Following is a special presentation of the William Treat lecture series produced in partnership with New Hampshire Civics and New Hampshire PBS.

What is the role of the military in a democracy?

A conversation with General James Mattis.

Hello to you all.

My name is Dr. Janet Breslin Smith, a former trustee with New Hampshire Civics and a professor of national security strategy at the National War College in Washington, DC.

I'm honored to introduce our guests and my former student, who I must say has done quite well.

General Jim Mattis, who specifically requested this conversation with New Hampshire students after the general makes some initial comments, he and I will have an informal conversation and then he will answer questions from ROTC and junior ROTC students from around the state, as well as military veterans now attending law school.

Former Secretary of Defense and Marine Corps General Jim Mattis was raised in southeastern Washington state, and he graduated from central Washington State College.

He served over 40 years in the Marine Corps as an infantry officer.

He served in the office of the Secretary of the.

As NATO's supreme allied commander and as commander of the U.S. Central Command, which includes troops in combat and support roles across all the Middle East and South Asia.

Retiring in 2013, he joined Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

President Trump appointed him as the 26th secretary of Defense from 2017 through December 2018.

Welcome General Mattis.

We're so honored to have you with us.

Well, thank you, Dr. Janet, former professor of mine and a role model actually of a leader with a strong sense of justice.

It's really a pleasure to be here with you, all those of us who have been modestly successful in some line of work.

We owe it to students to share what we learned, passing along the lessons that we learned.

And and I do always remember that I was in just the Marine Corps for 4043 years.

I was in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Your Marine Corps, accountable to all the people of the United States.

So it's good to be here with you and to share this time.

Plus, I really love New Hampshire having nearly been blown off the top of your Mount Washington on what one day I'd assumed would be an easy day.

Like for those of us who are brought up out West didn't turn out that way.

But let me jump right in.

And despite what some seemed to believe in this age of populism, ignorance is not equal to expertize.

It's not equal to knowledge drawn from study, and it's not equal to critical thinking.

High quality civic education, the free competition of ideas it's drawn from informed critical thinking is absolutely fundamental to the survival of our democracy.

I turned down about 95% of the requests to speak.

Yet I have such high regard for your heartening program that this Institute for Civic Education produces that I'm eager to be with you here today.

A few words about myself.

I was raised by the greatest generation, so I consider my generation to have been the luckiest.

But that greatest generation didn't have it easy.

They'd been through a global depression.

And how bad was it in our country?

20% of the boys who got drafted for World War two military duty were underweight for even start military training.

They had to actually gain weight, and some actually were rejected because they'd been so malnourished, malnourished.

Just think of that in America, where tens of millions are underweight due to the the the depression they'd been through.

And then they go through a war that kills 60 to 70 million people.

And they come back from that.

And they're human beings and they say, you know, it's a crummy world.

It's got poverty, it's got unfairness, it's got injustice, it's got colonialism.

But like it or not, we're part of it.

And I bring this up because that is a generation that was very proud of having stopped fascism in its tracks at a time when many people thought, Well, the authoritarians are going to win, look at their war machines.

They.

But after winning, after beating the fascists, our greatest generation welcomed the Italian, the Japanese, the German people back into the community of nations.

And we have those countries today as allies.

Allied democracies think of that three years after that war was over.

We were doing our best to put them back on their feet.

Now, the greatest generation was not perfect.

They would not even say they were perfect by a long shot.

But what they did do is roll up their sleeves and they changed the world for the better.

It would be no doubt about it.

I cannot imagine a world today that does not have the United Nations that they put together.

I can't imagine the world today had we not taken a Marshall Plan and poured billions of dollars of aid and development money into our former enemies or a world today that did not have Naito to defend democracy or Bretton Woods.

And you and I know Bretton Woods, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, lenders of last resort.

So if people start feeling desperate and hopeless about their future, they don't have to turn to an authoritarian or a tyrant or a charlatan promising them the world, or that the trains can run on time.

There's actually a lender of last resort who can help them start creating wealth and give hope to their children that their lives will be better.

That greatest generation taught me that government service was both a duty.

It was required of us, but it was also a privilege.

I joined the Marine Corps at age 18.

The draft was on.

I knew I was going to get drafted and I chose to volunteer to be in the Marines.

And by the way, for all you young folks who are listening today, I had my whole life planned out.

I was going to do my three years in the Marines, my patriotic tour, and then I was going to return to my hometown and teach history and government and physics, and I was going to coach football.

It just shows a lot of things can change when you make your plan doesn't always turn out that way.

And let me make a point right up front here to you today that I learned along with 40 some years of service to our country.

Because this will guide everything I'm going to say today and probably most of my responses to your questions.

A country that's worth living in, like ours is doesn't have to be perfect.

It'd be worth fighting for.

That's right now we don't have to be perfect.

It'd be worth fighting for because we're always trying to improve.

And in this experiment, you and I call America a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

We actually have the opportunity to guide our own improvement.

This is a great, great gift that we've been granted by our appreciating generations.

But a country such as ours is much like a bank.

And if you want to take something out, like freedom of choice and you want to use it, you want freedom of speech and you want to say what you want to say.

You've got to be willing to put something into that bank to you need to help support that bank, make certain those freedoms are kept safe for future generations.

And whether we're born here like I watch or an immigrant like my mother.

We live free by choice in this country.

We just choose to live here.

But each of us does have that responsibility to turn over the country to the next generation with the same freedoms that you and I enjoy right now.

We all know America have knowledge had it right.

But thanks to our founding fathers, this experiment you and I call America has a near unique ability to get it right.

Now we know that America was born with a birth defect called slavery imported from the old world.

Yet we're the only country I know of that fought a war with itself to decisively get rid of slavery, and this continue are self-directed path to improvement to that more perfect union.

The idea that we're only worth fighting for if we're perfect.

That idea had been disproven many times in the past by volunteers, by draftees, by those who fought for our country.

But it's not a recent idea that we're fighting for at any point in time, nor is it one held by only one group.

James W Johnson was the first executive secretary of the ACP, and he explained why Black American soldiers should fight for America in World War one over 100 years ago.

As he dismissed, sent Shelly sentimentality and taking up what he called the duty, we might remember that word, the duty that faces the black person in the president, our it does not mean blacks should forget that they have just cause for complaint.

He believed that by fighting for America, by performing the duty that now falls to him, as he put it, that wartime example would strengthen and inspire the rest of America to in turn do our duty, our duty to their fellow black citizens who had not yet achieved the basic equality promised under our Constitution.

This is what the path to a more perfect union looks like.

And by listening to what Lincoln called our better angels, we are a far better country today than when black soldiers kept the faith with our constitution with our country and marched off to war for we the people in 1917.

And you may need to remember there is no us or them in our democracy's aspirations.

There is only we the people.

But a democracy can only continue that ascent scent, that improvement if it has an educated citizenry knowledgeable about its civic duties, its history and committed to conserving our founders values.

Plus, that experiment we call America in this imperfect world is going to need a military worthy of defending this radical idea of a government, of the people, by the people, for the people.

Because following that nasty argument with King George, the third our founders created a government that was designed to be very hard, work hard to make it work, that it was never done being developed.

It was a government that demanded compromise among its shared powers.

And each generation inherits this hard unfinished work.

Now it's hard work, and anyone who's been engaged in government or the military knows how hard it is.

But that's also noble work, and that's why I accepted the invitation to speak here today.

It is noble work what you all are talking about here today.

The freedoms enjoyed by every man and woman in this country are themselves seen by tyrants.

The freedoms alone are seen by tyrants as threats.

So we have enemies to our way of life, enemies who hate what our constitution heralds about human rights.

And this is a historic fact.

Our military recognizing that America has no ordained right to survival stands implacably against those who wish us harm.

Protecting it from foreign domination or aggression.

Remember you would General Washington Revolutionary Army that gave us our country freedom.

It was also that we should remember our fight against militarism and World War one in order to make the world safe for democracy.

Remember, we defeated fascism in World War two and we held the line against communism in Cold Wars and hot.

And we led the global fight against terrorism, a form of aggression dressed in false religious garb.

When you look at this national treasure, we call our military.

We say that its role is to protect our experiments, founding values, to protect our America, our way of life.

It is the only organization in our country that can order our own citizens to die if necessary, to protect us all.

The military today is filled with patriots who volunteer to do so, signing a blank check to you and me payable with their lives.

In their oath, our troops swear or affirm to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to bear true faith and allegiance to the same to obey the orders of the president.

And if this means facing danger and discomfort, so be it and our troops today continue standing the watch to protect us.

Our military officers are appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate and serve at the pleasure of the president.

The officer's oath includes a few different words.

And there are also water, they say that they take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, that they will well and faithfully discharge the duties of their office.

I want to repeat those first words that they take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion.

At high rank, senior military officers bring their military advice into the policy and strategy discussions.

And this is often more you have to reconcile polar opposites having been in that role.

We do expect that military officers to be heard, but no one elected us bearing true faith to the Constitution, per our oath.

It means that we remain loyal and carry out our orders from the elected commander in chief and the American people elect the military commander in chief.

And please notice, especially you, young folks, that I said orders not like we don't have to like the orders, but we do have to keep the faith.

We do have to obey if we are to keep faith with the Constitution, which we have voluntarily sworn to do.

We are a democracy.

We elect our commander in chief and our military is the source of great power.

But as the secretary of defense, I believe the military job was to keep the peace or what passed for peace for one more year, one more month, one more week, one more day, maybe one more hour to buy the time for our diplomats to do their best in finding solutions to complex problems.

I want to repeat my theme for today.

We need each of you to contribute to your community, your state, our nation.

We need you to contribute to the world, our country on its worst day is worthy of our best effort.

And we need the best of you to lead in an age that has witnessed a lot of dishonesty.

We need the best of you to set an ethical example of service to others.

Is it sometimes frustrating?

You bet it is.

But as a former president of Mexico once told me, the only shortcut to happiness lies in serving others.

There's a lot of ways you can achieve happiness in the world, but the only shortcut there's public servant that ever found in his long life lay in serving others.

And I guarantee you, you young folks who commit to being on your school board, in your local town or the city council, they'll give you a run for state office.

Those of you who serve the community don't you do volunteer, work, contribute, go into national government, the military, the Peace Corps, the State Department, the intelligence services.

I guarantee you that if you are there, you'll never regret serving this noble experiment.

You have some of the best days of your life.

You know some of the worst days of your life, but you'll never regret it.

So thank you again for having me here.

And Dr. Janet, why don't I turn this back over you as we go into the good part of it?

That's always the Q&A.

Thank you so much, General Mattis, you know, it brings back memories.

one of the joys of teaching at the National War College is that you have a seminar of about 18, maybe 20 students, two from each service.

So two marines to army to navy people from the Foreign Service and the intelligence community.

And they the views you expressed reminded me of really the the intellectual and the emotional connections that we all had to each other there and the joy of education in that in that institution.

And I think listening to you, I think both of us agree that we're in a challenging period in American history because the normal conventions of political military life have been questioned and sometimes respectful debate that's so cherished in our heritage is under attack.

And you mention that.

So the whole question of the role of the military in our democracy is taking on new meaning.

So let's talk about this and help us think through some of these hard issues.

You mentioned that you I think you said you joined the Marine Corps at 18 when you first took your oath to support and defend the Constitution.

What did it mean to you then?

And what does it mean to you now at our advanced age?

Yeah, it's interesting.

Dr. Janet, because what happened when you're when you're young, you think a lot of things are just about you?

And so I'm standing there and the the officer came in and told us, operator and we explained what we were going to be wearing.

And he said, remember, you protect this country, you don't police it, one thing that he said to me just before we raised our hand.

I thought I was doing my patriotic chore.

I wouldn't tell you that I was the most willing or or I wouldn't the most.

Keenly volun keenest volunteer they ever got their hands on.

I was there because I had to be there.

But after I'd been in for a while, there was nothing mysterious.

I just fell in love with the sailors and marines and their selflessness.

They're pretty rambunctious young crew in the marine infantry.

And the longer I stayed in, I realized it was something far beyond me and even my commitment, this was something this is an experiment that the whole world was watching.

And I I read what George Washington said in his original words, his original inaugural talks and his State of the Union talks.

And I was reading these words in a sense, then how few generations asked since this experiment was started and that volunteers and now I have a sense of what a great gift I was given by being born in this wonderfully imperfect country that can always commit to getting better, never feeling complacent about those on the margins of our society and in this wonderfully generous country.

I just see it now as I was given an unbelievable opportunity to serve this country and be in uniform for so long.

I'm still humbled that day that the Marines allowed me to stay so long.

Well, one thing you know, you mentioned something and I recall when we when we would teach and talk about the Congress in the Constitution, that in so many ways the framers of the Constitution agreed with you that we're an imperfect group of people and they designed a structure.

As you mentioned, it's hard.

It's it's hard to get things done.

And they just they designed that structure because they knew we weren't perfect.

And so the whole idea that we learn in high school about checks and balances and separation of power, all those structural aspects, I think, reflect what you're talking about.

How can you make a better government when you know that we're not angels, we have to power has to be checked by power.

You need participation, as you mentioned at all levels of government, local, state, national.

So I think the framers had an idea that inspires us still.

I want to go also just to a comment.

I remember noticing when I started teaching at the War College and my husband is as he was an Air Force General at every promotion, as I recall.

And also, I have to say, when I worked on Capitol Hill, I took the same oath.

So in every promotion, you are rededicating yourself to that oath of office to support and defend.

Unlike other nations were not making that oath to a king or, you know, some special person, it's it's to the Constitution.

So you mentioned something that I was curious about this, that an officer, a Marine Corps officer, takes the oath to support and defend the Constitution.

That, in enlisted Marine says the additional aspect of obeying the orders of the president.

Why do you think there's two different writings of the oath between an officer and an enlisted?

When we set up the the U.S. military, the framers knew that the military had to be governed by different rules.

You could not have a military governed by the same rules and in our Constitution, it says the Congress will set up separate rules for those who protect this country.

But the officers have a special role because now you have part of America trained in violence and with the tools of violence in their hands.

You had to have an officer corps that had an additional obligation, and part of it really comes out in the role of local parents in many ways.

In other words, you have to teach your troops that this violence must be conducted according to certain laws that the Congress passes and treaties that we're under.

And it's a reminder, I think, that once you enter into the grim situation where you have to employ the military, as President Lincoln's army was told in 1863, and this would in some modern political correctness.

He said When you put on a uniform, you do not surrender your responsibilities as a human being.

Now we all recognize the tragedy of war may have you conducting violence, but you have got to try to raise your troops in a way that they protect the Constitution.

Because many times in history you see military actually become the antithesis to freedom in their own country and they actually take control.

We've all heard of military coups.

We see them going on right now in the world, and we don't ever want that kind of a threat.

And for 250 odd years, we've not had that threat in our country.

But the idea that we're somehow inoculated against just by being Americans isn't true.

Education, education, education and then firm accountability in the military for those who disappoint that higher calling.

Well, following along those lines, and I can sense this from what you said, why do you think it is so important that the mullahs in our country that the military remain nonpartizan?

You know, every political system needs a political counterweight.

You can't have there's no one party throughout history.

There needs to be a balance.

And if we're the military with the tools of violence in its hands to start being identified as part of one party or another, de facto, you no longer have a military protecting the constitution.

They're now going to opt in ways that are maybe quiet, maybe not so quiet to start from pronouncing a certain dogma.

And once that dogma takes hold, you're going to create distrust.

And one point I would make is about our military when trust was in the room with our political overseers.

The discussions were candid.

They were realistic.

They kept the country on the right track.

But if we were ever to lose trust, if you were did not have trust in the room, not much good could happen.

The conversation would become brittle.

The the the the outcomes would become more muted in terms of strategic advice and this sort of thing.

So it's very important that the military be seen as protecting the constitution, protecting the country, protecting our way of life, living according to law.

More important than probably any other part of our country, except the police forces who are who also have to do this because if we ever get to the point where what is potentially an oppressive use of the military is instituted, then we no longer have the Constitution guiding us.

You're now a government of power, of violence, of of of ruthlessness, frankly.

So this is why we've got to learn how to compromise in our country, rediscover that which our founding fathers did and which we did all through the years, except for our civil war.

We found ways to compromise and come up with always keeping the country improving, even as we competed with different ideas.

And that freed competition of ideas is what this Institute for Civics Education in New Hampshire is so critical to promoting in my mind.

We've got to get back to this where we listen to each other with respect.

We rediscover the fundamental friendliness because right now, Janet, for all my 45 years between the marine infantry and secretary of Defense job, I'm less concerned with external threats to our democracy right now than I am about what we're doing to ourselves internally.

And that worries me.

Well, along those lines, I think, you know, it's in my life, too, I don't remember a period like this.

You know, I was born in 45, so it was kind of the same feeling of victory after, as you say, after the defeat of our enemies fascism in Germany and in Japan.

And I look at this period and I'm trying to think it through.

And again, I keep going back to the framers because as you mentioned.

My whole experience from working with government is that the framers had the intention of trying to achieve compromise.

They knew we had a very diverse country.

They don't think they could have anticipated how large we would be eventually and how powerful we would be.

But they knew that people were coming to this country from various parts of Europe and in the beginning, and that we had to have a structure that would allow the this diversity of backgrounds coming to us, different religions, different backgrounds and yet set up a structure where we could compromise with each other.

We we've talked about this a bit, but when you think about the the current situation we're in.

What things come to mind, especially for the students, that we're going to go to them in a few minutes to have their questions.

But what kind of comments of encouragement can you give them to say we are in a rough spot right now?

I mean, certainly the pandemic is something that unique in our lifetimes, the changing political environment in the world.

The advent of of, you know, different challenges in Asia.

The continuing challenges in the Middle East.

How do you look at the future yourself and what I get, what encouragement because we have now students with us today who are making that decision to become military officers themselves?

So I'd like your reflections about that.

Yeah, it's a great question, because it goes to the heart of the issues that we face.

It is a rough patch and we should not try to dress it up and say it's not.

We have a country, though, that was set up with three competing power bases that would force us to have to compromise, to govern ourselves.

And I think that that right now.

Plus just to make it additionally a challenge.

They also borrowed from the Romans that an idea called the Senate.

And now we have a bicameral legislature.

So it really takes four part of the government to compromise and work together to make our government work.

That is hard.

It's much easier if you're in Putin's Russia right now.

Putin says it.

That's what happens.

And so it looks, looks really easy, and he can at times feel that he's got the wind in his back because he sees America, where right now we're not willing to compromise, where we're starting to get painted into corners by primary elections that seem to pit the most far left person against the most far right.

And they go in proudly saying they're not going to compromise.

They would not be so proud if they were going in front of a court.

A Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George Washington.

They would be found guilty of malfeasance of democracy, of destruction, of the ideals that all men and women are created equal.

And we're going to hear each other out with with a degree of respect.

And what I would say to the young people here is number one.

Keep the faith.

Keep the faith.

Nobody's made money betting against America.

So we'll get through this and we're going to get through it because you're going to help us.

You are as much a part of this country as a gray haired general or pardon me, great.

It's a wonderfully gray-haired professor who taught me so much along these lines and my dad.

But I think that if I was to give a practical piece of advice, here it when you hear someone saying something you disagree with and someone's trying to shout them down, don't go along with it.

Say I disagree with her 100% and I want to hear more of what she had to say.

Nobody has the corner on all the good ideas.

I used to tell my officers at U.S. Central Command, U.S. Central Command at 75 nations officers who trusted us enough to be on a U.S. command.

I used to tell my American officer not all the good ideas come from the country with the most aircraft carriers.

And if I would give it another idea, it's make sure that if you disagree with someone, try to find at least two things.

That they are talking about that you would agree with not one, because that's too easy.

Try to find two things and then try to find the common ground and then sit down for a root beer together and talk it over.

But don't let someone convince you that someone who thinks differently is an enemy, an enemy of the people, a terrorist.

I fought terrorists.

I've not seen American terrorists unless they were willing to pick up weapons and kill fellow Americans.

And there's not many of those around.

There's some angry people around.

Let's sit down and talk and find common ground or make common ground because even a broken clock is right twice a day.

So maybe that person you disagree with has something to offer.

Good advice.

I mean, as you know, there was a period in my life where we lived in Saudi Arabia, and I remember my goal before we went was to to do the best I could to try to understand how life looked like, what was the the the way life was experienced to a Saudi woman's eyes.

Putting yourself in the other person's shoes in this country, I think, is what you're getting at is how can we understand each other coming from very different backgrounds?

I would just want to ask you one last question between us and then and then get ready for the students.

You've said a lot of things that have made me think myself about.

What does an officer do when there might be a challenge or you might be it might be a suggestion to be ordered to do something that you think is against the Constitution?

And how would you define for these younger cadets here how and also the steward, the veterans who are going to law school, the role of understanding the rule of law.

In your in your in taking the oath of office.

Yeah.

You know, I've been thinking about this.

I get asked it quite often.

And usually on anything, I'm asked about my time in the military.

I can bring forward an example and how people successfully or unsuccessfully dealt with the situation.

As I think about this, I cannot recall a single time I was given an illegal order.

I had orders I didn't like often, but I think part of it is that even on college campuses and I teach probably a little more than a dozen a year, I live on one.

And I used to hear more talk about what was legal in practical ways and what we could do to protect innocent people on the battlefield.

Remembering every battlefield is also a humanitarian field.

We had more contact with the International Committee of the Red Cross than I find in any of the universities, and it was part of our life that we live it ethically because there is a great cost to violating the law in the military.

There's a great cost to running the ethical sidelines.

We would tell people run the ethical midfield because we all make mistakes at times.

And if you make a mistake and you're in American football, you're in the midfield.

You can recover on it.

But if you're run on the sideline and if you're trying to cut corners and you make a mistake, you're going to be out of bounds.

And these were words I was brought up with.

These are the kinds of things that kept us, I think, from experience in illegal orders.

Now that's not to say there aren't orders that are legal but would be immoral and that I did have to deal with.

There were times that legally we could have done things that I thought would not have been morally morally defensible and that would a higher standard.

There are times in order to maintain life of innocent people's lives on the battlefield.

We have put our own troops in danger.

This is a normal part of the American military experience.

That's not to say our troops don't have a right to expect that we'll do everything to keep them alive.

But there are times when we put our troops in danger and you saw it there during the evacuation in Afghanistan, and we tried to get people through and out of that country under the very difficult circumstances those troops faced in those last hours at the airport.

And we lost 13 of our beautiful troops, I mean, killed in action, more than a dozen others wounded.

And so it's it's been my experience that we've not had to deal with this.

But let's there be any doubt whatsoever.

An illegal order and order contradictory to the constitution would would would have to be disobeyed.

Would have you would have a higher duty to disobey that order and throw yourself on the consideration of the court if you were court martialed for it.

But again, I can't give you an example of that because I've never seen someone have to disobey orders under those circumstances, which in itself when I think about this is quite a salute to our military, to the ethical stance of our military.

Not that they're perfect.

Every human organization has somebody in it that once in a while will disappoint you break your pack and heart.

But I remind my officers that when they have to hold someone accountable for that, that even Jesus of Nazareth had one out of twelve go to modern.

So once in a while, people don't, you know, don't don't measure up but to disobey but get an illegal order.

I just I can't give you an example of one.

But I would never get complacent about this.

This is why we need civics education of everyone in America, including our troops going into the military, whether at age 18 like me or young officers going in in their twenties.

Yeah, that's a lovely statement, and I agree with you, I know that in in any endeavor in business, in government, in the military, oftentimes when you're faced with an ethical challenge, sometimes it seems to be very small.

It's like a small little issue that can get much larger.

And the important aspect of this is, and I know in my own experience where you really are going back to the way you were raised, the values that you learn, let's say in your case in the Marine Corps, which I think is an institution that is very direct about its values.

And those are things that we can't take lightly because those moral choices, knowing what is the right thing to do is something that I think again, our cadets here have to give careful consideration is not a light.

I think that you dismiss when you go through your career.

So thank you so much for these comments, honestly.

It's always a joy to talk to you and kind of think these issues through together.

Now I want to include our, as we just mentioned, the students in New Hampshire that are across the state and have them ask you questions themselves.

So if we can bring them up to see which I don't know if it's snowing, I'm down in D.C. right now, so I don't know if it's snowing up in New Hampshire.

I don't think it is right now.

But let's go.

I think the first group is going to be with the unnamed law school, the Veterans Law Society, and I think we've got Coda Campbell.

Are you here?

Yes, there you are.

Would you like to ask your question?

Mm hmm.

Yes, thank you.

Good afternoon, sir.

In hindsight, is there anything you would have done differently in your career as a leader?

Hindsight, you know, there's tactical decisions, you make mistakes that you say, gosh, what could I have been thinking of right then?

Fortunately, most of the time you're insured will get you out of the jam you get them into.

So there's always goes, I think.

But I think looking back over my personal development in the Marines, everybody has to read six books when they come in every private, every second lieutenant.

Then you make corporal or sergeant.

You get a new reading list, you make captain, you get a new reading list, you make general, you get a new reading list.

And I wish that I had recognized that the human factors I needed to study more on them earlier.

I got to that point as I would ride in and rank and got to the more of the human factors in my higher level reading.

But I think if I had studied the human factors earlier, I'd have recognized better the spiritual aspect of service and the great value you have when you have high spirited troops who know what needs to be done and and you're doing extra things that others did in past wars that kept your troop spirit strong in the face, you know, combat will strip the veneer off anybody's character.

It strips it right off.

And especially that kind of close combat the intimate killing of the infantry when they go into a fight.

So I wish I'd studied the human factors more at a younger age.

Coda to that, aren't you?

What?

You want to come back at me?

It does.

And then one follow on question is, what changes did you see in the later years regarding equal justice in sentencing in the military justice system?

Yeah, that's an interesting one, because I read about this now, but the shocking lack of data that and some of the data is so incomplete that I'm just amazed that they're making statements like that that that we've got this disconnect somehow in the military.

And why do I bring this up?

There's a book I don't know if you're a law school student or not, but if by F Lee Bailey, I think it's called the defense never rests, and he was a foremost defense attorney, highly sought out if you were in big trouble.

There was the guy to go because he would want great attorney, former marine former fighter pilot in the Marines.

And in his book in the first couple of pages, said I would rather at the defense attorney try a case in the military court system than the civilian court system because it is fairer for that for the defendant.

And that, of course, is because in the military, with hits with its authority, that's given to officers.

It has to be very attentive to any kind of bias, any kind of commander influence and that sort of thing.

And there are automatic appeals.

There are rights for what the civilians call grand juries that in the military you have rights.

And in a grand jury, what we call an article 32 you don't have in a civilian grand jury.

So I'm not sure that the problem is well enough defined yet because we were always attentive to this.

We were even shown how to read statistics.

We rely on officers, not not lawyers.

We were taught how to read statistics about non-judicial punishment, about ranks and what punishment are being given ratios, what ratios are being brought up on court martial or non-judicial punishment?

I just haven't seen it.

That's not to say it couldn't exist because we recruit from a society that's got ratios in it, but it's not a racial society, in my view.

And I think the military, because it depends so much on each other.

There is a reason why minorities are re-enlisting at higher rates than whites in our military, and our minorities are not dumb.

They're not re-enlisting with an organization that's unfair to them.

So I think there's a fair amount of data that says it's not quite from F Lee Bailey's time to today.

It's not quite what some of the news media have portrayed.

I think they just have incomplete data.

But you do have to watch it, and the best way to watch it is by watching the data it will.

It will give you a start.

Point does not give you the answer, however.

At the best intriguing can give, because I know, I know that guy, not the one you're looking for, but that's better than I can give you based on my experience.

OK, great, thank you.

And again, stay in school, keep studying, and you can contribute to this, that issue.

Now I want to head on to you in Durham, to the ROTC program there.

Amanda Santos, I think you've got a question.

Hi, Amanda.

Hi, sir.

In May, I'll be graduating and being an active duty army officer.

My question for you is how do you gain and maintain the respect and the trust of your soldiers as a junior officer?

Yeah, great question, because that is what George C Marshall was most concerned about if he was creating the big army in World War two and he was doing it so quickly.

first of all, coming from the Marines were very influenced by Eastern Thought, and you could be first along in the Pacific.

And I would just say that body, mind and spirit first.

Physically, you have to be a physically tough do as many pull ups at your toughest troops.

You have to run as fast for your three mile run.

And if your toughest troops and you have to be encouraging them while you're doing that, if you're not doing that, that if physically you're not at the top of your game with your toughest troops right away, they start calculating your last year in the combat arms.

Mentally, they do expect that you've mastered things that you are at the top of your game.

If you need artillery support, you need medical medevac.

You know how to do it.

You can do it quickly, but also that your spirit you never take refuge in to things that are widespread in America.

Today, there are no victims in the U.S. military.

We do not accept victimhood.

You can get on CNN for 15 minutes any day if you're your victim and declare yourself such in the military.

You make choices.

You're not a victim.

The other one is cynicism.

An officer is not allowed to resort to cynicism and say, Oh, there's nothing you can do about it anyway.

That's the last thing the troops need to see.

But I would also say probably one of the most important things is to have a combination of competence that I've been talking about body, mind and spirit.

Your military skills, but also empathy and empathy, and not some touchy feely thing.

Empathy means that your passion for excellence in your unit does not outweigh your compassion for your soldiers who are given 100% and literally willing to carry out your orders, even if it puts their life in danger.

And I think that one thing that you should always remember is we and it's summed up in the old idea that officers eat last.

If there's anything good a way to get out of the rain, a way to get dry socks, or they get those things first.

Officers eat last.

Officers get dry socks last.

You always put your troops first when it comes to matters of safety or comfort, and really important to is make certain you know what you need out of your troop in the Marines for any Navy Petty Officer, Marine NCO in the fleet marine force that we wanted to promote.

We rewarded initiatives and aggressiveness.

So if you don't reward the right behavior, you won't get the right behavior and institutions get the behavior they reward, no matter what the institution is.

So try those ideas and they'll generally, if you're listening well to your NCOs, they'll make you a success.

They can't do much with a physically weak officer.

The troops that the NCOs can't cover for you if you don't know how to guide your unit through tough terrain is just one of those things.

So try those ideas.

Amanda, I think that you'll find that your troop reward you with the kind of trust that you need in order for them to move against the enemy.

Thank you, sir.

Sure.

Amanda, I think you're getting ready to do that.

I can feel it in you.

I think you've got, I think, listening to the general, you're going to do that.

So thanks for joining us today.

Let's go ahead to White Mountain.

To the White Mountains Regional High School, there's an Army ROTC program there in Whitefield at Josiah Hackett.

Can you hear?

Yes, ma'am.

Please do ask General Mattis your question.

Good afternoon, sir.

The COVID 19 vaccination is being mandated to all service members, whether they are in an active or if their status as a new member of the U.S. Army Reserve, the surrender of an individual's civil liberties to be forced to take the vaccination seems unjust.

Please justify how the administration can push to have service members receive a discharge that is less than honorable for refusing the vaccine, especially if they are not currently forecasted for a mobilization.

Yeah, and why do you think this is unjust?

The order is unjust.

I. I just believe it is unjust to serve 16, 17, 18, 19 years and then to be dishonorably discharged when they're so close to that retirement period.

Yeah, OK. first of all, remember more than any institution in the world, probably the U.S. military is not about me.

It's always about the team.

If, for example, if you have someone who's been in for that many years, they know full well that it again, it's orders.

It's not like you don't.

You don't only follow what you like to do, you won't like it if your unit pulled out and put in front and told you're to breach the minefields.

So the rest can come through.

You go into the minefield and clear it out.

Find the mind.

And it's very, very dangerous.

So again, it orders.

It's not like, but it's more than that.

You may say that they're not scheduled for deployment.

I'll bet on December six, 1941.

Most soldiers didn't think they were scheduled for deployment by the close of 24 hours later.

Many of them already had orders to start deploying to our own coast to overseas because of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

You are to stand ready when the nation is least ready.

That means they're ready to go right now.

Plus, what would happen if, you know, if we have some people who say, Well, I don't want to do that.

And so they get covered and they give it to other members of the unit, or are you going to say only people who don't think they have to deploy pretty soon?

You don't have a unit anymore, you have units every while I'm in the part that doesn't deploy because I'm not going to get the command well, I'm deploying and I'm sleeping next door to you.

And what if you give it to me because we know the vaccine will prevent you from dying?

It won't always prevent you from catching it.

So the military does prior to it very strongly pushes for what we call reason over impulse.

You may have an impulse that said you don't want to take it.

Well, they don't care.

Frankly, you protect this country.

But let me give you a historical example, because sometimes what this will do to that desire is it'll put it in it non-personal terms.

George Washington was losing more troops to smallpox than he was to British Bullets.

But the problem was in those days they actually pricked the skin of a disease soldier.

And unhealthy children, in other words, they were doing live virus, which is the way they they gave the inoculation very dangerous, not like today, where the FDA did all the tests to make certain the COVID vaccine is safe.

And the British troops knowing that the Americans had smallpox, they had to get vaccinated before they left Britain before they came over.

They weren't losing men like this and Washington was afraid we were going to lose the war.

To smallpox, he was losing that many men dying to it.

And here's the thing, if you're thinking about going into the army as a leader, you don't get to do just your best.

You don't get to go to bed at night saying, Well, it was difficult.

I did my best.

That doesn't.

History's not going to accept that excuse.

As a leader, you must do what is required.

George Washington knew he could probably keep his army out of the fight for 30 days, and he needed 30 days to do a mass inoculation.

And not fight, we had to stay away from the British Army inoculated.

He didn't say, if you want to, if you like it.

He ordered it because he was a leader.

And if we were going to win the war, you had to do it.

That is the army you're joining the army that was willing to put themselves even in the face of a very dangerous way to inoculate itself to protect this idea we had of a free country.

So if if this, I would just tell you that if this rage heavily on you, you may want to look at another line of work you may need to say, Well, maybe the army is not right for me because there you put your troops first.

And if you, for example, as an officer weren't vaccinated and you got one of your troops sick, believe me, that's not what that troops, mother and father thought they were doing when they sent their son or daughter off to join the U.S. Army that they'd have officers who didn't put their troops health and welfare first.

Does that give you an answer?

Could it happen or you want to come back?

You want to.

This is a very relevant question.

I appreciate you bringing it up.

I do believe you did answer my question, sir.

I appreciate your time in helping me understand it.

Make it sure, yeah.

No, keep the questions coming.

This is how this shall we learn.

You know, you don't learn by being silent.

So well done.

Yeah, I thought it's on people's minds.

I'm glad you asked the question, and General Mattis, you gave us an insight into what what it feels like when General Washington had to contend with in making that decision.

And that and the outcome of our independence was riding on that decision.

Yeah, you go well now, New Jersey now, and you can see where he did it, hiding his troops there from the British.

So yeah, there's a reason he's called the father of our country.

God bless them.

Yeah, yeah.

So now we went to if we can, we're going to try to go to Manchester West High School, Manchester theater deal.

Can you ask your question?

Of course, my question is, how do you prepare your subordinates to take over your job?

Great question.

You've been doing your your history work.

It sounds like it's critical in the military because we don't patronize our young troops.

They all know that the leader can go down in a fight just like they're the youngest private can can be can be knocked down.

So what you have to do is, first of all, set an example.

You should be a model every day if you're a leader so that your troops watching you.

If they replicate your activities but do it in their own way, then they're doing the right thing.

You should always be putting your troops first.

You should be a model of competence.

You should have empathy for your troops.

You should be their coach.

You know, when I had 40 sailors and marines as a young infantry second lieutenant, 21 years old overseas, I had I had these 40 troops.

It took me about ten minutes a day to command the rest of my day, you know, give an order, write an order, whatever you know, make a decision.

The rest of my time, which coaching you when I made Four-Star General, I could I could take command of a quarter million U.S. and allied troops and and command about ten minutes a day the rest of my time.

And I was coaching now instead of coaching lance corporals and corporals.

Now I was coaching admirals and generals from 20 nations.

But you see what I'm driving at as a leader, you're always coaching.

The other thing is, make certain you learn how to delegate authority very young.

And what you do then, is you're actually coaching them.

You give them the authority to make certain decisions and then you be in a position to enable them.

You make certain they have the support they need.

They know they can always come back and ask you questions and feel what you're doing and you're teaching them how to make decisions by delegating the authority to them.

And the more you delegate, the faster your troops are going to be in carrying out decisions because you have every decision has to come up to you.

That slows everything down.

But by delegating, you're also coaching them how to take your place if the need arises.

Let's go back to the law school, to the U.N. age law, Veterans' Law Society.

And if you're back up there, Skyler, I think you had a question.

Yes.

Good afternoon, sir.

Given the number of veterans that participated in the attempted overthrow of our government, how there is evidence to suggest veterans are still being targeted and radicalized on online social media platforms to become the next homegrown terrorists of the 21st century?

What advice do you have for veterans?

Veterans organizations or the veterans community to avoid being radicalized?

Well, probably scattered, probably the same advice I'd have for anyone because we're all American citizens here in terms of the veterans, though, again, I always turn to data because many times in today's age of social media and of great competitive screeching on various news stations that seem to align themselves with certain political positions.

I don't see a lot of data being used, and if you look at what looked like a principally all male or print, I would say 90% male crowd on January sixth, the percentage of veterans within that did not seem at first to John like big , and then it's more and more people are less came out and things like that and more data came out.

I'm not sure that veterans were overrepresented there.

I think there were some people who read a lot of Soldier of Fortune magazine and acted like veterans died or tried to dress like them, like some people do.

But the concern I have is that we are increasingly in this country unwilling to listen to each other.

And I think once you get into an echo chamber, it's very easy to become radicalized because everything you hear in today's age, when you can filter out any disagreeable ideas and just listen to people who agree to, you can make you suspicious and angry towards the others.

Them, for example.

And that's why I said in my remarks, I don't remember reading us and them in the US constitution.

I remember reading we, the people and our founding documents, not us and them.

And I think that if we don't start with high school civics education, that teaches respect for different points of view.

Veterans are no more immune after they've left the military two years ago.

22 years ago, 40 years ago, there are no more immune than any other human being.

If you put them in an echo chamber of come up with some pretty, pretty crazy ideas.

So I think if we were to go back to first principles and remind people, we all stand by the Constitution.

So let's start with listening to one another, and we don't need gladiatorial combat to characterize every discussion and not everything's about principle.

Some of it's just about different ideas about how to do the same thing.

And I think if we don't get back to that sort of respect and friendliness toward one another, that the tribal hatreds that many of us who are veterans have seen all around the world, we know we have, you know, various passions here in our country.

But I've never seen it like, like Dr. Janet Wassim, I've never seen this turning into tribal passion in our own country.

And this goes far beyond the veterans.

The veterans should just fall back on their oath to uphold the Constitution, and the Constitution doesn't say anybody can't bring up their ideas.

So why would we shout down somebody after we swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States that guarantees freedom of speech that we put our lives on the line to defend?

So I'd fall back on first principle with the veterans.

And at the same time, we've got to make sure that we don't exaggerate a problem that is not data wise supportable.

In other words, if you start saying it enough that we've got the problem, you may have a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And if you use data, you may find there's a much more diverse veterans organization out there than the ones you get on the news and got to get their picture taken on January six, a job that represents us.

Again, I just remind you, Jesus of Nazareth had one out of twelve go to mud on him.

That didn't represent what he stood for.

And I don't think the few who went nutty on January six represent U.S. veteran population from my engagement with them and I've I've engaged quite a bit with veterans, to say the least.

And do you have any ideas on this location you tell me, what would you do about it?

I mean, it looked from your Typekit that you might be a veteran.

Yeah.

No, I was a I was a marine for nine years.

I'm not thinking this was exclusively a veteran issue, but I was wondering what your position would be or message to veterans since there were veterans that day.

The casualty, I think the first casualty, actually.

Babbitt was a veteran and there were flags flown on that day of the various branches.

So whether or not veterans, I don't think there was a large group, just like you say.

But the fact that there's one or two, I feel is too many and they came from somewhere.

And as far as what your suggestion is to the veterans organizations or to veterans as individuals, I think is it's great you don't see us as separate from a larger sort of community.

And remember on the remember the oath, I think, is what you mentioned, which is, I think is great, good.

Can I ask you one follow up question?

Absolutely.

Go ahead, please.

January sixth I'm curious to know what you felt on January sixth, not how you felt, but what you felt and how that day has affected you since.

Yeah, I was disgusted by it.

I was disappointed, but I also wanted to try to understand what would drive people to do that besides lives.

I mean, I recognize that many people and it's coming out now had been lied to.

But so what have I done about it?

I have doubled down on going on studying societies that were torn apart and had to be put back together.

Let me be real specific here.

I'm I'm studying Mandela and de Klerk in South Africa and how, after the fall of the hated apartheid regime, here was a guy who'd put man from the party that put Mandela in jail and a leader of that party and Mandela working together afterwards.

Then I studied Finland, where Mannheim had to put his society back together twice in his lifetime.

To 22 and in London and again in 1944 to 46.

I studied President Grant and General Grant.

But when he was president, what did he do to bring our country back together?

And how did that work?

I've studied Martin Luther King Jr for how in the midst of the Cold War, when we have an enormous external threat, America makes the biggest civil rights legislation achieves that right in the midst of the Cold War.

And what I'm finding as I go through this is a mix of accountability and forgiveness in each of those society.

But notice, every time I spoke about this, I used the name of a leader, Mannheim, in Finland, you know?

You know, de Klerk and Mandela in South Africa.

President Grant and America Civil War.

Martin Luther King Jr.

In our civil rights movement.

There's a combination of forgiveness and accountability, but it's associated with a political leader of courage and vision and conviction.

And that's what worries me right now.

We need some of you young people to step forward with that kind of conviction, that kind of courage, that kind of vision and start stepping forward to try to glue this society back together at some time.

A lot of forgiveness and basically very little accountability.

Another case that a lot of accountability, but then forgiveness is plugged in.

But it's a combination.

It is that trend I'm finding in each of those cases of forgiveness and accountability that seems to be the the way out of this, the swamp we've gotten ourselves into.

But I really appreciate the question because it did have an effect on my behavior and what I'm studying right now.

Now we're going to we're going to hopefully go back to phone Mountain High School, if they if we have a connection, do we have connection to you?

Can you hear us, our audio playing right now?

OK. All right.

Did you get a chance help, so please continue.

All right.

General Mattis, do you think JROTC cadets could benefit from having dual senior instructors from different branches of the military in order to not be limited to one type of JROTC program?

Yeah.

You know, you can always bring in joint officers.

I would just tell you, Harrison, that probably the most important thing right now is something you find though in common across Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.

And that is what we're really interested in.

You, young folks, is developing a sense of of devotion to the country and developing your own personal character so that doing the right thing, looking out for others, listening to others, learning how to lead teams in a positive vein, those things can be taught, I think, in any one of our armed forces.

There are differences between the armed forces and their cultures, but they're probably not differences in that area, which is the area that's most important for junior ROTC because you're still in an age there where you're very much in your formative years.

And so I don't think you lose anything by having just one service do that.

Would it hurt?

Absolutely not.

It wouldn't hurt in the least.

It'd probably be a little harder to put together for funding and all those bureaucratic reasons, you know?

But I've known a lot of JROTC programs that I know of one that's run by the Air Force, and they bring in army and navy and Marine and Coast Guard officers and petty officers on a lecture series.

That means that it might as well be what you're talking about the that answer your question, their young man.

Yes.

Thank you, sir.

Sure, thank you.

Harrison.

And I might add that what you're talking about, one of the inspirations that established the National War College where I taught him were General Mattis attended was General Eisenhower and he he had this vision right after World War two that we needed an institution that indeed brought together all of the branches of all four services with the State Department and with the intelligence community, and occasionally we also have international students.

But the idea was, is that especially at the level our students were at the colonel level.

Lieutenant Colonel and colonel level that at that point in their careers and those of you who are going to go on in a military career, I urge you to think about the war colleges as a future thing you might want to do when you get at that level that Eisenhower knew that to have a successful national security strategy.

People from all of those various services and the other agencies and departments needed to understand each other's cultures.

So when an Air Force officer, how he thinks what he does or how an army officer, what she thinks, how she motivates herself, what, what, what her skill set is.

Institutions like the War College are valuable because they bring those various students together representing those various bureaucratic and in service cultures.

So thanks so much.

Was there anybody else there from farm out that wanted to ask a question?

I'm I'm glad Command Sergeant Major Jesse Fisk and I have one question for General Mattis.

As far as career and lifestyle go, is there any alternate path for you that you were interested in?

I think you touched on this a bit, but if you could add to it?

If so, what led you to make the decision to seek a military career?

Yeah, I did touch on it, Jesse, but but good question, because you're at the age now when you're when I had to deal with this sort of, you know, coming up on 18 there.

I mean, I really wanted to be a teacher.

I had great teachers growing up.

I admired them.

They they taught me more than just the classroom, their example, their their commitment to us learning.

I was just I still look back on it and consider myself really privileged to have had those teachers.

So I wanted to be a teacher, want to be a coach.

I what happened was I got into the Marine Corps and my father was a marine, just made me decide.

I'd rather have a tough job.

Were some jobs I didn't like Jesse update right up front.

I learned to hate minefields at a very young man, and I hate him to this day, OK?

But I loved being around sailors and marines who would probe their way into minefields, looking for something they didn't want to find and make certain their buddy didn't get killed.

And so I decided to stick around saying to myself, I'd rather be around great people.

All selfless, rambunctious full of get up and go and have bad jobs and go off and make a lot of money.

And and you know, I have a good job, but maybe not be around people who put others first.

Like what I found in the fleet marine force.

So I thought about it.

But I've never felt anything other than gratitude to the Marine Corps allowed me to stay in so long.

To read into your question, Jesse.

It did.

Thank you very much, sir.

Sure.

Thank you.

Great.

Thanks so much.

Let's go back to you in Durham.

The ROTC unit there in Jacob Blair.

Are you there?

There you are.

Good afternoon, sir.

I'm going to be ranching aviation in May.

And my question for you is how well prepared is the U.S. in comparison to our adversaries for cyber warfare and threats?

Well, cyber is a weird one, because in this case, it's a new domain.

We've been fighting on this planet, on the water and on the land for, you know, 10,000 years.

Last hundred years we added air.

And then in the last.

1015.

We've watched our adversaries move into the cyber and the space arenas, and so we've never added to new domain so quickly as we do now on the operational level, I think we are very much ready for it.

If you walk into a a joint operation center where I would at U.S. Central Command, you'll see someone in touch with the aircraft carrier, another one in touch with the submarine, another one in touch with the Air Force squadrons, another one in touch with the the army.

Long range fires, the missiles.

Guys, you see all these offshore.

You'll also see some people who are down there working the cyber effort.

They're integrated right in with all the other things.

The biggest concern I have just see it or is as I look at this.

Is we're not organized, right?

And here, I mean, the secretary of defense, I had 95% of the offensive and defensive cyber capability of the United States, but most of our vulnerabilities are not our military, which are public utilities at our hospitals, our state legislatures and their treasuries.

It's corporations.

And here's the problem.

The people who are responsible for protecting them have none of that.

My capability and 5%, maybe most of my keep going to of defense.

But guess what?

The Department of Defense protects this country.

We have no authority to work inside the country, so it's doing as a cyber attack.

It's inside our country.

It takes an FBI, it takes a court order and it's fast to cyber attacks, go on the military, get brought in into light.

Here's what we need to do.

I trust you, young folks, to take notes here.

We need to get it like an FBI officer made, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command set up a separate federal court that would be able to meet 24 hours a day as fast as an attack comes and live.

Allow the FBI officer to be assigned Beck case and direct the U.S. military to protect that bank or that corporation or that city or that power plant, whatever is under attack.

And we live in a time of very limited trust in government right now.

So I don't know how you do it.

Remember me saying earlier with trust, you can do a lot of things without trust.

Anything is hard.

But right now, I don't know how you duplicate U.S. military capability in the Department of Homeland Security.

So I think we need to set up a new process right now.

And that would be the real answer to your question.

Military, we're in pretty good shape.

The civilian world is under constant attack by criminals, by foreign, foreign, foreign states, enemies.

Now we're not.

We're not ready there.

There thought if I could just add something to it, is it ties in your cyber concerns with the reality that General Mattis has mentioned about the way we're structured it in a and I'll say, in a dictatorship or authoritarian government, you could actually address these issues quicker because you just have one central source of power and you make a decision.

Everybody's got to follow it.

Yeah, because it means the strength of our country is because the framers set up this complicated system.

Governors have a lot of autonomy.

The private sector has autonomy.

And so I think the challenge for your generation about the question you raise is given our our own structure.

General Mattis has a great idea about how to make a nation among agencies.

But I think it is a unique challenge to the United States because our structure is so fragmented.

And yet the threat is so quick.

So, yes, put your brain to this question, because honestly, you know, again, as you get older, these these issues get overwhelming to me.

And I thought, this is why I have grandchildren now because they have the capability of thinking about these cyber issues much more than I do.

Yeah, but I meant the fragment, the fragmented nature of our structure, especially in the private sector.

I think General Mattis has his finger on it.

We've got to rethink this in terms of coordination.

So great.

OK. Let's go on, I think we're going to get back to White Mountains High School, I hope we can get back to work.

There you are.

Great.

Is this cadet Skylon Mitchell?

Well, this is the question.

Good afternoon, sir.

As a yeah, as a young adult who is civic minded, I appreciate the importance of service to my community, state and country while I am unable to meet the qualifications for military service.

I want to serve my community in some fashion.

The Aspen Institute Service Your program promotes a hands on experience that develops real world skills.

What are your thoughts regarding some type of National Youth Service program?

Do you have any thoughts on what a viable program would look like?

What a great question.

Scaling, it's probably going to be the last one, so it's really a good one to get in for here.

I don't know that we can do another national system that would do what happened to me.

Where were all the athletes to motivate?

The young men felt they had to go in and do something.

And.

But at the same time, I met with the Navajo Indians and I met years ago and I met with LDS.

I'm not Mormon, but I've talked to Mormon about how they create this expectation for their young boys, for example.

And increasingly, now they're young women to go off on mission for two years.

Do something for other people before they go to college.

That sort of thing.

And I think what we have to look at is a restoring civic education in high school, serious civic education, really teaching how this crazy form of government works, what Winston Churchill called democracy being the worst form of government, except for all the rest.

But and then get people like you.

The military is one place to serve, and I loved my time there and we need good people in the military.

But what about teaching on an Indian reservation or inner city school?

What about volunteers and service to America?

What about their job?

There's a host of areas where we could use it.

What about the State Department?

What about the intelligence community?

We have analysts who who are crippled, who are in wheelchairs, and yet they're in there fighting every day for America.

And so there's if you want to serve, we need you.

We need you better.

We need every one of you bright young people with a degree of ethics.

And I would just tell you that you keep your instincts sharp.

And whether it be the Aspen Institute service year, I think it's going to have to be more of an expectation and a locally home grown thing.

It's not going to be a national program by the federal government right now.

I hope that answered your question.

Skylon, because it's a very, very good one.

And I salute you.

You're a role model for me right now.

Young Skylon.

So, so thank you.

And Janet, if we don't have time for any more away from getting to the end, I'd like to just keep a little story if we have time .

Can we just ask one more because there was one high school that I clicked off their back on?

They would love to talk to you, so we have time for one more question from Manchester West.

So the Navy JROTC program there, lady, are you there?

There you are.

How do you maintain motivation at the end of the tour of duty?

Oh, lordy, I would tell you, I got motivation every day from being around young people who join the military.

These all volunteer these young men and women who come in to serve, Hey, I didn't have a problem with motivation.

They kept me motivated.

I never felt like I was like I was being a martyr or getting tired.

Something like that is just when you have good NCOs and petty officers being being around them every day, and what they're doing with the troops is motivating.

But now don't worry about motivation.

You'll stay motivated a lot if you join the military.

Trust me, your first sergeant, to make sure of it.

Very true.

Thank you so much, Larry, I hope you have a good career ahead.

And general, I honestly thank you so much.

I so appreciate you taking the time to join us.

It was a wonderful conversation and I hope you feel the same way that the students in New Hampshire are eager to serve their country.

Yeah, I want to thank you for talking about all these young people today, and thank God we got them.

Just let's make sure we try and turn over a little better country to those of us with our color here.

My dear friend, because we know we owe it to them.

And did you want to say something else before we wrap up?

Well, just real quickly.

You know, I was I was a two star general out in western Iraq, and it was a bad time.

I had 29 sailors and marines who carried me around the battlefield, and 17 of those lads would be killed or wounded over four months.

We were just in a very tough fight and I pulled into our lieutenant's outpost in the middle of nowhere, an outpost line that tried to stop foreign fighters from getting through the desert and into Baghdad, where they'd kill U.S. soldiers or innocent Iraqis.

And when and the Sun came up and the young lieutenant told me that they captured a guy putting an IED on the road that where I'd come in the night before, but he'd lived in London for two years could speak perfectly good English that I want to talk with him.

I said, Sure, bring him over to the lieutenant.

Got done, briefing me on where he was fighting and this sort of thing and a very tough fight out there where you know and.

Young Marine brings this guy over sitting down in the dirt next to me, and I could tell he was Sunni, I said, What are you doing this for?

You're Sunni, we're the Marines.

We're the only friend you've got.

Why are you trying to kill us?

And he said, Oh, you're American, dude, Jones, you're here to steal our oil.

I said, No, actually, I'm not.

But if that's where you think, you know, I pull my wallet out every time I fill my car with gas.

But you're an educated man.

If you're going to talk like that, I don't have time for you.

And so the Marines stepped forward to take him away, said, Can I sit here for a minute?

The old man asked me, Well, I'm not that old.

He seemed old.

I said, sure.

And then he said, You know, I just don't like foreign soldiers, my country.

Well, man to man, I can respect that.

So we talked a little bit more for a while and he said, Am I going to jail?

And Nouri been the night before, you know, digging a hole, putting in artillery, round it to try and blow it up.

And he looked up and there's five guys with camouflage uniforms pointing rifles at him.

He knew he was in trouble.

And I know, yeah, you're going to be wearing an orange jumpsuit for a good long time for this little stunt.

And he said, OK, said, I'm going to miss my family, wife and two daughters live over on the river.

Yes, you are just you're lucky you're alive.

Be happy for that.

And he said, Can I ask you one last question?

And I said, sure.

And he said, do you think, General, if I'm a model prisoner at Abu Ghraib prison, do you think I could emigrate with my family someday to America?

Now, think about that here is a guy who's so full of hatred he's trying to kill us, but the power of America is inspiration can reach halfway around the world.

He would give anything right now to be living in New Hampshire and his two daughters going to school in New Hampshire on our worst day.

You remember that this great big experiment is worth fighting for at home and abroad.

It's worth making better every single day, and it's going to be great again.

It's going to come back and we're going to be friends again, and we're going to trust each other again.

And you young people are going to carry us that distance.

Joe, thanks very much.

Dr. Janet, for having me.

It's a pleasure being here.

And my best to all of you.

Well, think again, it was just a delight to have you, and I think I know all the students join me in thanking you for being with us this afternoon.

And I do want to thank the students and the veterans who are with us today, and I want to thank all of you who've joined us virtually.

So be well and good goodbye.

This has been a special presentation of the William Treat lecture series, produced in partnership with New Hampshire Civics and New Hampshire PBS, in association with the University of New Hampshire School of Law, New Hampshire Humanities Citizens count the Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College and the New Hampshire Supreme Court Society.