Transcripts For CSPAN2 Major General Arnold Punaro Discusses On War And Politics 20170122

Good evening. Good evening. My name is Eileen Houser, the Program Librarian here at the cornell library. Id like to welcome you all this evening to hear Major General community punaro to discuss his book. May i ask that you silence any of your cell phones or anything that might interrupt the presentation. Thank you. Tonight well have the introduction, the author talk and then afterwards a question and answer session there will be a mic in the center aisle, if could i ask you to approach the mic so everyone can hear the questions. That would work well. After the program, the become store will be selling the book and hell be signing books for those who are interested. Also invite you to have some wine and cheese afterward. This program will be taped by cspan and airing at a later date, possibly the next few weeks. Ill now turn the program over to longtime friend and former colleague of Major General punaro. Mr. Ben hatta. Thank you, eileen. Good evening, everybody. You can turn your cell phones back on while im talking. Im not the honored guest but its an honor for me to be your emcee for the evening. A role the author has seen me play a number of times from our days together at Science Applications International corporation. Believe it another nor that is the secretary naomi my emcee career to do the ors at a bam program. The has time was was billy caps kasper. That was kind an honor. She is should be a piece of cake. There was a hall of fame to service to country, arnold would be be in it. Ill introduce our guest author and then hes going to speak interminably without taking a breath. Seriously if you know are nod that is not far from the truth. He will talk for 25 minute and then id ask them questions in an interview format and then well open it up to your questions and ill call on you when i see your hands go up or if now come to microphone that eileen was talking about. Once we have run out of things to say arnold will sign his book for those who would like that on war and politics and we invite you to help yourself to the wine and cheese in the back of the room. Want to take a brief moment to welcome our friends from cspan, who are filming tonights event for alert broadcast on the book channel. At a young legislative assistant on capitol highly two years after cspan ban sell vicing the u. S. House of representatives i was a early and avid watcher. Of course theyve expanded way beyond covering the house and a medial staple for minimums of americans and we welcome them here tonight. Arnold punaro fought as a marine corps infantry commander in vietnam where he received the business star metal with combat and purple heart and later served as the director of the Marine Corps Reserve during 9 11. Commanding general of the marine corps mobilization command and commanding general with the rank of Major General. Arnold work for future senator sam nunn of georgia as his director of National Security affairs, then as his staff director of the Senate Armed Services committee. Later as an executive Vice President at saic the was responsible for Corporate Business Development and was Deputy President of the federal business segment. Arnold has chaired or serve on numerous commissions on National Security, the guard, and reserve, and department of defense reforms. Recently he completed a twoyear stint as the chair over the National Defense industrial association. He chairs the reserve forced policy board, and serves on the defense business board, which focuses on bringing world class Business Practices to the pentagon. When he is not writing a book, arnold is the ceo of the punaro begun, specializing in federal market and budget analysis, about strands, communications and crisis management. Tonight were here to learn from Arnold Punaro who presenteds stories from his personal and public life from soaker accounts of his days in combat in the vietnam war to colorful anecdotes withjohn mccain, pushes bush one and two, and secretaries colin powell, robert gates and ash carter. Welcome my good friend, Arnold Punaro. [applause] thank you, and good evening. I first want to thank obviously the library and Eileen Houser and our good friends at bay books for host thing this event. Thank you for my colleague for being the master of ceremony. Did a lot to get our navy and will be better. I want to thank dave tilton who did the book cover, so the book cover was done by dave and his firm and supports my business in digital things. So thank you for coming out to launch about my book on war and politics. The prime primary reason is to honor thes those i served with in vietnam. The incredible courage and sacrificeses they made in a war that few supported and even fewer thanked. In vietnam, as draftees, they served with honor and did everything their country asked of them and more. I also wanted to describe a realistic picture of live of an unfan tray rivalman and combat. Slogging through fire zones for weeks and months at other time. He can seeing an elusive and lee that enemy that didnt wear uniforms. A war without a front line. We were constantly cold, wet, hungry and tired. Our respy would never arrive on time and that ration or food, ammo and water. We never had any heat that heat up the awful c reactions and never had any dry, and everything day was the same. Up at the crack of dawn, trump for miles to the nighttime positions with 85pounds of gear on our back. You clear areas in route, set up a m ambushes. That it this life of a rifleman in combat. One of those rifle men wars corporal program roy lee hammed hammond and it want to read a pass wanting from any book. Half a magazine for the incoming fire. A looked downhill and i saw a body between two bushes, our team rushed in short dash and dropped to set up in defensive position on the plank. Bullets swift through the brush and cracked into trees. Showering barks in the woods. The Fire Team Leader collapsed next to me. Its stuck, lieutenant, darn, i measured the distance to the motionless medic. Fire on top of that ridge line. My radio lieutenant handed me the hand set. Cover me, i yelled and burst from behind the tree. Our machine guns began hammering away on the plank. Bullets were dicing around dock mimicking the smaller impact of the rain drops. When i reached in, hacking and coughing with mud. I turned him over us the chest was torn open. Air bubbles deep into the red mass, he tried to Say Something but i couldnt make it out. A bullet smacked into the creek spraying us with cold war, that was an akround, that was a sniper. I placed the rubber pad and healed that with my left and half lifting him between his shoulders. As soon as the bandage was tied off, i started pulling him out of the line of fire. At that moment i felt like a bulldozer dropping me. I will be doing a lot of paperwork, when i realized that i could still move, my days to scramble for cover, my back felt if someone had weld at it with a sledge hammer. My brain seemed to be functioning with perfect clarity. My radio man called up from the hill. The Company Commander, the enemies to the north. I shouted out, new coordinated, coordinates smeared with my blood. Fire everything weve got and get the gunships. Grab, do c too. Still blood was pouring out dieing the clear water scarlet. It was cold. I had to find cover but i didnt feel like moving. Why not just close my eyes and rest and boots pounded my way. Through the rattling crack of incoming fire, someone was thundering down the slope. The pandering grew louder. Tumbling over me in the stream bed. Someone had come after me, incredibly brave, incredibly risky. I grabbed his jacket and yelled, lets go, lets go. No answer. My hand came back covered with blood, unfamiliar pail long face fell back. I didnt know him. I cant move, i yield but he didnt respond. Just lay there on top of me jerking as the bullets hammered his flat jacket. We have to get out of here, i said. I grabbed his harness and pulled him off as the bullets peppered the water around us. Doc, i was worried might be dying, i realized this now but maybe i could save this marine. Seemed to take hours to crawl grabbing the heavy body he had been hit and wasnt breathing. The lips were cold, this marine was gone, the double check slapped. Why come after me . Core discipline didnt demand it, he wasnt even in my platoon. Lieutenant are you okay, he crouched right next to me, he was reloading with shaking hands, his barrel steam, we are pinned down and we have a bunch of wounded and the Company Commander wants a sit rep. Steady rattle of small arms, working the top of the ridge louder than i had ever heard it. We stumbled on a at least a regular mean. I had to call more fire power. Youre hit, sir, bleeding bad. I fumbled at the first aid kit and when i looked back at the marines body again, gray blew eyes were open and seemed to be following me. You know this marine, thats hammons third platoon. He only had a couple of weeks to go, you call in a chopper and get yourself taking care of. I looked around the dead and wounded. , seemed to be speaking in a language i forgotten. Why had the kid done it . Sacrificed himself for a stranger when his own return home had been so near but then a wounded man began screaming, 155 artillery detonated along the press shaking rain from the trees, smoke drifted like bitter instance but there was something else, something important. Then i remember in a rush breaking over me, move to contact our Regimental Commander said move out, i forced myself out but my legs felt up, the dead marine was still looking at me wideeyed as if he was waiting for an answer. My radio man slapped the hand set in my palm like an whorl nurse presenting a scafle. No corporal, i said, help me get third platoon and follow and trace, we are going to take this hill so we can get everyone out. No marine gets left mind. So we dug in and consolidated our position from a wall of steel, after i radioed our situation to our commander, i ordered the squad leaders to maintain tactical perimeter, return fire and ready for seriously wound. I didnt tell them i had been hit. Unfortunately there was no where for the helicopters to land in the broken heavily wooded terrain. They would have to drop a nile robinson or jungle spleen, you bundle a marine into it and hoisted through the canopy but as the First Casualty rose through branches, a chattering boom sounded overhead sledded aluminum rained down. It must have been a rocket propelled grenade. The lines snapped. The chopper strain today remain airborne but staggered down impacting with the earth shaking thug. It was clear we couldnt get wounded from this revene. It would be a daylong battle of both enemy fire and terrain, dodging bullets and climbing a mud slide covered with vine and other obstacles. But then we hadnt been carrying our wounded and dead, meanwhile i was losing blood, my trowzers were so below and my right thigh it had gun in my lower back but never leave a fellow marine behind had been drilled into us. One squad was on point. The two remaining squads were deployed left and right back about 25 meters protecting our flanks. I was in the middle with the rest and wound an dead trying to plain taken communications an calling air strikes and artillery to keep the north vietnamese heads down to keep from firing from us. Danger close over the radio would alert the artillery men to be extra careful. Sometimes they wouldnt fire Danger Close Mission and since they would all be dead if they didnt, i didnt bother with the warning. It took the better part of the day to carry the dead and wounded along in the final punishing while fighting to the top. By then i almost forgot i was wounded. My company commanded had now heard it in order to be out. The man persuaded, tried to persuade me to leave but i wasnt going to go not before all of my marines were safe. When we got it was burning. Bombs had left a smoking waistland, jungle, ripped up earth and enemy corpses. It smelled like the devils pit barbecue. The north vietnamese. Either killed or retreating knelting back into the jungle. At that point the choppers were able to come in our wounded went to emergency get the seriously wowbded as seriously possible even after fire. At last the permanent routine radio shortin of action. My dead rescuer layed and i was barely breathing, in serious pain but still clearheaded. Until this faithful day, he and i have never met. I didnt know what it caused hammons, 21 of texas to come to my rescue. He had been in the country since february 25th, 1969 and within weeks of going home. As i layed there behind him i wished he had not come after me. In a few days, marines in dress blues would be knocking on his familys front door. They wouldnt know what he had done for me, they wouldnt even be told how he died. But the thick blasted jungle fell away, in the last fading golden life i looked out the Rolling Hills of the battle star struck hunt ri and layed a protective arm over roys body. Two marines, we had never spoken to each other, never shaken hands even at the end but we were bound in spirit forever. [applause] his sacrifice left a mark on me. Its why identify dedicate that had the corporal hammons do not give their life in vain. I continued then i continued my career in Public Service working for a brand new senator from georgia hope we can better the life of our war fighters. I had the great honor to work with senators on a bipartisan basis. Some of the legendary figures of the senate. General james mattis who the president elect announced today that hes going nominate to be secretary of defense. These individuals like myself Work Together to solve some of the most challenging problems of the 70s, 08s 80s and 90s. We vent to the volunteer force in 1973 but it struggled in the decade of the 70s and had to be saved and senator nunn and warner provided benefits package to keep the volunteer force going. We worked on the Strategic Armed Limitation Treaty with the soviet union, the panama canal treaty, had to deal with the devastating bombing to have Marine Barracks in 1982. Worked on the legendary changes to chain of command with the Goldwater Nichols that strengthen military and put in crystallized through commander in chief to secretary of defense. Iran controversy. Desert storm and many more. As i look at all the issues we have dealt with and were very challenging and difficult times, none of those issues could have been solved by any one person or any one party. It took both sides working together, finding compromise, earning votes and working cooperatively with the pentagon for the better results for the men and women in uniform and their families. So i did that for 24 years and after senator nunn decided not to run for reelection in the senate, i decided to continue serving our war fighters but this time in a different capacity. A defense business executive, provides the cuttingedge technology for our war fighters, we never won our troops. They never want that to be the case. They continue to serve in the Marine Corps Reserve and had the privilege to serve in the first gulf war. From all the lessons i learned throughout my career, i would say experts in various ways. The world is more complex and dangerous. Very unpredictable and we truly need some of the most enlightened leadership in working together that weve ever had but these problems are not insurmountable. When it comes to National Security, politics stopped at the waters edge. My last chapter is a chapter i call lessons learn and i draw in my experience in combat and military, the Business World and then just common sense the things ive learned with my great family and my wife january and my four kids and my seven grand kids. And there are thicks that really kind of follow those of you who have served in the military, served with the military, you cant lead from behind. You have to always tackle the toughest things up front. If youre leading through the front you have to guaranty the mission. You have a unit, you have people of individual different skills and they come from different backgrounds but if youre in a military unit, if you cant Work Together and you cant lead people and bring them together, that outfit is not going to be successful just like our country is not going to be successful. Dont do that. You have to be willing to take a bullet. If youre a politician and not willing to do the right thing and maybe lose an election and go back home, then youre not going to be a good leader, by the way our Founding Fathers never intended for our political washington to be there forever and ever and ever. Identify come around and a lot of the restrictions that president elect trump is talking about in terms of the revolving door and ethical standards that we need to bring to our government and you have to follow your moral come compass. We didnt have any Global Positioning system. We had a compass and map, by the way, in the United States marine corps, we are going back to basics, we are teaching lieutenants how to use map and compass because we know the kind of fights are going to be are close and personal and make sure that our marines are ready to go. And you never leave anyone behind and thats just not in the battlefield of the military and people that cant take care of themselves. The next vote is always the most important vote. You may big in a fire fight, big chop match and have somebody opposing you on this particular vote and, guess what, that same individual two weeks from now maybe your biggest ally on another issue. And the final lesson learn is you have to take the long view. None of the problems we are dealing today can be solved shortterm. Somebody looking at the longterm. If we are going to have the kind of increases and infrastructure spending, the kind of increases in defense spending, the tax cuts, and the protection of the entitlements, weve got to do it in a way that doesnt blown balloon the deficit. So theres a lot but we met them in the past and we will meet them in the future. I say in closing, let us never forget the corporal hammons and those who pay ultimate sacrifice, we owe it to them to lead together and come from the front. I look forward answering bens questions and then your questions. [applause] [inaudible] im not kidding. There we go. Secretary gates was interviewed and he they were asking him about are there too many generals being considered for high post on the National Security side of the cabinet, so, for example, the defense secretary possibly general portreus coming in state and general flynn and so to forth. What do you think . Is it something they should mix up a little bit. I hate to give the answer, it depends, the ones you mentioned, those are not a problem. And theyre not all going to be in the same. Lets take general john kelly, another marine, lost his son in afghanistan, he knows about war. I mean, many people here have been in the military and frankly a lot of people dont realize the last people that ever want to get in the conflict is the u. S. Military because they basically know what the consequences are. John kelly was commander of the u. S. Southern command which dealt with the drugs, dealt with immigration, so he probably be as about knowledgeable as you would want for somebody over at Homeland Security and Homeland Security its not just protecting the borders, its protecting our country against terrorists, homegrown terrorists and things like that. Having an individual, having operator, someone that has those military skills probably would not be a bad thing at this point in the history of our country. General portraeus, i served with all of the individuals, hes a scholar warrior too. Hes got a ph. D, he wrote the manual, hes probably wasnt of the best witnesses i have ever seen before the u. S. Congress. Very, very knowledgeable individual, and he would do well in any position and i know people say, oh, this issue and this problem, you know, theres not one of us sitting here that hasnt made some mistakes and right now with the world as dangerous and complicated as it is, we need the smartest people that we can get. By the way, every one of these individuals is going to have to make an incredible personal and financial sacrifice to come in our government. General works for a big Financial Firm in new york and i guaranty you, hes not having any trouble meeting the mortgage and john kelly has plenty of opportunities. So, you know, asking them to serve again when theyve already served in uniform for 40 plus years, but i think you would have to have a balance. You know, i certainly if you were going to have those kind of military folks in the department of Homeland Security, the department of defense, maybe as the director of national intelligence, probably at the state department, you would want to have more of a civilian focus there and i know they are looking at prestigious civilians at the Department State of as well. I certainly am not concerned about it. A lot of folks are going to get stirred up about it. The media is going to write articles about it but in the final also, troubled times when both at home and abroad, i think you want to have people that really have seen the point end of a [applause] let me stay with the secretary gates issues for a second. Another thing they asked about, this was one of the most strange elections we have ever seen. Never seen candidates who said what they said and we have never seen anything like this. A lot of folks things about the candidates and now having change of opinion, change of heart, mitt romney said some of the toughest things about President Trump and here he is being considered for president of state, gates himself said pretty tough things about trump during the election such as he was unfit to be commander in chief. A number of folks in your world signed letter, a very strong letter against trump and for his opponent, but have you he was asked, if you change your mind since you called him unfit, since from what you have seen on november 8th and he answered the question, but have you seen a change in president elect trump since he was elect today where you are more comfortable than july or august or september . Well, i worry about some of his comments about the purple heart because i have Young Marines die in my arms that never wanted to eastern the purple heart. It bothered me comments about john mccain. The judgment about whether someone is fit to serve as commander in chief is made by the American People and the American People debate their judgment. As i said in the military, we are sworn to uphold and defend the constitution so its the job of every Single Person in this room and the two of us on the stage to help him be the most successful possible i have tremendous confidence in the American People. American people are like the Young Marines that served in vietnam. They come from all parts of the country, all socioeconomic circumstances, and they do the very best they can and so the American People in their wisdom, this is why you have elections. This is why we have a great democracy. They made that decision and frankly hes a businessman and i can see a lot of the way that Business People think in the way hes going about making decisions. I mean, in the Business World you are dealing with somebody thats giving you aa hard time you get on the phone and you use whatever lerchl you have. He had a press Conference Today where he was up in indiana in with the head of carrier owned by United Technologies announcing that theyre going to keep their plant in indiana. When he brings somebody like mitt romney that he beat up in the campaign, that shows as a businessman he understands. That was another thing in my lessons learned. You pick the very best people and you hold them accountable. By the way, if he brought in a good person and, say, he put him in the a job, who we might get to come as secretary and lets say he brings in somebody and all of a sudden they are not implementing the direction of the president , i would expect him to call him up and say, youre fired. Whats wrong with that . Hes the commander in chief. Everybody thats coming in this outfit needs to basically follow the party of the president and i think they will. The other thing that gates said that worried some people, they asked gates who served with nine president s, whats the main thing youve learned about serving with nine president s, look, its very important for a president to know what they dont know and listen to people that do know. I think youve seen since hes been elected, i think youve seen him bring in people of tremendous diversity, democrats, republicans, independent, people that didnt support him, really smart people to talk with him about the budget, to talk to him about energy and things like that. Again, ive seen ive been through a lot of transition. I have been working with their Transition Team and they are on top of everything. By the way, they know government needs to be reform. I spent most of my career trying to reform the pentagon because we spend a lot of money and we dont get the bang for the buck we necessarily should in every instance. They are going to come in and do hopefully dramatic reform of the government particularly like veterans administration. We are spending more money in the va than we have ever spent and not getting the service that they need. Our government told us, dont worry, its not going to cause any harm. Come on, give me a break. This was a chemical that killed thousands of vegetation and all life and we were sleeping in it and the government said, it isnt a problem, dont worry about it. We have a lot of people the age and orange diseases take a long time to incubate. Im having to go to too many funerals. Veterans who are not taking care of in the way we should. I think i am very encouraged then by what i see. Thank you. I will just talk loud. Let me let me turn to some reforms that youve done. Youve been very active in the Garden Reserve, you led a study on reforms that need to be made in the Garden Reserve, have you seen a lot of progress made in that field and either if you have or havent, what would you recommend to the incoming secretary of defense to be doing for our Garden Reserve . The Garden Reserve, i had no intention when i went off duty staying in the reserves. I never thought about it. The reserves in the guard in early 70s was not because a lot of people joined the Garden Reserves so they didnt have to go to vietnam, yet, army chief of staff one of the greatest army leaders we ever had came by to visit with senator nunn, i was one of the few who had a combat tour. I got to sit in the meeting. We could never do what we did what we did in vietnam. This nation should never go to war unless the American People was behind it. That was a huge mistake. The only way the American People are going to get behind because these are citizens that live in the communities and when they are called up, the American People get behind it. If you look at the first gulf war, when president bush basically sent our initial troops over there, the American Public was not supportive of that effort. When he called out the Garden Reserve and started to deploy them for the first gulf war, the Public Opinion changed in favor. In 9 11 i have privileged to be the head of the marines of reserve, since 9 11, over 900,000 members of the Garden Reserve have been called up and deployed to afghanistan and iraq and have gone back to communities and we have studies that they didnt perform as well as their active duty counterparts. The Garden Reserve costs about a third an active duty marines costs. They are even cheaper, you dont have to maintain schools and Grocery Stores and family housing, 24 hours a day as you do for active duty military. The army reserve is never going to supplant the army military, you are never going to replace the 82nd airborne n terms of the infantry and regiments, the army reserve can do a lot more and true bargain for the taxpayer. They are doing it exceedingly well. We have turned the corner on that. The current leadership in military and civilian is progarden preserve reserve. We hope to keep them well aware of what the Garden Reserve is capable of doing. Any time theres a flood or a natural disaster, if you ever had a major incident, the department of defense is the only outfit in government that can come to the rescue. You had a multistate emergency, the department of Homeland Security in theory is in charge, they have no trucks, no helicopters, no fuel, transportation, our military has that, our department of defense. Theyre selfsustaining. You can take a marine corps ship and a navy, you know, 30, 40, 50 bed hospital on that ship, put it off sure in Hurricane Sandy and providing food, water and medical care when hospitals and things are down. Weve got a tremendous asset in Garden Reserve and military to support our country at home when things get tough. Im encouraged on direction as well. [applause] let me change gears a little bit. You spend a lot of time with senator nunn who is widely respected on both sides of the aisle. What was he like as a boss and what is he doing now . Well, senator nunn was a great boss and im not just saying because he was a great boss, senator nunn was a tough task master. He was a perfectionist and he was always overprepared for everything he did. If senator nunn got invited he never saw publicity, he was an objective individual, he would not speak unless he had all the facts, he was very careful not to overreact, by the way, now days with the media you have talking heads on tv, the minute something happens you have five people on their trying to explain what happened and by the way, dont Pay Attention for the first two days because anything they tell you is going to be dead wrong, we all know. You know, so get the facts, senator nunn was someone who we wanted to get the fact. If he was going to be on the National Tv Shows on sunday face the nation, we put like three or four 10inch binder briefing books and he read every paper in there. It didnt matter what he did. Senator nunn was a deep thinker and always looking down the road. He and senator warner put together some of the initiatives to basically reduce tensions between the u. S. And the soviet union in the peak of the cold war. The soviet unions Warning Systems were very poor and we were very worried that they might mistake, i wont say a bird flight, they might mistake an aircraft for a missile attack and launch a missile attack against us and we worked a way to improve Warning System and improve our Warning Systems at the same time. He authored the program that basically is reduced most of the Nuclear Missiles and missile programs after the world war and all these generals were going to go work with enemies and so we put in place a program that basically ensures that that didnt happen. Hes a good golfer like anne his wife who is even better wife than ben, we were always thrilled when the weather was warm in washington, d. C. On friday afternoon. Senator nunn with his good buddy quayle. So they would go out and get around the golfend, that was a nice respite. Our great leader bob was a sailer, he would always be sailing on friday afternoons, of course, i was headquartered on the east coast and not on the west coast. On the east coast we went to work at 5 00 in the morning and stayed at 9 00 at night. Here on the west coast they took off every afternoon. You live in the greatest weather of the country. He really felt like no one person, no one party could solve things and he was very, very bipartisan, worked with people across the aisle. When president reagan came in and we wanted to sell the airborne commanding control to saudi arabia to help us basically keep the middle east stable, the republicans controlled the senate but only by about two our three votes and 15 republicans senators came out against the sale because israel was opposed to it. Senator nunn thought it was a good idea and so he worked with president reagan and provided the needed moderate votes for that. Our military will tell you today that if saudi arabia had not had the a whacks and trained with it, we would not have been able to prevail in the early dais of the air war in the gulf war, a lot of that was in place because of our training and Work Together with the commanding systems that president reagan. Senator nunn supported president jimmy carter on ratifying ratifying the panama canal. It was extremely unpopular in the state of georgia. In fact, there were Bumper Stickers, we got more antimail to senator nunn than just about anything in all the years i was there. There was a Bumper Sticker that we see in georgia from time to time, we used to have a canal, now we have nunn. By the way, when youre in a Senators Office you get about 5,000 letters a day and you get a lot of crack pot mail and senator nunn called it the nut mail. Been there a long time, senator nunn had the rule that we had to answer all the mail and answer in a timely matter and i kept complaining, this letter is totally incoherent, you know, why do we have to answer that . Senator nunn told us one day, look, i talk today senator and he said, sam, you have to answer all the nut mail. You dont answer the nut mail, youre not going to win an election in the state of georgia. We answered all the nut mail. [laughter] by the way we got a lot of telephone calls, a guy from georgia that basically thought there was a communist behind every treaty. He would call me about once a week. I just kind of put the phone down and about every five minutes say how is it going. I got ridiculed from time to time. Youve been in washington 20 years and have southern access. They liked that. He started and been extremely successful and chairman of studies and think tank. Hes the lead director of cocacola. Hes a very smart businessman and so he stayed hes 78 years old now. He looks 35. He stays in good shape and watches his diet. My wife beats on me like why cant i be like senator nunn. We were lucky to serve in house and senate and with the administrations that came and went. How to we get back to that . We all know about the polarization. Owe talked about it earlier. We all hear about it and we are all feeling it that the parties just do not they dont even talk to each other. That was not the case when we were working there. How do we get back to that. I would say the first thing all our politicians in washington ought to learn the lesson from this election. If there was ever a signal being sent to people in washington it was sent, folks, we want to change, we dont like the way we dont like gridlock, we want you guys to change and so, you know, if im now the minority party, i better look at what can we Work Together on, what can we do to solve the common problems, what can we do to restore americas confidence in all levels. One of the examples i used that i get stirred up about and people we all want clean air and clean water and safe this and safe that, but in the eight years of the Obama Administration they put a tremendous amount of resources and effort into the Environmental Protection agency, you know, and they get complaints about it. Oh, my goodness, too green and things like that. Guess what, all that money and all that effort didnt project the Drinking Water in flint, michigan, what gives . Think about it. If our government and it was not just the federal government it was the State Government and the local government. If im a citizen of the United States of america, i would be outraged about that. My government cant make sure my kids have clean Drinking Water. Thats why i think people are stirred up about and they see that in the va and many government institutions. Look, we are never going to fiction the division of motor vehicles, we are never going to fiction that, forget that. Most of the rest of the government is turned out like the bureaucrats in the dnv now. They want it fixed. If i was sitting there and i think i think mr. Trump looks to be like hes going to reach out with the olive branch. Hes certainly done it with the people in his own party that gave him a lot of grief during the election, he reached out to a lot of folks, there was nobody more critical on him than mitt romney. I heard trump picked up the bill. [laughter] let me open it up to all of you, if you like to come and we will put the microphone in the middle for you. You can come up to the mic, lined up behind it and everybody will hear your question a lot better, line up behind each other and go one at a time rather than me calling on each one. When i got back and got back to the states, i actually served on the staff of the marine corps basis school and one of my duty not a very pleasant duty was a casualty assistance officer. There were so many casualties in those days i was one of the marines that would have to go and knock on the familys doors, i tried to find corporal hammons family, the records were really bad and for a number of years i was not able to find them. Luckily, from folks that know how to work facebook and twitter and i finally located his sister and connected with her, relay today him what corporal has done over time but i was not able to track down the family right when i got back from vietnam. What are the top three things that we as American People can do to protect veterans . I would say number one would be every day show them that theyre appreciated in what theyve done, you appreciate and thats just a friendly gesture and that means a lot to any veteran, thank you for your service. And we see that now, we see in airports and we see it in the halls. People would spit on me when i was in uniform. I was not the greatest in the world because i kind of spit back so i got in a lot of fights. But while im thinking about that, one another story in the book, when we were going to vietnam we were going through San Francisco and we had heard the hippies and the folks with purple hair and flaming hair and earrings, i shouldnt be talking about this in california, by the way, you know what Harriet Truman said about how california was formed . Can i say . They turned the country on its side and all the loose screws rolled out of california. Thats what Harriet Truman said. We didnt know at the time these were the hells angels, we were in uniform and we were going to go start a little are rucus. They beat the living what. I learned my lesson. Put pressure on the local politicians because they are the ones that can put pressure on the va and then offer to help them, offer to help them. The thing that we worry about most now is the traumatic brain injuries, the concussions with huge explosions just like in the sports world, it doesnt show up for seven or eight years and so theyre going to be kids out there that have been out of the military and arent tied to any medical system that these symptoms just like the symptoms showing up years later and be aware of that and do anything you can to help. Two things i want your opinion on president putin and then a separate one on being a retired naval aifuateer, it seems throughout my career you keep doing more and more and more and like you had mentioned we have a lot of issues like the resources and huge debt. We can scale down on commitments. I wanted to know your thoughts on that. Well, let me answer your question by mentioning another soviet leader i had the privilege to meet, brezhnev, people like that. They always had a three by five card. They had a long speech they were going to give. He was going to open up the soviet union and change and he did and the wall came down. Now u putin and so he was a different soviet leader. Putin is a throwback to the old days, he comes out of the stalin, kgb playbook and hes a throwback to the cold, cold war, hes an intelligence and grew up in kgb, they ma manipulate people and takes advantageses of peoples witnesses, theres no doubt in any mind that he was behind the hacking during our election and things of that nature, so you have to understand who youre dealing with and deal with him in a strong, fair and tough way. He wants to do what the soviet leaders have wanted to do and stand borders so they are not up against western democracies on its own borders. Thats why they are pushing back and regain territory. So we need to be very realliestic in dealing with him and you to deal with him in a tough way or he will take advantage, now, crimea was a former russian state. We had texas and texas went and sided with mexico and we took it back. Ukraine is a totally situation. So i think its very important and i think i can guaranty you that joe the chairman of the joint chief, jiems mattis, they see russia as our number one threat and we have to be prepared to deal with that with open eyes and clear eyes and i think our new president elect, he will come to that point of view because i think most of the people that are around him now have that same point of view. In terms of our commitments, weve got to decide in this country whats in our vital interest when you deploy our military and when you make a commitment should be in those things in bible interest not just in our interest but vital interest. These people have been fighting each other for ten thousand years. I dont know there is anything anybody can do to stop that. The question is what are our vital interests and we should protect our vital interests. We are actually we are Energy Independent now and we are going to get more Energy Independent, thats a good thing when it comes to reliance of middle east but a lot of the allies rely on that. The reason our allies in europe arent willing to be as harsher in russia is because they need the russian energy. We could choke that down. I think we have been very countercyber, weve got offensive capability and, you know, we should start using it and start doing things to the russians that hurt them and then they may not they may take a deep breath. That was really the concept in the Nuclear Weapon called destruction, you fire your missile at you we will fire a thousand back at you and both of us wont be around anymore. Rational people would not do that. So in the cyber world, if youre able to countertact and they found out, wholly smokes this really does hurt us u maybe that will be some element of deterrence. Yes, sir, the forthcoming appropriations bill apparently has a number of changes in how that they say are dramatic in terms of of the goaled water era and so an and john mccain and others got into it. I wonder if you could summarize what those changes are and why are they important . Certainly. So theyre really the changes were focused on the military operation chain of command. At the same time packard from hewlettpackard led a commission on how dod management was working, particularly how we buy our weapon system. What john mccain and the senate and what they focused on this year is more on the management side and not on the operational side. They have not changed any of the fundamentals of gold water nichols. They still have the chain of command, things like that. What they have done is theyve recognize that had the Packard Commission changes on our acquisition processes, we spent 400 billion in the pentagon on goods and services and supply and equipment and about the only nice thing you can say about the outcome, spend more, take longer, get less. We were talking earlier, look at the problem with the ford class carrier, we need Aircraft Carriers, they are essential to the future, 15 billion, we spent 15 billion. Theres something wrong with the procurement system so what john mccain and thornton have done they broken up that has layers and layers of management and has function that is were never envisioned by day packard, they put energy and environment installations in there. They created theyve taken it back to what it used to be. One part of it will be the director of research and engineering, that job will be to focus on the cuttingedge technologies that we need to bring into our government and pentagon to our military will never be in a fair fight and so thats one of the leaders that are breaking the whole outfit up. The second is acquisition and sustainment. I think these are good moves. The other thing john mccain is cutting bureaucracy and senior civilians. We have a hundred thousand more defense civilians in pentagon than we had on 9 11, we cut 125,000 active military but we havent cut any of the civilians. We cut the war fighters but not the bureaucrats. We kind of need to straighten that out. Theres fairly significant changes in the medical establishment, i think the congress is always trying to make sure that we are providing the best medical care, troops, families an our retirees, so theyve got some chiengs there. In my judgment is we have 25 defense agencies. Literally agencies that frankly are large businesses. Fuel, black box radio parts, 48 billion a business a year with the department of defense, thats more than lockheed martin, largest defense contractor that only does 32 billion, thats a lot of money. Dla bought inventory that you dont need. How do you do that . How do you buy 12 billion of stuff you dont need . We need to bring in some worldclass Business Practices and thats the mccain and thornton will look at that next year. The changes made this year are pretty positive. The leadership of the pentagon is not in favor of them. Guess what, they are never in favor of any change and i have an old saying that i have used over the years, hey, folks, the pentagon is not always right. Im glad we have the congressional oversight. The Congress Needs to reform as well. If somebody mentioned, they havent passed all 12 proarmings bills by the first of october, thats not a good thing. I congratulate you, general, in your performance in the book. I had two tours in vietnam. I would like to ask you a question, i was there in 71, 72 at the high of the drug season, were you affected in your unit by drug in your 70, 71 performance . I was not. We were very fortunate because we were out in the bushes, we never got back in the rear, we never had an opportunity for the troops to interface with that. There was no way you could have drugs out in the field. So we never had that. My my biggest problem with my troops is falling asleep in watch, you are supposed to have 50 marines, the most i ever had was 25. If you send out a one squad in ambush, thats 12 of your marines gone. Even if you only had 25, it would not be good to send only, you know, five, so you at least send ten out. You have a 360 in fox hole, you were supposed to have four people in fox hole, three would sleep and one would be up 25 of the time. The problem is you were lucky to have two so that was a problem i had. Well, you were lucky that you were not involved in the drug performance from 71 to 72. I heard about that and i know it was a huge problem. The other problem i had was i had met the secretary of defense during vietnam war and i dont have any charitable thoughts about him at all. Hes passed on from this world and say who i hope he is, but he had brought in a hundred thousand troops that had no business being in the military. They never would have been recruited but he said, we can to cut down on the wealthy people and we are going to bring these kids in. I had a couple in my platoon, decent kids, ten weeks of training, they had no clue of weapon and we were running out of ammunition, i sent them to get resupply and never came back and i sent a team out to look for them and they just decide today take a nap on the trail because they didnt know any better so i sent them back to the re. Those were the kinds of problems i was dealing with but i was very, very fortunate to not have to deal with the drug problem but a lot of people had that. I had it, yeah. One other thing, i have volunteered in the va for 25 years, okay. There is nothing wrong with the va in the Health Caution down below, the nurses the doctors, those people work their tail off and they are very kind to the people that come in. Your problem and the va is to layer of management that is above those people who really dont perform or function. If you could cut the management of va out, or reduce it by 90 , it would be a functioning outfit. Well, im with you on that and thank you for what youve done for 25 years. By the way, we need to do that in the Education Field as well. I have two daughter that is were teachers and the teachers all the money goes to bureaucrats in a desk somewhere. I know our aviator was never in a desk. There you go. Thank you, sir. [applause] [laughter] i look forward to reading the book. You talked about the importance of a compass and map, that sounded in this age of technology, a little surprising, i wonder if you would talk about technology and the war fighter and whats your opinion about the stone piping of the military branches versus integration of, you know, to try and achieve a goal . Well, thats a great issue. Theres a lot of debate going on in that very question back in washington. I mean, i have kind of a i may have the wrong perspective but i have a infantry rifle perspectives, we come from the perspective that basically small units win wars and conflicts and that basically, you know, until you get that small unit up close and perm with the enemy and take care of the enemy, look in the peek of world war and we didnt stop with bombing in vietnam and we didnt stop it with bombing in the middle east. Technology is great and i want our troops to have all the technology but in the final analysis, you know, its a marine bayonet and we have to be careful not to be overreliant on technology. We have the ford Aircraft Carrier supposed to be the greatest aircraft ever built, the only problem is it cant launch airplanes and propellers dont work. We had one little old radio in vietnam called the prc25 and because of the jungles and every you were lucky if it worked between you and the radio man three effect away. The army has been trying to build a new radio. The jitters and jammers and everything, still doesnt work. The last thing ill rant and rate about it the boost. The army has a lab supposed to design all the boardlording bering ear. Foot in vietnam is about as worthless as you could it. The metal plate in the bottom was posed to be booby traps bood the stick from going through through gibbet and didnt worth. And then made he boot heavy and hot. And then that the weep holes in the side so the water wouldw