished scholars than myself.

You see, during the American Revolution, civil military relations in the

Continental Navy, were defined by very strict civilian control issued

by orders and directives directly from the Continental Congress itself.

Congress initially created several committees to direct and manage naval

affairs, but this led to challenges due to administrative inefficiencies

or what we might consider today bureaucratic waste and a lack of

naval experience also amongst civilian leaders, many believe that that be a

problem that may still exist today.

Civilian control structure that existed at the time during the

American Revolution insisted on strict congressional oversight.

Continental Navy was established and entirely controlled by the

second Continental Congress, which intended to maintain strict civilian

authority over the new military force.

A principle that became a cornerstone of American governance.

Now, there were several administrative committees that were then established.

The Naval Committee.

Initially it was three members.

It grew to seven members and members were appointed to that committee

by the Continental Congress.

First on October 13th, 1775, which became our birthday as established by

Admiral Zumwalt later on in the 1970s.

That committee consisted of John Adams from Massachusetts, Silas Dean from

Connecticut, Christopher Gadson from South Carolina, Joseph News from North

Carolina, Stephen Hopkins from Rhode Island, John Langdon from New Hampshire,

and Richard Henry Lee from Virginia.

Now, this committee was the first executive body for managing naval

affairs and playing a crucial role in establishing the Continental Navy itself.

The Marine Committee was the next committee that was established in

December of 1775, and this committee with one member from each colony now

assumed broader responsibilities, including directing fleet movements

themselves, appointing officers and building and purchasing vessels.

Navy boards followed subordinate to the Marine committee.

Navy boards were created in the Philadelphia and Boston area to handle

regional logistics such as applying and outfitting ships themselves.

And then finally, a Board of Admiralty and an agent of Marine

was established later in the war.

The administrative structure shifted to this board and finally to this

single agent of Marine, Robert Morris, who effectively managed

Naval affairs due to the inefficiency of the multi-member boards.

So there were many actual challenges that rose during the continental times

with regards to civil military relations.

First, the lack of naval experience.

Many members of Congress and the committees were lawyers

or merchants with little.

To no military or naval experience leading to operational inefficiencies

and sometimes poor strategic decisions.

Even John Adams, a key figure in drafting the first naval regulations

had no naval experience, but relied on maritime law knowledge.

Now, disobedience of orders was another problem.

Could you imagine that in the Navy Marine Corps, the distance of central

government from naval operations and the professional pride of experienced

sailors sometimes led to friction.

The most notable example was Commodore Essic Hopkins, the Navy's first

commander in chief for today's equivalent of the Chief of Naval Operations.

It was ordered to the Chesapeake Bay, but instead on his own right,

he decided to sell to The Bahamas and seized supplies at Nassau.

Could you imagine doing that today, General Kelly?

Absolutely

Spoken like a true marine.

He was later censured by Congress for disobeying orders and eventually

dismissed, highlighting the civilian authorities resolve to enforce its will.

However, one historian on the subject quotes, "furthermore, and perhaps

most importantly, the raid on Nassau brought the war to the English in an

area where they felt more strategically threatened than the American colonies."

The West Indies was the location of importance as we've heard today.

Paranoia of losing the West Indies would frequently def, uh, deflect

English interest and military assets away from the war in America.

English preoccupation with this area would nearly cause her to

abandon the war in 1778 and may well have cost the war in the long run.

If true, it might well be said that this raid was the first tweaking

of this English concern, and a tweaking which may have set the tone

for those later English decisions.

As such, the raid of Nassau was just not a minor tactical victory, but

a great strategic victory as well.

We also face challenges with regards to resource and funding issues, never having

enough money, and of course, relying on privateers, which also created challenges

in terms of command and control.

The lessons learned and formed the development of a formal department of the

Navy years later, after the Continental Navy was disbanded, 1785 after the war.

And it would be another 13 years before the Department of the Navy

itself was established by President Adams and Benjamin Stoddard becomes

our first Secretary of the Navy.

And I had the privilege of serving as the 78th.

Thank you so much for that introduction.

So I will share with you, some of the audience may have heard this.

I had the pleasure of having a, a tour of the Pentagon, uh, last year.

And we were walking down one of the hallways and there's this, there's

the Benjamin Stoddard portrait.

And I saw it and I was like, Benjamin Stoddard!

Because he's in my, in my latest book.

And the, the person who was giving me the tour said, wow, you're

the first person to ever respond to Benjamin Stoddard that way.

And I, and I said, can I take a picture?

And he was like, no, but I'm really glad that you're excited to see

him, so you too can look for him when you're next in the Pentagon.

Well, I greeted him every morning and say good morning to him.

So,

Um, so Kathy, can you explain to us, what is a Deputy Under

Secretary Defense Comptroller?

Well, it does whatever the Under Secretary of Defense Comptroller wants her to do.

Um, but in, in, um, theory and in practicality, the, the office of the

Under Secretary of Defense Comptroller is responsible for all the money

matters in the Pentagon, including down through the military departments,

um, creating budgets, doing audits, um, looking at IT systems and, and

putting in new IT systems that help with the management of the department.

So basically it's the money manager for the Department of Defense.

So I would imagine that depending on the day, you're either the most popular or

least popular person in the Pentagon.

I actually don't ever remember a day being most popular.

Going back to the, uh, there's never enough money statement that

was just made a little while ago.

Um, but, you know, everything is, is waiting, when you're in the comptroller

business, it's trying to help the leaders deciding on what gets funded,

how to wait, what are the options, um, how can we look at what we do

have from Congress and apply it to the most strategic threat that we see

facing us, um, at that particular time.

And it, it's a real struggle to, to go back and forth between immediate

threat and immediate needs and a more longer view of what the challenges

are gonna be for the nation.

I imagine.

General Kelly, what, what, from the other side of that relationship,

when you're thinking about, you know, your strategy, both short term

and long term, what was it like to navigate that civilian relationship?

As you get more and more senior, you interact more and more

with, with, uh, civilians.

And by the time you make General Admiral, uh, much of your time is

interacting with, uh, civilians.

And again, because of our concept of civilian control of the military, uh,

senior officers, their efforts are to help the Secretary or, frankly, the President,

or Congress, to understand, uh, you know, the, the, uh, shortfalls perhaps.

When you have a budget that says, oh, when you have a, a strategy that says

you're supposed to deal with China, with, uh, Iran, with the Middle -- and

all of that, and then the services, look at what it takes to do all of that.

And they say, okay, we need more money.

Or you come forward and say, these are the things we can't do.

And it's not like the generals and the admirals refusing, it's just

simply the, our civilian leaders have got to know, uh, what, what the

shortfalls are what the possibilities are, and it's very well appreciated.

I mean, it, the, I, I think I, I, you'd agree the, the interaction,

uh, between, uh, the, the service people, uniform people in the Pentagon,

very, very, very good, but just as good really over on Capitol Hill.

I served there for four years, uh, and in the White House, uh, I would,

when I was, uh, a three star working for General, or Secretary Gates, and

Secretary Panetta, I would go to the White House and, and, uh, you know,

not with the speaking part necessarily, but to sit there and the admirals and

the generals that came over to talk to them about whatever the topic was.

Uh, it was a very interactive pro -- and, and, and frequently, almost

always, the, uh, our civilian leaders will say, thanks for your candor.

Thanks for that.

Uh, so it's, it's a very positive thing, I think generally speaking.

And, you know, sometimes you hear about the, the, you know,

the tensions and all that.

Not really.

I mean, the military officers are like, you know, Mr. President

or Mr. Senator or whatever, uh.

Here to tell you what the, uh, what the reality is.

And they're all very receptive.

So that cordial working relationship, is that inst -- are there

institutional protections for it?

Is it a culture that's built?

And this is, you know, this is something you guys can all jump in on,

but that's a pretty remarkable gift.

How does that come about?

I, I think it's founded on trust, first and foremost.

Right?

And the willingness of the civilian leader to be able to trust his military advisors.

In my case, it was the Chief of Naval Operations and the

Commandant of the Marine Corps.

And I remember on my very first week meeting with both of them and being very

clear that I expected, demanded their best military advice, even if it differed

from what they thought I wanted to hear.

It's critically important 'cause I wanted to understand their challenges.

The challenges were being faced in my case, by our sailors, by our Marines,

the shortages of capabilities, readiness, uh, capacity, all those issues.

And so we would always have very adult conversations amongst each other

in private, um, for me to clearly understand what the challenges of

the service were so that I and my own responsibility can support our combatant

commanders around the world, uh, and the fulfillment of their mission.

But if that trust does not exist, and it hasn't always existed, it's varied

throughout the decades, basically, based on the personalities and

characteristics of, again, in my case, the Secretary of the Navy, the Commandant

of the Marine Corps and the CNO.

But the best team is the one that trusts each other, listens to each

other, and then execute for the benefit of the mission, our sailors,

our Marines, our national security.

So I'd, I'd say I got to see this from two perspectives.

One as a longtime career executive on the career side working either for

political appointees or for political appointees through the general

officers, um, that I served under.

And in that role, it was always important to provide my best

technical advice to the leadership.

And often the best technical advice was not strategically where the

leadership wanted to go, which is fine.

And then I was left to, to figure out, okay, so how are we

technically going to get there?

Um, if it, if it was more difficult than, than it normally could be.

Then as the deputy under secretary, I got to view that relationship from a

different side as a political appointee working with military personnel.

Um, I have to say I agree, Carlos, it's built on trust,

but also on shared purpose.

Right?

Mutual respect and, um, the willingness, as you said, to listen to each other

and understand, uh, an issue from all perspectives before ultimately

the, the political leadership made a decision to move forward.

Yeah.

Uh, the, the, uh, every promotion, uh, in the, in the officer ranks,

every promotion, second lieutenant, all the way up to general, is

approved by the United States Senate.

Um, so there's some civilian control there, you know, lieutenants and captains.

But as you get more and more senior, particularly going to the four star rank,

you have to go before, uh, the Senate for a hearing and they talk to you about,

you know, like in my case, Southern Command, Caribbean, Latin America, drugs,

drugs, drugs, more drugs, um, and, uh, people movement and that kind of thing.

Mostly crime as opposed to a military thing.

But the, the, uh, as they question you, um, in, in terms of this, uh,

hearing, the very last thing they'll ask you is, will you commit that if

you have a different opinion than the administration, and you'll honestly

express that different opinion?

And if you say yes, you'll get confirmed.

If you say no, you won't get confirmed.

So then as a, as a, as a four star and I worked for Mr. Obama as a four star, there

were a couple of things that the White House wanted me to do, say publicly, uh,

about some things that, uh, were in my command that I personally disagreed with.

Um, it wasn't, you know, illegal or anything like that.

It was just policy.

And, uh, the pushback is, look, I I, I don't do policy.

Generally speaking, I help you, uh, come up with realistic policy,

but I'm not in the policy business.

And, and besides remember saying this to the President, besides Mr.

President, I, I don't agree with you.

And if I go out publicly and say that I do agree with you, and then the senators

have me over for a hearing, I have to tell them the truth, not a good thing.

And he goes, good point.

So, so our commander in chief did not want the appearance of, of anything

other than loyalty and, and, uh, commitment to the relationship between

the civilians and the, and the military.

But again, it's been my, my experience as a senior officer that that was

always pretty darn good with the White House, with the Congress, that

kind of thing in, in the OSD people.

That's amazing.

I, I've heard some other similar stories where people have said, you really don't

want me to go do that hearing because I'm going to tell the truth under oath.

And I know, uh, I think it was, I was listening to a, an interview with,

uh, I think it was Eric Edelman and he had said that to, to Bob Gates and

he said, I can't go do that testimony 'cause I'm gonna tell the truth.

And he's like, okay, we'll find someone else to go do the testimony.

Which is as it should be.

You don't, you don't want people to change their values and you also

don't want them to feel pressure to, of course lie under, under oath.

So, you know, in moments where there is that sort of pain point where,

you know, there's disagreement.

Um, how do you go about resolving that, recognizing that, of course there is

civilian control of the military, but oftentimes the military is coming in

with maybe more expertise and certainly more on the ground knowledge, depending

if it's a situational circumstance.

It's a great question.

And you know, every year the service secretaries and many other senior

officials have to go before the Congress and testify before what's

referred to as a posture hearing.

And to my left is the Commandant of the Marine Corps and to my right is

the Chief of Naval Operations, and you know, and Congress sometimes would try

to play us off each other, right, where they knew that there might be slight

differences of opinion as well, too.

It goes back to trust again.

You know, I always counseled the Commandant and the CNO that they always

had an obligation to the American people, to the Constitution, to

the Congress, to be transparent and provide their best military advice.

Now, if they were going to differ with me, I kind of wanted to know

a little bit ahead of time, right?

So that we could have a conversation on perhaps why the President, the

Secretary of Defense, myself, as the Secretary of the Navy, were

supporting this particular policy.

And many times I wouldn't back away from that position 'cause I believed

it, it was my conviction, but they may have had a different perspective.

Right?

So we'd have those intelligent, mature conversations before we

go into those posture hearings.

But I would not be offended if they expressed their best

military advice at times, that was slightly different from my own.

I was emotionally secure and intellectually secure enough to be

able to then turn quite around at the next question being asked by a

member of Congress and say, Senator, the, the CNO has provided your, your,

the best, his best military advice.

However, representing the policy of the president, the Secretary

of Defense in this nation, me as a civilian leader, are pursuing this

policy for the following reasons.

And I tried to explain myself the best I could.

So, you know, it, it's, it's really important, I think, to the fundamental,

fundamental nature of our democracy, that our military leaders provide

their best military advice at all times, whether they're in private or

sometimes in public as they have to.

Um, but that, that they respect the final decisions being made

by the President, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Navy, etc.

So taking a look at internal operations in the Pentagon, when I was there,

the deputy had something called the Deputies Management Action Group,

which was a governance forum, bringing together the service secretaries at

time, their under secretaries, um, and military officers in various positions

to talk through different issues, different, um, proposals and plans.

How to put the budget together was a major part of, uh, Deputies

uh, Management Group activities.

And what the deputy did was she allowed all the voices around the table to be

heard, to hear the military advice, to hear the concerns, the policy

concerns from different aspects of the department, and hold off decisions on

that particular issue for the most part, um, until she had heard from everyone.

And then make it clear to everybody what the decision is and how

we were gonna move forward.

And I think that kind of internal governance is not far from the way we

run corporate boards today or other types of, of major entity decision

processes that need to hear from all the voices and the experiences in the room.

It's also how Washington ran his cabinet.

But, but as far as the decision makers, of course, in our, in our

world, it's the Secretary of Defense.

The chain of command is Secretary of Defense and then the

President of the United States.

And again, this whole effort is to help those people, uh, and their

staffs, understand what the issues are, because they're not military people.

They don't know anything about aircraft carriers or, you know,

this, that, or the other thing.

And to help them, uh, make an informed decision.

And ultimately, you may disagree with it.

I mean, you try to, you die in the ditch trying to convince 'em that

they're going down the wrong road.

But once they say decision made, decision's made, and you go do it.

Um, and, um, and what I found, and I think, uh, you, you would both

agree, you do have an awful lot of people that speak for the Secretary of

Defense and speak for the President.

You know, when I was at SOUTHCOM, the number of calls I would get, the number

of calls I would get from the White House saying, well, the President wants this.

I say, okay, that's a pretty big deal, so have him give me a call.

Uh, and um, and seriously, uh, that's a big deal and that's a

presidential, so I'm, I'll come up.

Uh, and of course I would right away call the Secretary of Defense

and say, I just got a call and, no, no, don't worry about it.

You did.

So you have a lot of very good people trying to help, whether

it's the President, SecDef, SecNav, trying to execute what they want.

And sometimes they forget that they're, I mean, they're in the staff process,

but they're not in the decision process.

And uh, they have to be reminded.

The White House, you know, when I was the Chief of Staff of the White House, I

found that there was some people calling and I got everyone together and said, you

don't call a war fighter, you do not call anybody and say the President wants this.

If the President wants it, I will call them.

Normal staff work naturally goes on.

But if you ever call down into any organization, say the President

wants this, uh, you are probably gonna work at treasury tomorrow.

Something.

Um, but seriously, and, and it's, it's well intentioned.

These people are, are trying to do what the boss wants.

But, uh, but the boss has to have, whoever the boss is, has to have all of the

information so he or she can make a, you know, the right, well-informed decision.

So earlier we, uh, had Kori Schake talking about the sort of history

of civ, civil military relations.

And one of the things that she talked about was Washington made the case

to the soldiers that we are going to be deferential to Congress, not

because they're good at their jobs, they're not, they're terrible.

But

-- Same, same thing.

The, we, we let the parallel hang out as we are doing our talking.

Um, but because we, we don't want to be, uh, because of who we are

as, as the army, and we can't really ask Washington what that was like

because he's obviously no longer here.

And so I'm, I'm hoping it's okay if I ask a question like this, how do you follow

an order that that is constitutional, that you believe deep in your bones is

stupid, but you've been ordered to do it anyway and you've done everything

you can to convince them as, as you said, but you have to do it anyway.

Like, how do you get your head in that mind space?

For the three and a half years that I was secretary, I was opposed to

a particular program that was being proposed by the Congress that had not

just Republican support, but it had some Democratic support as well too.

And it was gonna cost the nation approximately $40 billion to

actually deploy this capability.

And the reality of it is that was, there was another capability

that was quite frankly, in, in my humble opinion, sufficient enough.

And I very vocally opposed it.

In discussions with individual members of Congress, I spoke about it.

If you wanna find out which one it is, go look up my posture hearings.

They'll know, uh, I opposed it in the posture hearings.

But in the last budget, they, Congress actually passed through mutual agreements

that were made and started a pilot to actually fund, begin funding the

program, and a program management office.

As much as I hated the thought that we were going down that path, I felt

strongly that it was my constitutional responsibility based on the oath that I

took as Secretary of the Navy to follow those orders and to establish the program

and to not slow it down in any way.

Even though I was accused by several politicians of actually attempting to

slow it down, which was as far away from the truth as it possibly could be.

That's how much I believe in our constitution and the

oversight responsibility that the Congress has over the executive.

And it's those checks and balances that we have in our constitution that is

critical to the success of our democracy.

When you start breaking down those checks and balances, trying to develop loopholes

and other ways to go around the law, you have a real threat to democracy.

I was not gonna go down that path.

General, how do you do that when, um, lives are literally on the line?

If it's legal order, you carry it out.

Uh, if it's legal order that you know is a bad order, uh, it's tough.

You know, the, when you're a commander in combat, every one of those young

Marines, soldiers, whatever, sailors, they're like your sons and daughters.

You know, you're gonna send them out on, on the best day, you're gonna

send them out and some of them will be killed or seriously wounded.

Um, when you are executing an order that, that you really feel

is stupid, to use your term, a technical term, um, it's, it's harder

still, but it is still legal order.

And, uh, if so long as it's legal.

And I I tell you, you live, when you're a senior officer, you live,

I won't admit to saying this about lawyers, you live with your lawyer.

The most important person in your life is your lawyer.

And to go to him or or her and say, look, they're telling us to

do this, is this, please tell me it's, it's, it's not a legal order.

They said, no it is.

'cause they've got their lawyers and they've checked it out.

They know that's really hard.

It's really hard.

But at the same time, um, it is a legal order and you carry it out.

Uh, and you know, hope for the best.

I, if I could just follow up on that.

You know, I think the relationship maybe between the lawyers and the military

is not all that well known and, you know, there's a lot of conversation

about what is and is not a legal order.

Um, how, I mean, how regularly, you said, you know, you live, you live with

them, but are are, is that true for sort of all levels of the military, or

is it really only the senior command that is really close with the lawyers?

No, I, it, it exists at different degrees throughout the chain of command.

Obviously Secretary of the Navy had a general counsel who, you know,

was obviously his client as the Department of the Navy basically.

And to determine, make determinations of that, you also have military

JAG officers who are critically important to the administration of

our military services as well too.

Um, and they should be ultimately extremely objective in providing

their best military advice.

Right.

And not bend the knee to anybody.

I also expected that best military advice from my Marine Corps JAG

and my Navy JAG as well too.

Um, so it's extremely important.

The relationship is extremely important.

It's important that you have people in those positions, the highest

degree of integrity and character and competence to fulfill their mission.

Whether, you know, a, an order is legal or not.

I had the privilege of serving for 26 years in uniform service as well too.

I would argue this is why experience matters, right General?

I always used to say it takes 20 years to make a captain in the United States Navy.

It takes 30 years to make a, an admiral or Marine Corps General in the Marine Corps.

And it's that experience that provides you the confidence, the knowledge

necessary to be able to make those judgment decisions that the General had

to make from an operational perspective.

Because my responsibilities were administrative, they weren't operational.

That changed in 1947.

Um, with the National Security Act of '47 that took operational control

away from the service secretaries and gave it to the combatant commanders.

You know, I think one of the, one of the challenges as we're talking

about, uh, what, what the relationship between, you know, civil and military

today, is that, uh, less than 1% of Americans serve, um, in the military.

And when we're talking about the Continental Army, I think someone said, I

think this morning, was it Mark that said that it was the largest percentage of the

American population in any American war?

Did I hear that correctly?

Great.

Love when I get facts right.

Um, so, you know, when we're talking about the Continental Army and the Revolutionary

War experience, that is a very different experience than what we're facing today.

So how does that separation in, in lived experience, in understanding, in

sacrifice, how did that affect your work?

Maybe we'll start with you, General.

And then Kathy, I would love to know, you know, from sort of the

civilian side, how did you, how did that affect your work too?

Well, as far as the 1% issue goes, I mean, it used to be, you know, when

I grew up, when I was a kid, uh, virtually, you know, in the fifties

and sixties, virtually every male in my life was a veteran of either World War

I, there was still tens of thousands of those guys alive, World War II was the

largest number, Korean War, um, and the expect -- and we had a draft, and the

expectation was that you would serve.

Um, and then of course, going into the sixties, the draft

riots and all that kind of thing.

And over time, uh, the thinking about the all volunteer force, and

of course it was, it was implemented.

So 1% serve.

They're, uh, a different group of young men and women.

They come from all walks of life.

But generally speaking, there's someone in their life, uh, whether

their dad, their uncle, a teacher, the football coach, that had served.

Um, but they're pretty -- and the, and the good news is, the American

public, even though they, you know, have overwhelmingly not served and generally

don't know anyone that is serving, the reputation of the US Military in the

eyes of the American public makes the, the American public feel very warm and

positive towards, towards its military.

Um, and that has a lot to do with just, okay, we know you're out

there with your lives on the line.

We know you're out there doing the legal thing.

We know you're out there obeying legal orders.

Uh, it's, it's, it's kind of a pretty special relationship.

We have lost a lot, I think, by not having more people serve.

You know, you hear sometimes, uh, bring the draft back or something.

Um, but the US military is awesome in its ability to execute warfare, and

much of that has to do with the best people out of our society, step forward.

And they're trained, educated, uh, and very confident in what they

do, over there, is protecting you in your homes, in your families,

and they don't even know your name.

But they're, they love it.

Yeah.

So I think some recent surveys have showed that, um, the American military

remains one of the most respected American institutions today, although

-- It's pretty much the only one left.

Yeah.

It's a dropping a bit though from, from the high during

-- I'm not kidding.

If you look at the polls, all the numbers are really bad except for the military.

Yeah.

So with that respect, you know, other people look at recruiting

and retention, for example, and this year is going very well.

Um, I've been part of studies in the past that have looked at, you know,

recruiting as a proxy for the American public's belief in the military.

It seems to vary a lot depending on economic conditions and, and

what other, um, kinds of things are associated with military service.

For me, in one of my roles as the administrative assistant to the Secretary

of the Army, which is actually a civilian role, that is, um, stated that it, we

must have an assistant secretary, uh.

Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army, it's in Title 10.

In that position, we had a cadre of people called the Civilian Aids to

Secretary of the Army, and they were individuals appointed from civilian

life on a voluntary basis who brought to the Secretary of the Army and took

from the Army back to their communities, this conversation and connection

directly to the military people.

It was a wonderful program.

I understand it was stood down earlier this year, but it enabled

the Secretary of the Army to reach out, particularly into communities

and cities where, you know, not near a military base, um, to bring more

knowledge about our army, more knowledge about the benefits of service, and the

importance of Army to American public.

So I think those kinds of connections, the thing that allows the Army to

connect directly to the citizenry that we serve are super important.

And it'll be interesting to see how those kinds of connections

are forged as we move forward.

Yep.

If I could, if I could add something, when I, when I was a, uh, uh, uh,

SOUTHCOM commander as a four star, we would, we did a conference in

leadership and ethics and all that kinda thing, and the press were there.

And, uh, I had made mention that, uh, you know, the US military at the time,

the US military has always been very well regarded by the American public.

But since the Vietnam War, it, it recovered an awful lot of what had lost

during the war for a lot of different reasons we don't need to go into.

But the point is, since 1978, the most admired, respected institution in the

United States of America, US military, and it was always in the upper, uh, roughly

the middle part of the 80th percentile.

Right under were law enforcement.

Now we've gone down into the low seventies, but we're still number one, uh,

most admired, respected, and the co -- and police officers are now just under So

we've lost a little bit public opinion, but the point is we're still number one.

So, at the Q and A afterwards, one of the reporters said, don't you think that's

dangerous in a democracy to have the, um, the, the people think that the US military

is the most admired and respected.

Don't you think that's, you know, threatening to a democracy?

I said, I don't.

'Cause it shows how much admiration and, and, and whatnot they have.

I think what's very, very, uh, dangerous is the United States Congress is that 9%.

They have not been in 40 years, over 15%.

They are the least respected.

And I think that's an issue, and I'm not beating, you know, I think there's

very hardworking people in Congress, senators, congressmen, staffers,

but, uh, the, the opinion is, is pretty scary when you think of it.

The, the, the Congress should be the number one, I think.

But anyways.

Yeah, no, I think you're right.

We, we have talked here at Mount Vernon before about the importance of, our, our

institutions are mostly civilian upheld.

We, most of our day-to-day life is not enforced by military

might or by police power.

And so if you don't have citizens that are upholding the institutions or trusting in

the institutions and they don't believe that the institutions will, you know, meet

their needs and serve what they serve, the the people, then they will eventually

crumble if there are not people there.

So I think you're absolutely right.

Secretary, did you wanna jump in?

I was just gonna say leadership matters.

It matters in your senior military leaders and it matters in your civilian

military leaders as well too, the Department of Defense and anywhere

across the federal government, obviously.

The last four years we invested an enormous amount of resources.

When I said our budget went up by 25% and people and retaining people.

And when we left, we had the highest retention in decades in the military,

uh, across all military services.

So you get what you invest in and we invest in our people.

I have no doubt that our senior leaders today care about our military service

members as much as George Washington did.

But we're investing a lot more money in their caring and their feeding,

also thanks to the Congress and to the American public and people, 'cause

this is your American taxpayer money.

Um, and uh, we thank you for the investment that you make

in our military services.

So we're gonna turn to some audience questions.

I'm gonna start to fold them in, but, um, I'm sure all of you could listen to this

for many hours more as I easily could, but we don't actually have that much longer.

So if you have any questions, please use your QR codes on the back

of your programs to get them in.

Uh, we will have, uh, a cocktail reception afterwards, so perhaps any that

we don't get to, you can maybe impose upon them to answer directly to you.

But, um, one question that came up, uh, prior actually to this panel, but I think

it's an interesting one and it builds off of General, your, your conversation

about the shift away from the draft.

You know, I think, people are curious, should there be some

form of compulsory service?

You know, other nations have it.

Certainly Israel has a model of compulsory service, we used to have a draft.

There are obviously benefits to a professional service in that they're more

professional and they're more trained, and you're, you're likely to have a, a

better functioning military, but are we losing something if we don't have that?

So I would love to know just all three of your thoughts about should there be some

form of service to make people buy in?

Well, I would say, uh, ser, serving the country, uh, gives you, you know, bragging

rights and it makes you feel good.

That's why police and firefighters and the military are so happy, what

they, what they do with their lives because they're serving, uh, society.

They're not making a lot of money, but they're serving society.

Uh, I would love to, for our country to find a way to get young people.

Involved somehow, whether it was helping, uh, you know, student teaching

in in the inner cities, or civilian conservation, or something like that.

But, but, um, we would lose a lot if we went to a draft, uh, for military service.

We're doing quite now, God forbid, if we ever go to a huge war, selective

service kicks in, uh, you know, kind of a World War II type scenario.

But, we'll, we lose a lot because the young men and women that are in it today,

whether they stay for four years, which is generally what they stay for, or

they stay forever like I did, um, they want to be doing what they're doing.

And, uh, when you bring someone in kicking and screaming that doesn't want to go

into the service, you lose something.

Uh, even though they're great American kids and all that, they're, they just

miss that sense of, I wanna serve.

And there's no nothing in our society today that really

encourages them to serve.

They don't have to serve.

Um, and they still step forward in, in, in the right kind of numbers.

Uh, and again, I go back to.

They are willing to go out there and fight in the worst places on the planet

so that you and your families are safe.

That's incredible.

Yeah.

So this was a topic of a conversation at a conference that I was at earlier

this week about, you know, could we or should we, to help our young

people understand better their civic responsibilities to the nation, have

some sort of compulsory national service.

For me personally, the hackles on the back of my neck go up with the word compulsory.

I mean, this is, this is a land of liberty and choice.

And so I think as you look at, um, national service or types of national

service, how can we encourage people, um, to try it out, right?

So maybe it's, it's associated with certain college loan forgiveness or,

um, you get extra time in grad school if, if you were to, to, to undertake

some kind of national service.

I don't think that the right place to put people who don't wanna be there is

in the military, because everybody in the military needs to be committed to

that mission that they're given and, um, be part of that team carrying forward.

So I think this is one I'd like to see the American people have a

dialogue about and figure out where they would like this nation to go.

I, I agree.

And, and not just for military service, uh, but for public service as well too.

And, you know, AmeriCorps has been around for 25 years, but

that budget's been zeroed out now.

Um, you know, it should be all volunteer, whether it's serving in

the military or in public service.

If I, if I could, I, I, when I was at DHS I was, uh, I spoke to a

large crowd about several hundred.

They were all police, uh, fire chiefs from around the country,

and they were all volunteer.

And the vast majority of, you may not know, vast majority of, of firefighters in

the United States, over 80% of volunteers.

So they do it on their own time.

They take time off to become qualified.

All that kind of -- remarkable.

So I'm talking to several hundred of these folks, all volunteers.

And um, and it just, I just, in the middle of my thinking in, in terms

of talking, I said, uh, just outta curiosity, how many of you, uh, are like

involved in Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts and, you know, 80% raise their hand.

How many of you coach little league or soccer?

80% raise their hand.

Um, you know, how many of you are involved in your churches in, in teaching?

You know, same number.

And I said, how many of you are veterans?

Almost every one of them was a veteran.

That's, we gotta somehow get that message to the rest.

'Cause it's so fulfilling to, uh, live a life where you're giving

back, at least to a degree.

It's so fulfilling.

I think

there's a question here about sort of the role of civilian leaders and the

relationships perhaps to veterans.

So, you know, Secretary, when you came in and the civilian

position, you obviously brought with it a, a background of service.

And so I'm curious, and of course, General Kelly, when you were in more

administrative positions, you obviously had a lengthy tenure of service.

Do you think that for these positions, I know we can't say that

it's maybe required, but should be strongly encouraged, or is it

really just a nice bonus to have?

I think what cures most is that you have empathy towards this issue, right?

Um, doesn't necessarily mean that you had to have served yourself.

Because there's been plenty of examples of great civilian leaders

who've been wonderful senior civilian leaders in the military

and have led, uh, forces in, in war.

Um, but experience does matter.

But what's also equally important is that you have empathy towards these

sailors, marines, you know, airmen, uh, soldiers, care about their issues

because it's a matter of readiness.

And not just about them, but for their families as well too.

Because the morale and welfare of our military families is, is equally important

as that of our service members, right?

So having empathy and appreciation and a willingness to not just care about it,

but make a difference and improve their lives while they're in the service, as

they transition outta their service, and transition over to the Department of

Veterans Affairs, if they, uh, need to participate with all the benefits that

veterans get, is extremely important.

But I wouldn't say that it's necessarily a requirement.

You know, we've had secretaries of Veterans Affairs, for

example, who have had military experience and some who haven't.

Some of the ones who haven't have done as good a job or even a

better job than those that had it.

So I think, uh, caring, being empathetic, being smart, being

strategic, like I said earlier, is really what makes a difference.

I think there's more than one way to get experience here, um,

other than serving in uniform.

I did not serve in uniform, but I served the nation for 41 years.

I went to many of the same, uh, professional military education

opportunities, including the US Army War College as, uh,

my uniformed colleagues did.

And I used those opportunities to understand how to best support them,

how to best support the nation, how to best support the military in the

roles that I was gonna undertake, which were gonna, frankly, mostly be

administrative and managerial, right?

So there's more than one way to get the experience.

And I, I think now we see an influx of people coming from industry with a

completely different mindset as they look at how to defend the nation, how to

do so from a position of, of hopefully economy, um, as well as efficiency,

and safeguard the lives of those soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines,

and guardians that we have out there.

So I think the, as you said, Carlos, the, the ability to have empathy, understand

your responsibility over the lives of those individuals and carry out that

responsibility of the authority, the authority that you've been given under

the Constitution is really important.

I think the military service would be nice to have, but, uh, you know, one of

the things I observed, certainly when I was at the highest level, watching people

like Secretary Panetta, uh, you know, the President of the United States, um,

first and foremost, you have to have had some significant executive experience.

You've had to have run some organization that was, you know, uh, and you, you,

uh, again, the most successful ones I ever saw were very open-minded,

allowed people to disagree with them.

In fact, welcome, disagreement.

Um, they didn't always fold, but I mean, they welcome disagreement.

Um, but these jobs are so big.

Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of Defense, I mean, President of the

United States, that to go into those jobs and not having had some level of,

you know, real, no kidding decision making, executive experience, you're not

gonna be a particularly good secretary.

Um, I once asked, uh, you know, it, was President so-and-so,

uh, qualified to be president.

I would, I would immediately say no, and people would gasp and all

I said, but no one is qualified.

The job is so big, so complex.

So you say, okay, well then what makes for a successful president?

Well, someone -- or Secretary of Defense, or Secretary of the Navy -- someone

who comes in with executive experience, someone, they listened, they're open

to people disagreeing with them.

They know how to lead, uh, as opposed to, you know, force people to,

that's what, that's what you need.

And, and yeah, I mean, to, to have been a, a marine or

something would, would be nice.

But, uh, generally speaking, what happens is when you do have someone come in, but

one of our past, uh, he was very, very good, but he is a sergeant in the Army

during the Vietnam War, and he used to talk all the time about, everything I

think about is from a sergeant's point of view, and he said, I fight every day

to think about what these issues are from the Secretary of Defense's point of view.

'Cause I default to my army sergeant experience, you know, and, and

so it's a nice to have, but it's not, I don't think a requirement.

I, uh, there's a great question from Rob here about what thoughts

you all have on changes in civic literacy and the, the media landscape.

And maybe how, you know, that has changed how civilian leaders are informed

in the civ mill dialogue, or maybe some of the challenges that the lack

of civic, uh, literacy and, and the media have posed to that relationship.

I, I, it's critical to our democracy.

These are issues that must be discussed in every administration, Republican,

democrat, independent, whatever.

They have to be discussed at all levels throughout, in different degrees

perhaps, but at all levels throughout.

And there has to be a commitment to it.

'Cause again, it's fundamental to the principles of our constitution.

It may not be directly written into our constitution, but it's

fundamental to it, I believe.

And so having those discussions, uh, whether it's in words, uh,

discussions, whether it's in books, in libraries, in military institutions,

um, it's critical to our democracy.

And I encouraged it at all levels.

Uh, whether I agreed with what was being discussed or not

being discussed was irrelevant.

The discussion itself helps to educate those who don't understand the

importance of civil military relations, civilian military relations and,

and the role that it plays in, in our constitution and our freedom itself.

Uh, you often hear the discussion today about bringing back civics

courses in our schools, but and -- and that is a worthy discourse to have.

Um, but I'd also say that it's important to continue the civics discussion

as we educate all of the current and future, um, civil servants out there.

When I came through, there was a great course called Leadership in a Democratic

Society that was taught through the, um, federal Executives Institute

in Charlottesville, um, under OPM.

And I understand that that's, that's no longer in existence, and you think

it'd be really interesting to see how we're going to continue forward, um,

teaching the next generations of civil servants and civil leaders about the

requirements of our constitution, the authorities under which they operate,

and how to continue, um, this democracy.

So last night, I, I opened our, our symposium with some remarks

and I talked about the two pillars of what it means to be a republic.

The first is the civilian control of the military, and the second

is the peaceful transfer of power.

And if you lose either of them, then you are something else.

You are, you are no longer a republic.

And the second one, the peaceful transfer of power is, is mostly on

its face, uh, civilian exercise.

Um, and it is also the weakest moment we have in our democracy on a regular basis.

So what is the role of the military in that civ, that civic moment, or that

civil moment when it is so essential to our character, um, but it is also

such a, a weak, potential weakness.

I'll give an example of it, me coming into the role, as Secretary

of the Navy and me coming out of the role as Secretary of the Navy.

You know, there's an extensive educational process that takes place where you have

military officers brief the incoming secretary or whatever the position

might be, on every poten -- every possible topic that you could imagine.

You know, it's been wonderful listening throughout this seminar to all the

different topics that have been discussed.

Because I think in one way or another, I had responsibility for so many of

them throughout my time as secretary.

And I welcomed that best military advice that was being given to

me, uh, during that timeframe.

But I also remember very distinctly the week before I left, the incoming

administration had asked me to spend an hour with them, basically

simply expressing what my concerns were about our, uh, Navy, about

our Marine Corps, and wound up being about two hour conversation.

And I left nothing off the table.

I went through personnel issues, capability issues, challenges that we

were facing, what my recommendations would be if I had remained.

And I think that's critical, again, to this peaceful transition of power.

I will tell you that it doesn't always happen that way.

And again, it's up to the, my opinion, the intellectual and emotional maturity of the

civilian leader to lend themselves to that process for the benefit of our democracy.

Some do and some don't.

Again, when I came in, I reached out to every single one of my predecessors,

my Republican and Democratic.

And by the way, uh, two of our Secretaries of the Navy has just

passed these last two weeks.

Uh, Paul Ignatius, uh, who was a Democrat and Bill Middendorf, who was a

Republican, and I cared deeply about all those former Secretaries of the Navy.

That's the way democracy should work today.

I'm not sure I can improve on that except to agree with Carlos.

There are processes in place to ease the transfer of power between outgoing

and incoming appointees and leadership.

But I also, um, think it's a good point, time to remind ourselves

that we all swear an oath to the Constitution, whether we're in uniform

or whether we're wearing a civilian uniform and service to the nation.

And that is the place where we need to place, place primacy

in times of our greatest risk.

General, what's the role of the uniformed military in that moment?

Uh, to march in the parade, go home.

No, seriously to march.

They're, they're citizens.

Um, the role is we, we have a constitution that says how to do

it, and doesn't include the military other than, as I say, marching.

So, um, you know, and, and the influence.

I, if I could just take a minute, I know we're a little bit over, but when

I was in, in Southern Command, when I get ready to take over down there, you

probably remember in the eighties and the seventies, you know, the human rights,

um, records down there was just absolutely horrible, and a lot of it had to do

with some of our clandestine, you know, civil war producing events down there.

But anyways, uh, and the go and the, and the militaries were, were almost dominant.

They were kind of democracies, but if you, the presidents and people like

that, they looked at the General to make sure that they weren't gonna be

taken out back and, you know, shot.

Um, and when I took over SOUTHCOM, I started, I would always meet

with these human rights groups from all over the, the Latin America.

I, when I went down there, I would always meet with the human rights

groups, and they give very high marks for human rights in Latin America today.

Uh, and the militaries are, are behind.

They, they don't get involved in the politics anymore.

And I, I said, well, why was that?

And they said, well, because after all the bad times we started, the Latin

American countries started sending their officers to American military schools.

And you all started sending your officers down to Brazil, to to

military schools down there.

And we learned from you what the military should and should not do, or

the real role of a military is not to suppress people, but to protect people.

Uh, and I won't tell you the, the government, but I got a call one night.

The, the president of one of the governments down there was arrested.

He was a little bit involved in drug dealing.

And, um

-- Isn't that kind of an either or, yes or no?

Not so much a little bit.

But, um, I was asked to call the, the, the, uh, senior general in that country.

Because there, there were people, state department, afraid that

he was going to, you know, maybe call out the, call out the troops.

And I called him and I said, look, for 40 years your record has improved so well

over in terms of your human rights record and your, and the role of the military.

Keep, keep in the barracks.

Don't go out.

Let the system deal let the civilian system deal, please don't.

'Cause if you do, you're gonna be back to being just another

Latin American, you know, country.

Uh, and he didn't go out.

Now, I don't know if he had intended on going out, but to be able to call directly

to him and say that the, what, what you should do is stay in the barracks.

And the country had a, an election, they've got a democratic president.

You know, so, so our influence is not only here in the United States, I

mean there's, and there's hundreds of stories like that around the country,

around the world, countries that used to, militaries used to be very

involved in politics aren't anymore.

And as we close, can we just do a shout out to, I know that there's

active duty military members here.

Thank you.

Men and women.

And Oh, by the way, I'm so proud of our female military service members today.

They are rock stars and have been since, well, they've

always served as we've heard.

They've served since beginning of time, and as our military warriors.

But as they were given authorities to be able to participate

in combat and elsewhere.

They're amazing warriors, and I'm so proud of each and every one of them.

I just wanna give a shout out to all our active duty out there.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you for joining us this week on Leadership and Legacy, and thank you so

much again to all of our symposium guests.

If you're in the Washington DC area, make sure to check our website to see all of

our other great upcoming onsite events.

We hope to see you here soon.

I'm your host, Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky.

Leadership and Legacy: Conversations at the George Washington Presidential

Library is a production of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association

and Primary Source Media.

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