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... us dollars dollar ... and the Warriors warrior ... today on uncommon Knowledge General James Madison U S and see ... uncommon Knowledge now ... the the the the ... I ... welcome to uncommon knowledge on Peter Robinson ... a native of Washington State James Madison listed in the United States Marine Corps in nineteen sixty nine ... the year after he graduated from high school and served ROTC while he attended ... Central Washington State University ... by the time General Matus retired from the real Marine Corps as the full general in two thousand thirteen ... he had commanded men in combat in Iraq during the Persian Gulf war ... in Afghanistan and Iraq once again ... during the Iraq war ... he has also served as the NATO Supreme allied commander for transformation ... as commander of United States joint forces Command ... and as commander of United States Central Command also known as Centcom ... where General Matus was responsible for the Middle East North Africa and Central Asia ... general matters is now a fellow at the Hoover Institution the think tank at Stanford ... Jim ADUs welcome ... thank you ... I should ... state that you insist that I call you Jim and not ... general ... the shine your shoes anytime you want and call you general but ... uses dungeon ... is it true that you always kept with you a copy of the meditations of markers so really this ... it is Peter that one man not ... quite a few other books that were ... sold ... all Roman emperor who died ... eighteen centuries ago remain relevant to you as a commander in the United States Marine Corps ... in what way ... it was good for me to be reminded that I faced nothing new under the sun ... technology throws a few odd wrinkles in ... but the bottom line is the fundamental ... impulse is the fundamental challenges ... and the solutions ... are pretty timeless a mile and a work ... let me quote you this is in the mail and found that you ... are no military website from ... did she wrote as you were preparing to deploy to Iraq back in the early two thousand called ... for all the intellectuals running around today saying that the nature of war has fundamentally changed ... I must respectfully say ... not really ... Alexander the great ... would not be in the least perplexed by the enemy we face ... right now ... what would Alexander the great scene in radical Islam ... that he would record ... when he wished fighting in the same region ... that to shovel thousand years ago ... he confronted basically it would look like an implacable foe someone with a very different worldview ... he was unconcerned in some ways ... about his own tactics he had confidence that he knew how it Fortress cadet ... and ... their behavior on the battlefield ... what he was concerned with which I understand this enemy ... and he would have found an enemy ... that even though was not Islam ... you know in oriented in any way ... it was still cold sure ... the look of the world differently than it so we sought to understand it ... and that she understood that he understood how it would go after ... so ... before committing to come to ... understand him ... and flu ... generally you Jim you testified were taking this at the tail end of January earlier this very week ... you testified before the Senate armed services Committee under the new chairman ... fill a military man John McCain ... and instead ... of sitting there and telling the senator's what you thought they ought to ... do ... you sat there ... and told them the questions ... that you thought they ought to ask ... and I'd like to take a few of the questions you propose to John McCain and his colleagues ... and ask them to Damascus ... well ... here's the first ... when the decision is made to employ our forces in combat ... the committee should ask ... are the political objectives clearly defined ... and achievable ... explain ... since World War two we've entered probably five ... major conflicts ... for those ... did not turn out well ... we went into them enthusiastically and Korea ... and in Vietnam ... it ... Desert storm as an outlier ... and then we did ... Afghanistan ... and Iraq ... to the storm is the one that went well it Desert storm will will because it had very clearly defined political and ... and if you look at the president emeritus of Dartmouth University Jim Wright he wrote an article ... in the Atlantic in July of twenty thirteen ... Annie said what can we learn from the Korean War ... and basically what I drew from that was if you have murky or changing political and states ... then you don't know how to end that war ... and if you don't have the end the war ... war will go on and on ... the enemy will mutate ... and the American people ... will understandably ... lose hundred ... of and appreciation what is there fighting for ... that is not well articulated ... so if you don't get the political and stayed right up front ... you're gonna be engaged in a in a war you don't know how to stand in favor of term Jims is that mean that President George H W Bush ... in the first ... Gulf War ... was correct he came in for criticism for years afterwards and to some extent even today ... for not continuing ... all the way to Baghdad ... and toppling Saddam Hussein ... was he correct to stop where he stopped ... he had said that the end of the ... of the cul de campaign was to drive Iraq out of Kuwait ... and one seated on that ... the stop was that the right thing to do ... absolutely it was he clarified the political objective ... he drew together a worldwide coalition to support it ... the win and we did it and many did not allow mission creep he did not do what would be broken ... actually the political coalition ... that the military was simply the most forward part ... so yes he was absolutely on target and that's why we're ever going to war ... in a very ... few number of days that once the fighting started ... so ... second ... Iraq war we invade into thousandthree and for three weeks everything goes ... beautifully ... we advance north ... opposition melting away ... and at the end of three-week Saddam Hussein and his regime ... were gone ... and then for ... roughly four years ... until President George W Bush the younger President Bush instituted this urge to change tactics we have the troops ... but there's a period between those first four weeks and the surge ... of some four years and ... when things just go sideways ... how does a military man understand how do you think about what went wrong ... first ... the tech didn't go very well for the first three weeks in a conventional terms although ... I assure you wouldn't catch them unleashed move for the lead on the front line to something to remember ... but what happened to that point ... use it to revealed that we don't have a clearly stated political ends ... and now we start wondering where it weren't for both political and state of strategies which are where you connect those means to achieve in the clinical and they ... now have got to start accommodating ... uncertainty ... uncertainty is that there's sufficient on a battlefield ... because any strategy head ... but it had to impossible to have appeared on her own part what you wanna went to what you intended to ... twelve pm and got that part figured out you have no ... launched an objective ... your name in court ... and now you start wondering on the battlefield you start wondering in luck ... and what he is ... what it is ... in the American system ... good military man taken as a kind of sacred matter ... that the key for ultimately to the civilian authority ... but you've just said in for engagements out of five major engagements is the second World War ... I think one of these are my words you would never put it this way but one of the things are saying is the civilian screwed up ... he did not give the professionals clearly defined objectives ... when the professionals find ... the civilians failing to provide clear objectives ... what is the professionals ... duty ... well that duty ... for general or Admiral ... used to ... Crest crying get clearly stated political objectives ... in our ... in our form of government ... the military is subordinate to the civilian ... leadership the commander in chief is elected ... by the American people ... I was never elected by the American people ... I was promoted with the consent of the U S Senate from the same as being elected ... so I believe the role for the ... senior military officers used to be heard that insist on being heard ... they must never insist on being obeyed in our form of government ... but as they insist on being heard they have tried to do this ... carry out this national dialogue ... without Korean adversarial relationship with the political ... leaders to ... try to avoid that ... in what you want to do the hard will it is hard but what I learned over many years is something that ... Secretary Bob Gates ... made very clear and some of his writing ... that is at the highest levels it all depends on personal relationships ... and you've got to try to maintain ... your best military advice ... without ... without creating any kind of animosity ... at that level it is hard ... you just have to keep working at it ... and try to walk a mile on their shoes that you try to close the gap between the appreciation the military heads ... for the situation ... and the and add fifteen by the political leadership ... this is this is not unique to our times today we had ... the same challenges that mean FBR news and General Marshall ... in World War two and certainly Abe Lincoln had challenges with his general ... listed as part of of maintaining a ... government of the people by the people and for the people that need military defenders ... at the same time it did not exist for military purpose ... Afghanistan two quotations on Afghanistan ... here's one president Brock Obama ... on December twentieth if last year ... for more than thirteen years our nation has been at war in Afghanistan now or combat mission is ending and the longest war in American history is coming to it responsible conclusion clothes quo quotation to ... this is Jim that is testifying to the Senate armed services Committee few days ago ... gains achieved at ... great cost against our enemy in Afghanistan are reversible ... we may not want this fight ... but the barbarity of an enemy that kills women and children ... and has refused to break with al Qaeda ... needs ... to be fought ... clothes quo ... in your view we're not done in Afghanistan ... the try ... Peter did in my line of work the enemy get to voters the way we put it ... you may want a war over you made it clear until ... the enemy may not agree ... and you have to deal with that ... reality ... we have irreconcilable differences with the help ... factory climb into a sectarian State gave three conditions ... for the Taliban ... to be brought back inside the body politic of Afghanistan one break with al Qaeda ... two ... quick killing people who stop using violence and three ... obey the Afghan constitution ... they have refused at very low bar that would've allowed him to step over and comb over ... to bring in their political ideas for to see if the Afghan it would buy into ... the reason they don't do it to raise may use bombs instead of going to the ballot box ... they know the Afghan people will not buy into it ... so they will continue to support al Qaeda ... they will continue to do ... this kind of ... terrorism that you can go over there every day ... and as they do that for us to declare arbitrarily to war is over ... may not match the reality on the ground ... or a new phrase ... in an ... untenable bleak Libya's raised a point ... when you're in uniform you insist on being heard that you first with the leaders of military men professional services Sunday herb in a recess and innovate ... now that you're ... out of uniform ... you you you spoke very eloquently and very carefully but you didn't say a word against President Obama ... even though I gave you think that opportunity to do so by calling him ... are you ... he testified to the Senate arms ... services Committee and again you are very careful not to ... attack the president directly ... you do your duty right now as ... describing ... this ... is what you how do you see or do you know la ... you love your country you understand the military ... and you draw different conclusions from the administration ... but Europe which are being careful but which is ... Paul McHugh careful of gotten into trouble over the years ... so I'm I'm not too careful about it ... but I I'm basically saying the same thing that I said in in private meetings in even in public meetings ... back when I was on active duty ... the bottom line and rethink areas that I owe my best military advice to time that uncomfortable ... for a democracy that believes in him freedom and believed in peace and prosperity ... the idea that this level of evil can exist ... is incompatible with our ... with our fuel but we would like to see is we can all the world to our children ... but I'm also convinced having dealt with this animation nineteen seventy nine with the first time I ... sailed into those waters on U S Navy ships ... I've that we're up against an enemy that means that they say we should not patronize them ... when they say girls don't go to school ... you're not going to pop them out of the ... day simply having a ... picnic in the backyard and resulting are different to ... their views of the role of women ... their views of my devotee ... their views of tolerance ... for people who think typically ... are fundamentally different than are normally Wendell Holmes Jr made very clear that between ... two irreconcilable worldviews ... it will begin to turn into a fight ... and that's what we're in right now whether we wanted to be over or not ... having regard to the president ... the loyalty Islands forty light years a naval officer ... and loyalty I learned only count when there's a hundred reasons not to be ... and I would just tell you that hadn't had a tough enough here ... and he doesn't need generals coming out now ... and characterizing him in negative terms we we owe the country or the president ... our best advice ... but hey I don't choose to take part in ... and going beyond that ... and care credit in people's motives or or better performance from satisfactory were all ... trying to make sense of this world ... another of your questions to the Senate which I'm having a put to you quote I'm quoting you Jim ... as President Eisenhower know that the foundation of our military strength ... is economic strength ... no nation in history has maintained its military power that failed to keep its fiscal house in order ... how do you kisses you talking to the senator's how do you hope the damage caused by SciQuest ration ... clothes quo ... SciQuest ration this is the budget ... sequester twenty thirteen ... when Republicans and Democrats in Congress could not agree on what needs to be cut ... so they set up a few for the ... automatic cuts the idea was that the automatic cuts were so draconian that would force them to get together ... they never did get together ... and the SciQuest SciQuest ration has taken place ... cut the EU defence budget by ... about six percent in twenty thirteen at it again last year ... and President Obama is now projected that he's going to ... propose ... spending on the Defense Department something like six percent over SciQuest okay ... so ... we end up with the Pentagon budget will note hotels were taken up as can be about five hundred billion dollars ... to five thirty if you if the president gets exactly what he seems to Prof be proposing ... is that enough ... well ... I don't know Fitch enough but I know one thing for certain ... if you wanna cut the defense budget you could do it wisely and reduce Senior Strategic and her political aims ... make sure you don't have a ... policy that requires a millet with its ... larger than what you're willing to fund ... the way we're doing right now it would do with the risk it ... let's put it in terms of a family budget and ... give the F of ... the Fed cut comes your income ... these are yet to take a ten percent cut ... and in your in your family but you don't cut vacation to ten percent food ten percent ... life insurance ten percent ... rent ten percent ... you may cut off all your vacation for your restaurant meals ... the new wisely take that into account ... what we're doing right now is for doing these salami cuts of everything ... and the result is you have a mindless ... application of our money ... in many cases the wonder priorities that no one agrees to be funded ... so this is just killing the engine ... for our national security ... has always been our recon ... and when you look back at the Roman Empire were you look at the Spanish Empire the British Empire ... no country the Soviet Union ... no country has maintained its military strength ... if it did not maintain its fiscal house and go to work ... and right now we are spending so irresponsibly would come over to the younger generation ... and curious taxation ... and most of the money that we will be spending ... which by the way more within a couple years ... service to our debt ... then we spend on the department defense will be going to ... Riyadh ... Moscow Beijing and Tokyo ... not all those countries are friends ... and we are ... we are committing our own borrowing money from them and with borrowing they they are holding a paper route and were going to be sending them money ... and the young people are going up today with you and I grew up we had a good idea ... we can always find someone to fund ... uncover and we were sitting here in Silicon Valley as we speak right now ... in the future that money may not be available ... because the irresponsibility of the current ... government ... basically a notch we we Veliko ourselves on this ... the were allowing this irresponsible spending ... and a bird and younger generation to one more question on spending ... I fumble with five hundred billion or five hundred thirty four to six percent ... the numbers are lined up yet ... how do you is a professional stay tuned a layman an ordinary married to this ... the notion would be ... those numbers are so huge ... it's hard to understand what they mean ... and anybody who reads a memoir or two about the Pentagon ... understands that ... it's a gigantic operation in many ways it's bureaucratic they're all kinds of rival presenter service rivalries in trust service rival priest taking place ... how can an American ... an ordinary American who can ... begin to go through all that he can ... help you have any confidence ... that the ... Pentagon budget how do you know the Pentagon budget is right Dwight Eisenhower said ... our military strength ... rests on their economic strength and in his farewell address he also warned about the military industrial complex those contractors who were in the lobby Congressman ... per contract ... how I how do you know that it's being done right ... well it's hard ... it's hard to come we can always find in a budget this large we can find things to her waist or we can find things that in all ... likelihood we don't need the military but ... the challenge is how do you shut up the process ... Potter did ... the government ... to allocate those those resources and responsible manner ... and what I've found over many years ... in many different patients ... if you take good people and good ideas ... a new match them with that process ... the bad process that will win nine out of ten times ... right now the process has become so convoluted the laws are so complex ... governing acquisition ... the budget them still ... work so ... DK old and some areas ... directing things and even the military we don't ask for Franklin ... that you can really get that good ideas forward ... and have them governing all aspects of the budget ... this is normal this is not Centre malls of one day when defined the Holy Grail ... and hey presto we know how to ... harness all that ... but we've got a work this in a manner ... that creates process ... that return integrity managerial integrity ... to the system ... we know what to do with corruption and who put people in jail for that for that ... this is not about corruption this is about ... using the resources wife to the American people given this and you're right it's become so big ... it's hard really to ... calculate ... another of your questions for the Senate armed services Committee and turning on you ... is the U S military being developed to fight across the full spectrum of calm that ... our forces must be capable of missions from nuclear deterrence to counterinsurgency and everything inbetween now including the pervasive Seibert and ... wanting ... to stick around the world ... do you believe we now have the proper specter of forces in place to deal with ... a rising China ... well inlaid of China's bow Lane in the South China Sea I don't think we build enough to ... I think we're going to be forced to pull more of our forces home from overseas ... from the cold war days that was appropriate will bring them home ... we're going to be forced into more naval strategy ... for its military strategy for America ... as a result we're gonna look a lot were doing and we may have to give the Navy a bigger slice of the budget ... in order to carry out the kind of ... operation to reassure our friends ... and temper or adversaries it's designed to ... meet all well and good were trying to get along with China and I ... completely endorse that ... helping China sees any value to going to war with United States ... but at the same time there are a lot of nation job in the region ... would like to see more U S Navy making port call in the harbor ... from Vietnam the Philippines Malaysia ... Taiwan and Japan ... and if you don't have enough chips in your hard time doing that ... and sometimes in this world ... the best investor you can have is a man a war ... so we're going to have a look at this to make certain or make a military ... fit for its time to bottom line ... Iran ... do we have the spectrum in place to deal with Iran ... yes ... obviously you would take more forces are printed and go with the military option for on with the president not taken off the table ... a bit ... yes we we can handle ... or on your comp you're comfortable with that ... I have no doubt ... alright ... you know ... thank you because I will sleep better tonight at least with regard to Iran will remember War Now Peters fundamentally unpredictable phenomenon ... so I'm not saying that it would be carefree ... I'm not stand we can be careless and it would be bloody awful it would be a catastrophe ... we have given of the war in the Middle East ... but could we handle it from a military point of view and flu ... Weisel ... the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levon ... twenty fourteen June twenty fourteen Deep Weisel declares itself a worldwide caliphate ... it has attracted thousands of combat units from Europe ... and from the United States ... it now controls about half of Syria and about a third of ... Iraq ... the maybe a little less today because the current announced that they are they're moving in but if they got a lot of territory ... and they're carrying out you spoke earlier about the barbarity of that caliber ... the Isla caring of the carried out thousands of executions of religious and political bomb and these are in these include beheadings ... and crucifixion ... do we have the proper spectrum of forces in place to deal with ice ... will we have the forces of available the military forces available ... on ... they're not in place but that reflects ... the political decision the question is do we have the political will ... to do with rational and intelligent and effective manner ... the ... and that this day ... they're an organization that are a little bit more like Lebanese Hezbollah ... I in terms of trying to create social services ... they're a lot like al Qaeda operationally ... philosophically but operationally ... like al Qaeda on steroids ... and when you put that together there they're the are uniquely capable organization ... but the fact is they couldn't last to manage in a fight with the with our crew ... and so it's a comes down to having a good strategy ... it comes down to a political situation in Baghdad that draws ... Tunisia and Kurds and Shia together ... and I think that the new prime minister as he has done some things in the red Rex Crum that ... but it also comes down to making certain that we know what it is ... not on what we fight for in this world will we will not tolerate ... and the kind of assassination and the mass killing and the mass rapes ... that are going on there ... this is a group that deserve no no support from anyone ... and with good credit to the UMich recruiting shut down its finances ... and then work ... to fight battle of annihilation not a Christian ... but annihilation against him for the first time ... they need ... the forces that we put against them there should be basically no survivor ... they should learn that ... we can be ... even tougher than them ... except the one to surrender of this little ... tool printer but ... if they won a fight ... they should pay a heck of a price what they've done ... to innocent people ... ok Jim now here's another ... group of my self in your hands is the lane ... and just ask you to explain to me how to think ... of that ... kind of conflict you just described and here's one I'm here's what I mean ... this goes back your first question clear definition objectives and stay ... you mention five engaged in since the second World War one human well so in the second World War ... we knew and we had to be Imperial Japan needed to surrender and Nazi Germany needed to surrender ... Andrew starts climbed Adecco documented surrender and the Japanese sent ... representatives to the USS Missouri and the sign in front of the car ... it ended we knew who they where we knew where they were and we knew how to take a lot ... cold war ... the Soviet Union on December twenty fifth nineteen ninety one ceases to exist ... I Seoul has territory ... that's one ... I'm sort of content to that extent I understand we ... they can end up controlling that territory ... but if you think in terms of that ... conflict with radical Islam ... you've got ice all ... the Taliban ... al Qaeda's seems to have franchise operations almost like McDonald's there and Yemen and elsewhere ... we've got ... places I didn't even I'd never heard of Opel all wrong in Nigeria until a couple of months ago turns out the been there for quite awhile ... yesterday's newspaper ... there was a ... an attack in the Sinai ... in which some twenty Egyptians work so ... activities taking place against ... John A president ... CC time pronouncing it correctly uninjured ... and this is thirteen years after ... nine eleven ... so when when Robinson says ... this is it that this is what this is the test or low cancers of ... without without the melodramatic ... just is that ... it's like that the big kids toy you push down here in pops up there ... the week ... we had a reflate ... phenomenon ... radical Islam as opposed to a state ... well the problem with Islam goes back to the date of the Prophet money dietician with tended to have ... and at that point ... the they've got an internal war ... that kept a cap ... waxing and waning over the years between the Sunni and Shia and Sunni and Shia and then the first time that I think I could find ... jihad in our presidential papers is with Thomas Jefferson ... and for the Marine Corps we got to the shores of Tripoli and our song ... from that campaign ... showed no this is not ... this is not new and it has gone on for a long time ... obviously it's been a waxing phase is getting stronger ... I think the first question ... you have to ask you ... the ... as you try to make sense out of all this ... his political Islam in our best concrete ... and let me define political Islam ... from the Sunni side it would be the Muslim brothers in Cairo for a year after the a ... the Arab Spring put them in power ... or in Tehran up with the Shia side ... is ... here ... political Islam is practiced in Tehran ... in our best interest ... no ... the economy that is the answer either one I refer to the American people if that is what ... you think ... than what ... is our effort out the door for growth to support the countervailing forces ... you brought up general Lal says she now presidental just yet ... he would not tell a story University the oldest most famous university and all of the Arab lands ... on January first it was ... a nice said that there has got to be a change in thinking and the cleric he believed ... that there's something wrong with Islam and the whole world is going to see it ... as a murderous religion ... he should not have been about painting the religion ... the McCain team think ... if you go to Muhammad bin Siad the Crown crimps in United Arab Emirates ... he believes ... that you've gotta have a modern state ... and that political Islam has no role ... in government ... obviously for some more olive be in there they're only that but the dog ... guides them ... but it's not the government does guide become the government is guided by men no theocracy no sure we'll tell ... you go to the King of Jordan who believed in moderate Islam ... you go to any number of people out there who will fight alongside the fire many times the Middle East ... and never fought ... the all-American formation ... I've always had Arab side ... which had Muslims decide ... and I bring this up because when the Astros fundamental question ... and we recognize the reality of today's ... challenge ... it will leaders to certain behavior ... taken our own side in the fight ... and supporting the people investment ... rather than confusion ... to one nap a look at this because back in the nineteen eighties nineteen eighty three ... the Lebanese Hezbollah the Iranian inspired ... militias ... declared war basically on the matter states to apprentice him up in Beirut the ... attack the French paratrooper barracks ... tech U S Marine barracks ... and they've killed Americans many times since ... they tried to kill investor of all the Saudi ambassador to Washington D C two miles ... wide ... here two years ago ... met with the decision taken at the highest levels in Tehran ... and we've done nothing about it ... that side of the ... the insurgency the terrorism of the violent jihad this extremist or ... has not been touched by the American ... at the same time al Qaeda declared war in the nineteen nineties ... that try to bring the trade towers down the succeed the second time ... he attacked the USS Cole the book over embassies in East Africa ... and those that organization we of shredded their senior leadership ... but he erected a friend to ... tell to Bob and Somalia ... that AQAP al Qaeda the Arabian Peninsula ... in Yemen ... oh of course forgot my sister spoke offer on ... and I can go on ... you can fill ... bottom line if you have to recognize ... the historic groups ... and you've got to go after it by supporting the countervailing forces ... and Korean the worldwide alliance ... we didn't World War two ... based on the clarity of defining the problem remember I and and said ... if given one hour to save the world ... and fifty five minutes composing my thoughts on what the problem is ninety of the world in five minute ... with them and put in the inlet will think in ... the tree out what is that we defend ... and more important what we will not tolerate the world ... Jim that amounts to a call for ... new ... seriousness on the part of the civilian leaders ... is that not correct ... and military ... of guided by intelligence services that the actor you've done a very good job of ... outlining what does it look like alright ... couple final questions ... the movie American Sniper ... has reopened a debate about the costs of war especially of course I'm not ... on those who volunteer for the forces into the actual flight ... here's a recent rotation from new useful to the veterans group not too long ago ... quo ... oh boy this is before the movie opened still you're addressing issues that the movie's rates ... quo ... I would just say there is one misperception of our veterans ... and that is their son of damaged ... goods ... I don't ... buy it ... there is ... also something called post from my traumatic ... well ... explain which ... anyone who goes to war ... let me the me ... he is ... going to war when the U K and deployed ordained Rich wartime situation ... without being in combat of what people are support for those too close to him and the enemies who seek help close with ... to kill the enemy ... it is a very atavistic ... primitive environment ... and there is post-traumatic stress for anyone who's been through ... various groups ... no doubt about Hugh Grant ... absolutely ... immune system ... well it's not an insignificant moment to the first time you drop down menu to your fellow man ... the color is to use your body ... so the bottom line there's going to be stress ... but it did not have to be post-traumatic disorder ... or ... or or or syndrome or you don't have to come at a from a position ... of film it didn't matter from the wellness ... of a position of growth in the human being I've seen people come out of this ... sort of thing ... of better ... better man better husband better fathers ... more in touch with their daughter would over their sources or constraint is ... a kinder ... more compassionate ... now ... for the window civil war general ... unnamed Chamberlain who rose to be the proud about in college in Maine ... any said Combet makes good man better and bad men works ... shoulder is the reality that not ... not everyone reacts the same way ... but I don't buy that somehow ... if you came home from you edema or a Getty's bird or ... Iraq or Afghanistan somehow your ... your limited in what you can do the greatest generation came home from World War two the worst war in ... world history ... and they created ... good communities they rose to be college presidents ... start industry that created wealth for the for the working man ... I'd I'd I just don't buy that somehow all that we are handicapped ... because the bed in those circumstances to recognize the grim realities ... I don't recognize the limited ... potential human being when they come out on the ... chin last question ... although you retired with four stars ... you join the Marine Corps ... as a kid ... you were nineteen years old ... eighteen actually thinking sorry alright ... and of ... so here's the question ... what would you say to an eighteen year old today ... when you joined up ... the United States was self confident enough ... to be engaged in an ultimately to win ... the forty five year old ... forty five year conflict ... the cold war ... there are questions about how self confident the country is today ... we face this complicated ... new enemy this new set of circumstances and conditions ... and at the same time ... the private economy ... has produced ... opportunities for eighteen and nineteen year old kids ... that they didn't face when you were ... a kid up in Washington the farm country up in Washington state ... what would you say ... well which is a good kid in your circumstances of an Washington State or maybe somebody here Stanford University is considering the ROTC program ... about why ... the Korea or in the armed forces of the United States ... would still be a worthwhile to spend ... twenty or ... more years of your life ... why I think what you want ... one could do is explain that there comes a point your life when you wanna know the use or for a purpose in this world ... it entered a ... gravestone of the Cypress Hills Cemetery in New York ... for that day that we all love when we were kids going up in the sparkling baseball and we all wanna be tacky Robin ... if you go to the grave the day it says a life is not important except in the impacted as on other lives ... that would be routed on up to ... what ... I think that when you look at this experiment we call America we should not look of the people who founded it as if they had an easy time of it ... and they are now just faces on dollar bills ... we should not look this is something that is just automatically aren't Europe and ... for the NAFTA work for a ... time when a fight for it ... because we might've been born here most of us ... by complete accident ... good fortune ... we lived here by choice ... we have an obligation to turn this free country over ... the young men and women with the same freedoms that we got when we grew up ... and if you wanna be part of something to keep you from kitten in a tight credit history or winger forty five when would he do it to life ... you can't go wrong than going up and going up the Army the Navy Air Force Coast Guard Marine Corps ... this pattern for years ... until I came to stick around for longer ... frankly I dislike many of the job done ahead ... of the meringue ... I did a minefield of ... twenty one year old infantry lieutenant ... but I also grew to love being around guys to call ... willingly into minefields long side ... and so I idea I just recommended if you wanna get for from the will live avenues of life than protester shelf ... in the toughest circumstances alongside the best people in the world ... will never egrets are me you know her ... general James Madison and fifth Marine Corps ... thank you ... for the Hoover institution in The Wall Street Journal ... on Peter Robinson ... the the the the ... I ...